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Focusing on girls who compete in downhill longboarding, this thesis examines how women are pushed to display typically "male" characteristics in order to succeed. With contemporary western society viewing attributes such as speed, being competitive, overcoming fear and coping with pain as typically masculine traits, the main research goal of this inquiry is to find out how female riders cope with maintaining their femininity in the masculinized world of downhill longboarding. The main focus is on observing how female riders cope with being a good rider and being feminine at the same time, primarily through the way this double-faced pressure is projected in the bodies of female downhill longboarders.The theoretical part of this thesis is mainly focused on a sport as a gendered/masculinized field and the ideal form of the body constructed by the sociocultural pressure and instructions which are associated with it. The analytical part of this thesis is focused on the experiences of Czech female downhillers and the way in which they negotiate their femininity/masculinity, perceived or otherwise, and how the gender order is projected onto their bodies. This thesis aims to reveal the ambivalences caused by the pressure to women to maintain the hegemonic femininity and be masculinized competitive sport...

In this thesis I argue that science fiction is not a genre exclusively made up of written texts but a community or series of communities. I examine the science fiction community's engagement with questions of femeninity, masculinity, sex and sexuality over the past seventy years, that is from 1926 until 1996. My examination of this engagement is centred on the battle of the sexes, the lives of James Tiptree, Jr. and the Award named in Tiptree's honour. I make connections between contemporary feminist science fiction and the earliest pulp science fiction engagements with sex and sexuality.

In this thesis I argue that science fiction is not a genre exclusively made up of written texts but a community or series of communities. I examine the science fiction community's engagement with questions of femeninity, masculinity, sex and sexuality over the past seventy years, that is from 1926 until 1996. My examination of this engagement is centred on the battle of the sexes, the lives of James Tiptree, Jr. and the Award named in Tiptree's honour. I make connections between contemporary feminist science fiction and the earliest pulp science fiction engagements with sex and sexuality.

The thesis deals with gender issues. It is divided into two parts, theoretical ? based on literature review and practical ? based on research. The theoretical part deals with the concept of gender as a social construct. It is focused on manifestation of gender stereotypes in various aspects of girl?s and woman?s life. The first chapter defines the most important terms (gender, sex, socialization, identity) and is followed by a chapter dealing with gender stereotypes related to female and male social constructs (of femininity and masculinity). The next part describes manifestation of gender roles, (differences and behaviour) in family. The following chapter shows the picture of woman which is presented in the media (magazines for women, advertisement, publications for children). The last chapter describes manifestation of gender roles in school environment. The practical part presents results of the quantitative and qualitative research. The quantitative research is based on questionnaire investigation. The qualitative research was conducted through controlled interviews. Both types of research were focused on gender problems ? whether the girls participating in the research realize the effects of gender roles and how they perceive them. The result of this research is that girls are aware of pressure based on gender differences. They realize the conflict between their wishes and reality, but they fully respect the traditional gender division of the worl into the male and female world and they lead their lives in accordance with the traditional gender stereotypes.