typically done by men, women who play sports are considered more masculine than feminine. But the connotation of say, rugby, is huge, like not a lot of people know the rules or like, technical standpoint of rugby, but, pardon my language, if you play rugby, you are like, a dyke, you know, you are not considered like, even human, sometimes. -Kim, White-Canadian, 21 years old Ashley Mckay, Shannon Moore & Wendee Kubik 5 This narrative demonstrates the ways in which female athletes are dehumanized when they enter a masculine domain in which gender differences are not evident through the use of makeup, clothes or other forms of “gendering the body.” 6.2. Education, Careers and Beauty Practices Kim discussed beauty norms as a key factor in determining whether she will be successful. Kim talked about messages that women receive which indicate they can be pretty or smart, but not both. Kim discusses this struggle in her field of study in university: I feel like, in my field especially, you can either be pretty or smart but not both. And, no one will take you seriously if you are not smart, but if you are not pretty, they don‟t take you seriously either way. You need to be pretty to be noticed, but not too pretty, because then, you‟ll be considered stupid. -Kim, White-Canadian, 21 years old In Kim‟s experience, Western beauty norms hinder women‟s ability to succeed in academia and in the workforce. Women have to walk a fine line between being “attractive” enough to get opportunities, but not too “attractive” that they get associated with a lack of intelligence. Sam discussed the incompatibility of succeeding in university while also taking time to diet and exercise to conform to the thin Western beauty standard. Sam said: Even for me, I‟ve gained a healthy amount of weight back, but even for me, I need to get to the gym, right? I wouldn‟t say I‟m happy with my body, but I know that I can‟t, I know based on my work schedule I have now in university, if I were to starve myself, I wouldn‟t get anywhere, because I can‟t focus on studying when my stomach is growling. You can‟t starve yourself and think, you can‟t be in the gym for three hours a day, and then writing an essay, which takes a long time. They don‟t match up. -Sam, White-Canadian, 18 years old Women who spend copious amounts of their time, energy and money to meet Western standards of beauty often struggle to achieve success in school and in the workforce. 6.3. The Influence of Family, Friends, Relationships and Peers Ellie, Nora and Sam discussed the impact family, friends, relationships and peers have on their body image perceptions. For example, as a mixed-race woman, Ellie describes the difficulty in negotiating conflicting ideas of beauty between her father‟s and mother‟s culture. Ellie states: It was sort of, like, sometimes I struggled with which side I identified with more, and where I consider myself, and the other thing is that since my dad is British and my mom is black, my physical build is different from a lot of peoples, because I have that mix in, so I would say that it is a bit difficult because, and they both come from different perspectives too, that they both think different things. It‟s kind of, it was more of a fitting in type thing, because when I go around my dad‟s family, I don‟t look like them, but when I go to my mom‟s family, I don‟t look a lot like them either, because I am mixed, so it was kind of a fitting issue, I would say. My mom‟s side is very accepting of everybody, they don‟t care about money, weight, physical appearance, they don‟t care about any of that. And my dad, specifically him, not so much the side of his family, but my dad specifically can be very looks critical, and not as accepting. So it kind of, like, he tends, he puts a lot of value on things like weight, as opposed to my mom‟s side who don‟t care. -Ellie, Mixed-race, Canadian, 19 years old Ellie‟s family heritage impacts her experience with Western beauty pressures. Since Ellie has to negotiate between two cultures with different beauty “ideals,” she does not feel as though she “fits in” anywhere. She struggles to find an identity since she receives conflicting messages about what is beautiful. People outside of Ellie‟s family reinforce this cultural conflict. Ellie said: Because stereotypically, black women are very dark, and a different body type and everything, people would tend to drag along the fact that they didn‟t believe me, or they would say that I am too white, as in, they would be like, you are not dark enough to be black, and that, which is not true. Yeah, they wouldn‟t let it go, they would say, you are only like a sixteenth, because you aren‟t that dark, and all that stuff, so it was kind of, I kind of got over it because it happened frequently. -Ellie, Mixed-race, Canadian, 19 years old 6 International Journal of Gender and Women‟s