An old, anonymous leather suitcase found in a museum storage area in Halden put three eager museum employees on the trail of the life of "The Fencing Lady".

When it comes to snowboarding, women are in the minority of top athletes, coaches, referees and in the boardroom. New research reveals how invisible structures help maintain an unequal gender balance in the sport.

Swedish ice hockey players seemed more prone to macho behavior on Instagram than their Norwegian counterparts. This may be because ice hockey is a national sport in Sweden, which means more professionalisation and commercialisation, according to researchers.

Female athletes with a high testosterone level are required to take hormone-reducing medication in order to participate in the women’s category. This is problematic, according to researcher Mari Haugaa Engh.

Norms and legislation strictly limit women's lives in Saudi Arabia and Qatar. Nevertheless, women find ways to realise themselves – like by playing football.

Lisa M. B. Sølvberg has interviewed ten Norwegian upper class men about body, nutrition and physical activity. According to her, leaders’ views on physical exercise may affect whom they choose to employ.

Cecilia Brækhus is just one of several Norwegian female athletes who has contributed to putting women’s boxing on the map, both in Norway and internationally, according to researcher Anne Tjønndal.

When the men’s national team loses a match they are called “sissies”, and women who are good at football “play like men”. Both men and women are the losers when gender stereotypes are used in sports journalism, according to Professor Gerd von der Lippe.

According to doctors during the interwar period, wide hips made women unsuitable for running long distances. In her recent doctoral thesis, Kerstin Bornholdt looks at how researchers reached conclusions like this.

A dedicated football player, a disciplined martial arts practitioner or a respected weightlifter? According to a recent Norwegian study, young girls are most concerned with their appearance as they become teenagers, but boys must do something to become young men. Their choice of activity is also a choice of masculine identity. 

According to Norwegian fitness bloggers, the ideal female body is supposed to be slim, muscular, feminine and strong. However, the eating and workout regimes they promote are so strict, that even the bloggers themselves almost fail to follow them.

The female body is not suited for real football, according to debaters in the online debate forum of Norway's biggest tabloid newspaper. Why is football the only sport in which women’s performance is constantly compared to men’s?

Anti-gay remarks come up in elite sports at regular intervals. Kjetil Rekdal, the manager of elite division football team Vålerenga, has said, among other things: “I am homophobic”. Why are male dominated sports environments often homophobic? Heidi Eng and Ulla-Britt Lilleaas have, in their respective research projects, attempted to find some answers.