I Am Not a Cow: Challenging Narratives of Empowerment in Teen Girls Sports Fiction

This research examines two popular teen girls sports fiction series, called “Pretty Tough” and “Dairy Queen.” The books are heavily premised on the idea of empowerment, and are written in ways that invite the reader to see each protagonist’s choices as agentic and even subversive. Our analysis points to the ways the discourse of empowerment obscures how girls are invited to adopt ideology toward sports that undermines their ability to experience sports on their own terms.