Welcome to part 2 in this series about artistic swimming and rugby. Hopefully, last week encouraged everyone to learn more about both of these sports and any associated biases. Now it is time to look at these two sports through the lens of stigma. While these two sports may seem vastly different, how they are impacted by stigma brings them closer together as they are often misunderstood by the general public. These misconceptions include the nature of their athleticism, the intense physical impacts, and the gender-based stereotypes. Let’s begin our exploration on the impacts of stigma on these two sports.

How often do we even think about comparing rugby and artistic swimming? Probably not too often, however, there is an important reason to explore these two sports and next week we will dive more deeply into this topic.