Prior to Episode 13, there was a constant and clear connection between sports and men/masculinity. Any references to women regarding sports were avoided at all costs and the two existed in completely separate spheres, which is not entirely surprising.

However, in Episode 13, as Joyce depicts Gerty’s distant interest in Bloom, these two seemingly polar opposites converge when Gerty tries to internally convince herself of her feminine allure that Bloom will most certainly fall in love with. As she reminds herself, “She was a womanly woman not like other flighty girls unfeminine he had known, those cyclists showing off what they hadn’t got” (435). While we have had discussions about the role of masculinity for Bloom and the men in Ulysses, but this is one of the first glimpses of it functioning in reverse. What does this both say about the world of sport and its connection with Irish personhood/manhood, but also how can we interpret this comment in the context of masculinity?