Doing Gender on and off the Pitch: The World of Female Football Players

The following paper looks at the experiences of female football (soccer) playersat a College of Higher Education in the South of England. Association Footballoccupies a special place in English society where it has traditionally beenlinked to notions of toughness, manliness and hegemonic masculinity. The lastdecade has witnessed expedient growth in the number of women playing footballand this has led to much debate related to the positioning of the game incontemporary society.Data was collected through an ethnographic approach utilizing observation andsemi-structured interviews. Through their very participation in the game thewomen can be seen to be challenging notions of male hegemony. However theiracceptance of the male game as being more important, and their adopting ofdiscourse and ideologies emanating from the male model of the sport, means thatthey are also colluding in the (re)production of masculine hegemony.For the women in this study, of central importance to the development of a femalefootballing identity are issues surrounding sexual orientation within thefootball world. Women's football in England suffers from an ‘image problem’which can and does lead to tension both on and off the pitch. This paperexplores how these women make sense of their own involvement in the game and howthey negotiate the contested ideological terrains surrounding femininity,masculinity and sexual orientation.