16 research outputs found
Standards and separatism: the discursive construction of gender in English soccer coach education
Affirmative action is a problematic, but common,
organizational approach to redressing gender discrimination
as it fails to address discourses underlying organizational
definitions and practices in highly masculinized sites like
English football. Unstructured interviews with 27 key
personnel and participants in coach education in the north
of England within a regional âdivisionâ of the organization
regulating English football (âThe FAâ) were conducted to
explore the gendered construction and enactment of football
and coaching, and the framing of women-only (separatist)
coaching courses. Critical discourse analysis identified the
deployment of discourses concerning the undermining of
standards and the privileging of women as strategies used
to neutralize the significance of gender and previous gender
discrimination, while re/producing the centrality of masculinity for key definitions and identities
âMore than just a gameâ: family and spectacle in marketing the England Womenâs Super League
The Womenâs Super League (WSL) is the first semi-professional womenâs
football league in England and the Football Association (FA) is central to
reproducing its values and practices. This study employed observation at
WSL matches and interviews with personnel involved in the League to
identify how the FA conceptualised the WSL as a product in its first 3
years. The study found that the elite club gameâs existing audience was
alienated by the FAâs articulation of a heteronormative family target audience
of young girls and their fathers. An overriding concern also appeared
to be providing a commercialised matchday experience that goes beyond
the game itself, situating the match at the periphery of broader entertainment.
We argue that in positioning the WSL as a niche and new entertainment
product, thereby eradicating the pre-WSL history of the elite club
game, the FA has constructed womenâs football as inherently distinct from,
and inferior to, menâs football, negating any perceived threat to the wider
gender order within the sport
âGet back to the kitchen, cos u talk s*** on tvâ: gendered online abuse and trigger events in sport
Research question: Online abuse is prevalent in sport and can be the by-product of trigger eventsâreactive social media posts that motivate online hate. Little is known about what triggers online abuse, types of content, and how this impacts certain groups. The current research examined how online behaviour emerges, and evolves during a trigger event, through a gendered lens. Research methods: This research employed a two phase, mixed methods approach of a digital netnography with participation observation through social network analysis and thematic content analysis of 1332 (N = 1332) tweets in the United Kingdom. The trigger event examined abusive content toward Karen Carney following post-match football commentary on 29 December 2020. Results and findings: Results identified 590 individuals who formed two distinct groups. Directed network visualisation indicated Carney was the focus of the trigger event. Thematic time series analysis revealed emotional maltreatment (i.e. ridiculing, humiliating, belittling) progressing to overt gendered discriminatory maltreatment. Implications: Findings support the need for safeguarding policies for target groups, as trigger events escalate quickly, and group affiliations impact abusive content. From a theoretical standpoint, in-group and out-group affiliations resulted in rhetoric highlighting persistent, gendered socio-normative issues within sport, amplified in an online environment
âI don't think I can catch itâ: women, confidence and responsibility in football coach education
Whilst womenâs participation in sport continues to increase, their presence remains ideologically challenging given the significance of sport for the construction of gendered identities. As a hegmonically masculine institution, leadership roles across sport remain male-dominated and the entry of women into positions of authority (such as coaching) routinely contested. But in powerful male-typed sports, like football, womenâs participation remains particularly challenging. Consequently, constructions of gender inequity in coaching were explored at a regional division of the English Football Association through unstructured interviews and coaching course observation. Using critical discourse
analysis we identified the consistent re/production of women as unconfident in their own skills and abilities, and the framing of women themselves as responsible for the gendered inequities in football coaching. Women were thereby
strategically positioned as deservedly on the periphery of the football category,whilst the organization was positioned as progressive and liberal
Big brotherâs little sister: the ideological construction of womenâs super league
This article explores the structure and culture of the Football Association
(FA) in relation to the development of Englandâs first semiprofessional
female soccer leagueâWomenâs Super League (WSL). Through observations
and interviews, we examined the planning and operationalization
of WSL. Drawing on critical feminist literature and theories of
organizational change, we demonstrate the FAâs shift from tolerance of
the womenâs game, through opposition, to defining and controlling
elite female club football as a new product shaped by traditional conceptualizations
of gender. The labyrinthine structures of the FA abetted
the exclusion of pre-WSL stakeholders, allowing the FA to fashion a
League imagined as both qualitatively different to elite menâs football
in terms of style of play, appealing to a different fan base, yet inextricably
bound to menâs clubs for support. It concludes by providing recommendations
for how organizational change might offer correctives to the
FA approach to developing WSL
Responsibility and progress: The English Football Associationâs professionalisation of the womenâs game(1st)
Responsibility and progress: The English Football Association's professionalisation of the women's game (First)
Launched in 2011, the Women's Super League (WSL) has raised the media profile of women's football in England, benefitted from greater sponsorship investment and signalled, for the first time, a more co-ordinated effort by the Football Association (FA) to develop the game from grassroots to international level. However, whilst the FA's insistence that the WSL's future is best secured by clubs aligning themselves with male âparentâ clubs has led to more buy-in from English Premier League (EPL) clubs, some historically established women's clubs have been excluded from the highest echelons of the sport or even folded. Clubs' heavy reliance of volunteerism has been retained and salaries, even for internationally capped players, remain modest. There have been criticisms of player welfare (Taylor, 2018b), inadequate support for players' facing racist and sexist abuse (Gornall & Magowan, 2019), poor support for competition structuring (Wrack, 2018a) and a marketing strategy that is centred on heteronormative notions of family (Fielding-Lloyd, Woodhouse, & Sequerra, 2018). Popular discourses have heralded the professionalisation of women's football as evidence of significant progress in gender equality in the sport and as signposting an unequivocally positive future for the game. This chapter will critically assess the FA's conceptualisations of WSL as a neo-liberal project that has not consistently worked in the best interests of all players, clubs and fans and examine the FA's commitment to, and responsibility for, the development of the female game at elite club level
The limited development of English womenâs recreational cricket: a critique of the liberal âabsorptionâ approach to gender equality
In 1998, the Womenâs Cricket Association merged with the England and Wales Cricket Board, a move influenced by financial difficulties but also informed by a liberal, equal opportunities approach to gender equality. This article examines the early impact of this merger on the development of womenâs recreational cricket in England. It draws upon data collected from six semi-structured interviews with key personnel involved in womenâs cricket at two County Cricket Boards. Findings suggest that since the merger the development of the womenâs game has been limited because it has been left to âcompeteâ for resources with the existing well-established and male-dominated clubs. Access to facilities, club infrastructure, workforce and decision-making positions remain protected by male participants and clubs. Adopting a critical feminist position, we argue that this liberal âabsorptionâ approach to gender equality has done little to challenge the structural arrangements of recreational cricket that continue to protect and prioritise male interests
Football, gender and sexism: The ugly side of the world's most beautiful game.
The last 10-15 years have seen substantive claims of an apparent shift in the institutional support for womenâs football by the sportâs governing bodies, a shift that is being somewhat echoed in more recent commitments from some major television broadcasters of the sport. However, while the womenâs game has seen increasing audiences and more media attention, research suggests that a deeply embedded antipathy to it continues to permeate throughout the sport. In this chapter, we discuss some of the major factors and practices that serve to maintain the traditional gendered order of football (aka soccer), how these connect to football as a powerful and global ideological site, and the extent to which a shift in gendered representation was evident in the British television coverage of the 2017 Womenâs Euros