Female football players in England: examining the emergence of third-space narratives

This paper will examine the ways in which female football players negotiate and contest gender conventions practised in English football. I look at female participation through the application of Bhabha's 'third-space' thesis, and argue that Bhabha's work has utility in the context of this case study for understanding complexities and nuances ordinarily ignored by gendered discourse performed in English football culture. I utilize semi-structured interviewees with women who have or are still currently playing football across an age range of 17-45. I draw on a feminist 'standpoint' in order to attain critical narratives. Critiques arise in two key areas. Firstly, the impact of changes in governance under the Football Association. Secondly, the agency of players themselves to actively contest gender conventions, whether through playing football despite the negative connotations attached to female physicality, or through the provision of mixed football. © 2014 © 2014 Taylor & Francis

Female football players: encountering physical capital in mixed-sex football

In this paper, I examine the contribution that mixed-sex football can make to the development of female football players. Girls’ choices about participating in physical exercise may be influenced by a number of factors, but I want to address specifically the traditionally ‘masculine’ sport of football to consider the extent to which binary gender is a limited construct. Using a method of narrative interviews for data collection, I draw on the experiences of eight women ranged from aged 23 to 58. There was an emergent tension between the objective construction of gender both materially and symbolically and the subjective experiences of participants. This was evident in underlying anxieties apparent in fieldwork, in terms of the physical learning environment and acquisition of football capital, but mixed-sex football showed to be a positive environment for developing female football players

Auditory and visual sensory modalities in the velodrome and the practice of becoming a track cyclist

The aim of this paper is to explore track cycling through visual and aural sensory modalities. We draw on Pink’s work on emplacement and of the researcher serving an apprenticeship by engaging through first-hand experience and learning track practices and routines in which we reflected on our visual and aural senses to account for understanding the body and the transformations it undergoes when riding track. This speaks to Hockey and Allen-Collinson’s call for a ‘fleshy perspective’ by reintroducing the body into sporting practice. Undertaking an auto-ethnographic method, we use diarised notes drawn from six track cycling sessions to account for sensory experiences by reflecting on aural and visual senses in the context of the skills we acquired during track sessions. In this, the emergent narrative situates the body as a place of contestation and transition, whereby our visual and aural modalities are the senses by which we narrate our improving aptitude, and attained physical capital, on the track

Women's Football, Culture, and Identity

This book examines the experiences of amateur players in women’s football, challenging conventional discourses that centre male, masculine, and heterosexual identities and offering a new narrative that re-positions women’s voices. Based on original empirical research, including extended interviews with female players, the book outlines current debates in women’s football around gender, identity, and intersectionality. It explores football as a space of contestation, examining the creative ways in which women have negotiated opportunities to play football and the friendships and sociality that emerge from playing the game. The book examines resistance to historically bound cultural norms that privileges men’s participation, reflecting on mixed-sex football, femininity, embodiment, physical capital, and authenticity, and considers how this deeper understanding of football cultures might help in the future development of the women’s game. This is fascinating reading for anybody with an interest in football, women’s sport, the sociology of sport, or gender studies

A NARRATIVE STUDY OF FEMALE FOOTBALL PLAYERS IN ENGLAND: COMPLICITY, NEGOTIATION AND TRANSFORMATION IN THE THIRD-SPACE

The general aim of the thesis is to contribute a better understanding of women’s football. Literature that looks at women’s football falls into the broad areas of governance (Lopez, 1997; Williams and Woodhouse, 1991; Williams, 1994a) and sexualities and sexual identity (Caudwell, 2004, 1999; Cahn, 1994, 1993; Cox and Thompson, 2001; Pfister et al, 1999; Scraton and Flintoff, 2002). Women’s football in historical, and to a lesser extent in contemporary terms, is marginalised by a tradition which sustains the notion that playing football is unfeminine. In this context, the problem for this research is how to account for women’s experiences in football and then to obtain empirical evidence that will foreground their narratives. The ‘third-space’ (Bhabha, 1994a:54) is utilised as a theoretical framework to give voice to non-traditional voices that can contest hegemonic masculinities. The elements of third-space found in mimicry, disavowal and hybridity correspond to the thematic sections of the thesis related to the research questions; complicity, negotiation and transformation, with the aim of testing the utility of these conceptual devices to instigate critical debate on gender in football. The synthesis of theoretical and epistemological frames initiate a narrative for understanding how margins and exclusion illustrate the variety of ways in which women have forged spaces to play football. Using empirical data gathered from 17 in-depth open interviews with amateur female football players, ages ranging from 18 – 60, emergent themes organised around complicity, negotiation and transformation, focus on topics of governance, friendship networks, identities and mixed-football. These experiential narratives foreground the complex and varied nature of the sample and, importantly, illustrate how the subjective voice contributes to disrupting the grander narrative that maintains gender inequality in football

Kicking against tradition: women’s football, negotiating friendships and social spaces

This article examines friendships and social networks in the context of amateur women’s football. Studies of intimacies and friendships tend to situate women’s same-sex friendships around emotional support. The aim of this research seeks to account for more depth in understanding diversity in female friendships. The traditionally masculine (football) environment is peculiarly distinctive because it contrasts with traditional spaces found in private, domestic context that have traditionally associated with the formation and negotiation of ‘feminine’ friendship identities. Utilising 10 narrative interviews, the paper examines social and friendship networks in two main areas. Firstly, although non-traditional social groupings were evident, it was apparent that some participants had to negotiate a dual private/public role. Secondly, there were friendships based on sociability and these were integral to the connectedness of groups not defined by conventionally gendered roles, defined by emotional ties, but instead on collective interest focused around playing sport. These groupings are of interest because they are contrary to conventionality that frame emotional femininity, and foreground social activities that accentuate cultural complexities rather than confine friendship groups in terms of either masculine or feminine cultural practices. Drawing on the grounded experiences of female football players, we found that female friendships are much more layered and complex than represented in broader cultural discourse