2 research outputs found
Re-establishing the âoutsidersâ: English press coverage of the 2015 FIFA Womenâs World Cup
In 2015, the England Womenâs national football team finished third at the Womenâs World Cup in Canada. Alongside the establishment of the Womenâs Super League in 2011, the success of the womenâs team posed a striking contrast to the recent failures of the England menâs team and in doing so presented a timely opportunity to examine the negotiation of hegemonic discourses on gender, sport and football. Drawing upon an âestablished-outsiderâ approach, this article examines how, in newspaper coverage of the England womenâs team, gendered constructions revealed processes of alteration, assimilation and resistance. Rather than suggesting that âestablishedâ discourses assume a normative connection between masculinity and football, the findings reveal how gendered âboundariesâ were both challenged and protected in newspaper coverage. Despite their success, the discursive positioning of the womenâs team as âoutsidersâ, served to (re)establish menâs football as superior, culturally salient and âbetterâ than the womenâs team/game. Accordingly, we contend that attempts to build and, in many instances, rediscover the history of womenâs football, can be used to challenge established cultural representations that draw exclusively from the history of the menâs game. In such instances, the 2015 Womenâs World Cup provides a historical moment from which the womenâs game can be relocated in a context of popular culture