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Abstract
Malgré un plan de féminisation impulsé en 2011, le football français peine à dépasser un taux de féminisation de 7,4 %. Pour tenter de comprendre cet écart entre décisions institutionnelles et mise en œuvre, l’auteure a mené 111 entretiens semi-directifs au sein des 99 clubs de football « féminin » ou intégrant une section féminine de la Ligue des Hauts-de-France. Toutefois, et même si elle ne présentait guère les attributs identitaires ou encore les relais favorisant une entrée dans ce « petit monde », elle n’a jamais essuyé de refus de terrain. Si dans un premier temps, ce sont ses caractéristiques personnelles qui l’ont permis d’accéder et de se maintenir dans ces clubs, dans un deuxième temps, elle a constaté que cette « sur-ouverture », masquait, en réalité, un processus d’instrumentalisation du travail de recherche par les enquêté·es.
Despite a plan to increase the number of women footballers launched in 2011, French football is struggling to exceed a feminization rate of 7.4%. To try and understand this gap between institutional decisions and implementation, the author conducted 111 semi-structured interviews with 99 “women’s” football clubs or clubs with a women’s section in the Hauts-de-France League. However, even though she didn’t have many identity attributes or contacts to help her enter this “little world,” she was never turned down. Initially, it was her personal characteristics that enabled her to enter and stay in these clubs, but later she realized that this “over-openness” actually masked a process whereby the research work was instrumentalized by the interviewees.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1. If all sociology must “begin by analyzing itself as it is being done” (Pinçon & Pinçon-Charlot, Citation2005, p. 11), then the use of “I” here represents “undeniable progress, both in terms of writing and from the point of view of […] bringing to light [my] personal position in [my] field,” to paraphrase Jean-Pierre Olivier de Sardan (Citation2000, p. 419).
2. This workshop was set up by a teacher-researcher from our laboratory on 10 November 2016, with the aim of training doctoral students in the SHERPAS Workshop to adopt “a reflexive and critical way of responding to [their] research” (Fassin & Bensa, Citation2008).
3. According to the website https://www.fff.fr/, accessed 15 December 2019 at 10.50 am.
4. In 2017–2018, this League recorded a total of 194,734 members, making it the third-largest league in France.
5. During the same sporting season, the number of ‘senior’ members in the region was 59,795 of whom 3188 were women, giving a feminization rate of 5.33%.
6. By considering women’s football as an “innovation” (Mendras & Forsé, Citation1991, p. 79), we can attribute the role of “notables” to the clubs, their managers, and their supervisors. By acting as intermediaries between the “global” governing bodies and the “local” game, these football clubs and their representatives “provide a kind of passport to innovation” (Mendras & Forsé, Citation1991, p. 35).
7. This is in contrast, for example, to Muriel Darmon (Citation2005), who was refused access to many psychiatric hospitals as part of her dissertation fieldwork.
8. “Baby Basket” is the first age category in the sport in France. It is a fun way for children aged between four and six to discover the sport.
9. A mechanic by trade, my father ran a garage specializing in Renault Alpines. He passed on his passion for motorized vehicles to me, and the Sundays of my childhood were devoted to cross-country biking, Alpine tours, motorbike rides, and microlight flights.
10. However, this field is the second least feminized in France, with only 38.4% of women in research (Observatoire des inégalités, Citation2015).
11. I could mention: in 2006, Zidane’s headbutt during the World Cup in Italy; in 2010, the players’ strike during the World Cup, also known as the Knysna affair; in 2015, FifaGate, suspicions of corruption that shook the International Federation; and so on.
12. As Gaston Bachelard (Citation1934) pointed out: “opinion thinks badly, it does not think, it translates needs into knowledge. The scientific spirit forbids us to have an opinion on questions that we do not understand.” Indeed, imbued with many preconceptions about this sport, I had to learn to break with common sense. To do this, I read numerous scientific articles, conducted semi-structured interviews, and analyzed my initial results. In this way, I succeeded in deconstructing, questioning and analysing women’s football in greater detail.
13. Extract from Everett (Citation1997).
14. My working group included four other students from my year: Raphaël Arnoux, Martin Bondue, Marianne Gaumy, and Nicole Léon Bondest.
15. As part of this study, the DRJSCS funded us to the tune of €5000 between 2015 and 2018.
16. The SHERPAS laboratory (Sociology, Education, Representations, Practices and Sports Activities) is attached to the URePSSS regional research unit (Multidisciplinary Sport and Health Research Unit).
17. I continued this research work as a PhD student for four years (2017–2021). Jean Bréhon joined me as my co-supervisor. The thesis, defended on 24 November 2021, is entitled: “Between the Touchline and the Green Pitch… The Complex Process of Feminization in French Football Based on (Inter)national and Regional Comparisons.”
18. As the anonymity and confidentiality of the interviewees are respected, this is a ‘false’ first name, and some of her characteristics will be withheld.
19. This is a challenge set up by the Flanders District to develop ‘women’s’ futsal in the Lille region and to enable players to continue playing football during the winter break.
20. The Hauts-de-France Football League is made up of eight Districts – Artois, Côte d’Opale, Escaut, Flandre, Maritime Nord, Aisne, Oise, and Somme – whose role is to represent the Federation at departmental level.
21. Of the 88 coaches and chairpersons interviewed for this thesis, 82 have a full-time job outside football. And 57 of them belong to the working classes and 31 to the middle classes.
22. Extract from Douglas (Citation1986[2004]).