Tokenism, ties and talking too quietly: women's experiences in non‐playing football roles

Abstract

This article discusses findings from a wider study examining the experiences of women in football in the UK. Official figures have demonstrated that the number of females playing football has risen significantly in the last 20 years; to support this growth, large numbers of women are now involved ‘behind the scenes’ in a variety of different roles, particularly at the grassroots. This study examines how women understand and perceive their position in support roles, which are usually male‐dominated. Adapting Walsh's proposed model of strategies used by women in traditionally male‐dominated organizations, ¹ the discussion is framed by the four ‘techniques’ utilized by the women to understand and manage their roles in football: (1) accommodating masculine norms, (2) constructing women's work as inferior, (3) emphasizing female superiority and (4) creating female‐dominated spaces. The implications of these findings for both women's current position in football and the wider gendered structures of the sport are then discussed.

Notes

1. Walsh, Gender and Discourse.

2. Cochrane, ‘On the Ball’; Randhawa, ‘Netball Gets the Boot’.

3. The FA, Women's and Girls' Facts Book.

4. Williams, A Game for Rough Girls? ‘Grassroots’ is a term used to describe the amateur ‘mass participation’ level of sport.

5. Williamson, Belles of the Ball, 72.

6. Caudwell, ‘Women's Football in the United Kingdom’, ‘Out on the Field of Play’; Cox and Thompson, ‘Multiple Bodies’; Scraton et al., ‘It's Still a Man's Game?’; Williams, A Game for Rough Girls?

7. See Weedon, Feminism, Theory and the Politics of Difference, chapter 1, for an in‐depth discussion of liberal and radical feminist approaches to difference, and the implications of these approaches for women in society.

8. See Hall, ‘How Should We Theorise Gender in Sport?’, for a detailed discussion of liberal and radical approaches to the integration of women into existing sporting structures.

9. Williams and Woodhouse, ‘Can Play, Will Play?’; Williams, A Game for Rough Girls?

10. During the First World War, women played football in front of thousands of people to raise money for war charities. At the peak of its popularity, 53,000 people watched Dick, Kerr Ladies, unarguably the most successful women's team in the history of the sport (see Williamson, Belles of the Ball), beat St Helens on Boxing Day 1920. However in the years shortly following the end of the First World War, ‘normalization’ returned to male football leagues and by 1921, the charitable nature of women's football had begun to lose its legitimacy, leading to press calls for a return to normality in the gender order. On December 5, 1921, the FA passed a unanimous resolution, stating: ‘Complaints having been made as to football being played by women, the council feel impelled to express their strong opinion that the game of football is quite unsuitable for women and ought not to be encouraged … the council requests clubs belonging to the association to refuse the use of their grounds for such matches’. Cited in Lopez, Women On The Ball, 6.

11. Fielding‐Lloyd and Meân, ‘Standards and Separatism’.

12. Williams, A Game for Rough Girls?, 13.

13. Acker, ‘Hierarchies, Jobs, Bodies’.

14. Cunningham and Sagas, ‘Gender and Sex Diversity in Sport Organisations’.

15. Shaw and Hoeber, ‘A Strong Man is Direct and a Direct Woman is a Bitch’; Claringbould and Knoppers, ‘Doing and Undoing Gender in Sport Governance’.

16. Talbot, ‘Playing With Patriarchy’.

17. Proposed by Connell, Gender and Power.

18. Demonstrated in New Zealand men's rugby by Thompson, ‘Challenging the Hegemony’, and Little League Baseball in the USA by Chaftez and Kotorba, ‘Little League Mothers and the Reproduction of Gender’.

19. Walsh, in Gender and Discourse, adapts the social learning concept ‘community of practice’ from Eckert and McConnell‐Ginet (1999) to represent the norms and practices inherent to the groups in her study, in this case the church and political parties.

20. Talbot, ‘Playing with Patriarchy’.

21. Shaw and Hoeber, ‘A Strong Man is Direct’.

22. McKay, Managing Gender.

23. Shaw and Frisby, ‘Can Gender Equity be More Equitable?’

24. Cox and Thompson, ‘Multiple Bodies’; Scraton et al., ‘It's Still a Man's Game?’

25. See Therberge, ‘Its Part of the Game’ and ‘Challenging the Gendered Space of Sport’ for a discussion of this issue in women's ice hockey.

26. Dworkin and Messner, ‘Just Do, What…?’

27. Walsh, Gender and Discourse.

28. Ibid.

29. For further discussion see Butler, Gender Trouble.

30. Paechter, ‘Using Poststructuralist Ideas in Gender Theory and Research’.

31. Cox and Thompson, ‘Multiple Bodies’.

32. Paechter, ‘Using Poststructuralist Ideas’.

33. Talbot, ‘Playing with Patriarchy’.

34. Claringbould and Knoppers, ‘Doing and Undoing Gender in Sport Governance’.

35. Weedon, Feminist Practice and Poststructuralist Theory.

36. Knoppers and Anthonissen, ‘Meanings Given to Performance in Dutch Sport Organisations’.

37. See, for example, Fasting and Pfister, ‘Female and Male Coaches in the Eyes of Female Elite Soccer Players’; Fielding‐Lloyd and Meân, ‘Standards and Separatism’.

38. Cunningham and Sagas, ‘Gender and Sex Diversity in Sport Organisations’.

39. Welford, What's the Score?.

40. See, for example Meis, ‘Towards a Methodology for Feminist Research’; Reinharz, Feminist Methods in Social Research.

41. Cunningham and Sagas, ‘Gender and Sex Diversity in Sport Organisations’.

42. Knoppers and Anthonissen, ‘Meanings Given to Performance’; Shaw and Frisby, ‘Can Gender Equity be More Equitable?’

43. Carabine, ‘Unmarried Motherhood 1830–1990’.

44. All names are pseudonyms.

45. See for example Thompson, ‘Challenging the Hegemony’, and Chaftez and Kotorba, ‘Little League Mothers’; also Hargreaves, Sporting Females.

46. Walsh, Gender and Discourse.

47. Connell, Gender and Power.

48. See, for example, Fasting and Pfister, ‘Female and Male Coaches’; Hovden, ‘Gender and Leadership Selection Processes in Norweigan Sporting Organisations’.

49. Walsh, Gender and Discourse.

50. Fasting and Pfister, ‘Female and Male Coaches’; Williams, A Game for Rough Girls?

51. As discussed by Claringbould and Knoppers, ‘Doing and Undoing Gender in Sport Governance’.

52. Fielding‐Lloyd and Meân, ‘Standards and Separatism’.

53. McKay, Managing Gender.

54. Walsh, Gender and Dsicourse.

55. Knoppers and Anthonissen, ‘Meanings Given to Performance’.

56. Colgan and Ledwith, ‘Women as Organisational Change Agents’.

57. Connell, Gender and Power.

58. Walsh, Gender and Discourse.

59. Miller and Penz, ‘Talking Bodies’.

60. Mennesson, ‘“Hard” Women and “Soft” Women’.

61. Therberge, ‘Challenging the Gendered Space of Sport’.

62. Caudwell, ‘Women Playing Football at Clubs in England’.

63. Scraton et al., ‘It's Still a Man's Game?’

64. Weedon, Feminist Practice and Poststructuralist Theory.

65. See, for example, Hall, Feminism and Sporting Bodies, for a detailed discussion of the limits of radical feminist approaches to women's position in sport.

66. Dworkin and Messner, ‘Just Do, What…?’

67. See for example Shaw and Slack, ‘It's Been Like That for Donkey's Years’.