‘I’d like to think I’m a good referee’: discourses of ability and the subjectivity of the female soccer referee in Ontario (Canada)

ABSTRACT

Female officials are side-lined within the soccer community through gendered relations of power, even in Canada, where women remain outnumbered as referees and in other leadership positions despite remarkable growth in the women’s game since the 1980s and its heightened respect and standing. Drawing upon Foucault’s concepts of discourse and subject, we explored the experience of female referees who had persevered in their role for 2 years or more within the male-dominated ranks of referees and had been subjected to, and the subject of, discourses of ability that constructed their (perceived lack of) skill and competence as unbiased arbitrators on the soccer field. In making sense of their referee subjectivity, they constructed stories of ability according to (1) first experiences, (2) skill recognition and validation, (3) being ‘a good referee’, and (4) proving oneself, while simultaneously engaging with discourses of gender, albeit sparingly and not always purposefully.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. Foucault, ‘Discipline and Punish’, ‘The Subject and Power’; Mills, ‘Michel Foucault’; and Weedon, ‘Feminist Practice’.

2. Caudwell, ‘Gender, Feminism and Football Studies’; Fielding-Loyd and Meân, ‘Standards and Separatism’; Forbes, Edwards and Fleming, ‘Women can’t referee’; and Jones and Edwards, ‘The Woman in Black’.

3. Woodward, ‘Embodied Sporting Practices’.

4. Krane, ‘We Can Be Athletic’.

5. Pfister, ‘On Women and Football’.

6. Forbes and Livingston, ‘Changing the Call’.

7. Forbes, Edwards and Fleming, ‘Women can’t referee’.

8. CSA, ‘2016 Annual Report’.

9. Hall, ‘The Game of Choice’.

10. Hall, ‘The Game of Choice’; Harris, ‘Playing the Man’s Game’; Kristiansen, Broch and Perderson, ‘Negotiating Gender’; and Meân, ‘Identity and Discursive Practice’.

11. Fielding‐Lloyd and Meân, ‘Women, Confidence and Responsibility’; and Schlesinger and Weigelt-Schlesinger, ‘Poor Thing’.

12. LaVoi, ‘Occupational Sex Segregation’; and Welford, ‘Tokenism, Ties’.

13. Jones, ‘Female Fandom’.

14. Grundlingh, ‘Boobs and Balls’.

15. Cox and Thompson, ‘Multiple Bodies’; Meân and Kassing, ‘Managing Hegemony, Femininity’; and Mennesson, ‘Gender Regimes and Habitus’, ‘Homosociability and Homosexuality’.

16. Caudwell, ‘Gender, Feminism and Football Studies’; Ratna, ‘British-Asian Females’; and Scraton, Caudwell and Holland, ‘Bend it Like Patel’.

17. Caudwell, ‘Gender, Feminism and Football Studies’.

18. Forbes and Livingston, ‘Changing the Call’; and Welford, ‘Tokenism, Ties’.

19. Harris, ‘Playing the Man’s Game’; Knoppers and Anthonissen, ‘Women’s soccer’; Meân, ‘Identity and Discursive Practice’, ‘Making Masculinity’; and Meân and Kassing, ‘Managing Hegemony, Femininity’.

20. Knoppers and Anthonissen, ‘Women’s soccer’.

21. Forbes, Edwards and Fleming, ‘Women can’t referee’; Hacicaferoglu and Gundogdu, ‘Exposure Level of Intimidation’; and Jones and Edwards, ‘The Woman in Black’.

22. See note 17.

23. Jones and Edwards, ‘The Woman in Black’; and Forbes, Edwards and Fleming, ‘Women can’t referee’.

24. Forbes, Edwards and Fleming, ‘Women can’t referee’.

25. Knoppers and Anthonissen, ‘Women’s soccer’; Meân and Kassing, ‘Managing Hegemony, Femininity’; and Bairner, ‘Sport, Nationalism and Globalization’.

26. Caudwell, ‘Gender, Feminism and Football Studies’; Harris, ‘Playing the Man’s Game’; Mennesson, ‘Gender Regimes and Habitus’, ‘Homosociability and Homosexuality’; and Knoppers and Anthonissen, ‘Women’s soccer’; Pfister, ‘On Women and Football’.

27. Canadian Heritage, ‘Sport Participation 2010’.

28. Allain, ‘Kid Crosby or Golden Boy’; Holman, ‘Canada’s Game’; and Gruneau and Whitson, ‘Hockey Night in Canada’.

29. Canadian Soccer Association (CSA), ‘Canada Soccer Records’.

30. Hall, Slack, Smith and Whitson, ‘Sport in Canadian Society’.

31. Holman, ‘Canada’s Game’; and Gruneau and Whitson, ‘Hockey Night in Canada’.

32. See note 8.

33. See note 27.

34. See note 8.

35. CSA, ‘2016 Annual Report’.

36. FIFA, ‘Women’s World Ranking’.

37. CSA, ‘2012 Annual Report’, ‘2016 Annual Report’.

38. CSA, ‘FIFA Women’s World Cup’.

39. Hockey Canada, ‘National Women’s Team’.

40. See note 20.

41. Robertson, ‘Canada, U.S. are Powerhouses’.

42. See note 20.

43. Caudwell, ‘Gender, Feminism and Football Studies; Caudwell, ‘Sporting Gender’; Meân, ‘Identity and Discursive Practice’; and Welford and Kay, ‘Negotiating Barriers’.

44. Hall, ‘The Game of Choice’; and CSA, ‘2015 Annual Report’.

45. CSA, ‘2012 Annual Report’, ‘2013 Annual Report’, ‘2015 Annual Report’, ‘2016 Annual Report’.

46. CSA, ‘Year in Review’.

47. FIFA, ‘FIFA Women’s Football Survey’.

48. CSA, ‘2012 Annual Report’, ‘2013 Annual Report’; and ‘2016 Annual Report’.

49. See note 27.

50. Ontario Soccer Association (OSA), ‘Annual report – 2013’.

51. See note 8.

52. Hartmann-Tews, ‘On Ageing, Somatic Culture and Gender’.

53. Lauzen and Dozier, ‘Maintaining the Double Standard’;and Lauzen and Dozier, ‘Portrayals of Age and Gender’.

54. Foucault, ‘The Subject and Power’.

55. Foucault, ‘Discipline and Punish’.

56. Meân and Kassing, ‘Managing Hegemony, Femininity’.

57. Jørgensen and Phillips, ‘Discourse analysis as theory’.

58. Baxter, ‘Positioning Gender in Discourse’; and Foucault, ‘The Subject and Power’; and Mills, ‘Michel Foucault’.

59. Shogan, ‘The Making of High Performance Athletes’.

60. See note 55.

61. Weedon, ‘Feminist Practice’.

62. Foucaut, ‘Discipline and Punish’; Weedon, ‘Feminist Practice’.

63. Foucault, ‘The Subject and Power’, ‘Technologies of the Self’.

64. Weedon, ‘Subjectivity and Identity’.

65. See note 61.

66. Brady and Schirato, ‘Subjectivity, Identity and Desire’; and Burke and Hallinan, ‘Foucault, Feminism, and Disciplining Women’s’.

67. See note 62.

68. See note 52.

69. OSA, ‘Entry Level Clinic Brochure’.

70. Mills, ‘Michel Foucault’.

71. Brady and Schirato, ‘Subjectivity, Identity and Desire’.

72. See note 62.

73. Canadian Heritage, ‘Sport Participation 2010’; and Hall, ‘The Game of Choice’.

74. Fielding-Loyd and Meân, ‘Standards and Separatism’; and Forbes, Edwards and Fleming, ‘Women can’t referee’.

75. Norman, ‘The Challenges Facing Women’.

76. Forbes and Livingston, ‘Changing the Call’; and Kellet and Warner, ‘Creating Communities’.

77. Baxter, ‘Positioning Gender in Discourse’.

78. Allen, ‘The politics of ourselves’.

79. Ibid., 208.

80. See note 62.

81. See note 69.

82. Forbes, Edwards and Fleming, ‘Women can’t referee’.

83. See note 76.

84. Foucault, ‘Technologies of the Self’.

85. See note 82.

86. See note 23.

87. See note 80.

88. See note 76.

89. Kavoura, Ryba and Chroni, ‘Negotiating Female Judoka Identities’; and Krane, ‘We Can Be Athletic’.

90. Forbes, Edwards and Fleming, ‘Women can’t referee’; and Meân, ‘Identity and Discursive Practice’.

91. Krane, ‘We Can Be Athletic’.

92. Burke & Hallinan, ‘Foucault, Feminism, and Disciplining Women’s’.

93. Kavoura, Ryba and Chroni, ‘Negotiating Female Judoka Identities’.

94. See note 80.

95. Read and Dallaire, ‘Because There Are So Few of Us’.