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That little football girl. Swedish club football and gender expectations Herd, Katarzyna Published in: Ethnologia Scandinavica 2018 Document Version: Publisher's PDF, also known as Version of record Link to publication Citation for published version (APA): Herd, K. (2018). That little football girl. Swedish club football and gender expectations. Ethnologia Scandinavica, 48(2018), 123-138. 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LUND UNIVERSITY PO Box 117 221 00 Lund +46 46-222 00 00 That Little Football Girl Swedish Club Football and Gender Expectations By Katarzyna Herd The title of this article comes from a com- ries? How are women evaluated through ment made about me. It was uttered infor- the broader social context? mally, but within a research community Entering football as a female researcher nevertheless. I was referred to as “that is not without problems, although, from little football girl”, and although the com- my experience, it is not very dramatic ei- ment was swiftly trivialized, as in “I did ther. Football is a very creative and flex- not mean anything negative”, it left me ible environment, and it reflects broader pondering on how my gender reflected on social contexts with all its issues and de- the seriousness of my research. The aim of velopments. Thus, a local football club is this article is to explore from an intersec- firmly situated in its local reality, and also tional perspective how the researcher’s constructed and performed by individuals social markings influence the studied field who make football a part of their reality and how gender can be constructed, per- and of their everyday routines. The ability formed and contested in a context of to accommodate different narratives, ele- Swedish club football. The emphasis is on ments, and interpretations of football is ethnographic work done by a female re- also visible in gender constructions. searcher, but it probes gender expecta- Women are not only present physically in tions that become visible when expressed many different activities, but football also in the context of football, a context that presents interesting “grey zones” of gen- traditionally excluded rather than includ- der roles that are performed and interpret- ed females. ed on the spot. This article thus explores The article engages in a discussion of such instances, using examples from my femininity and females in football first, own experience as a multi-layered then focuses on one encounter from match stranger in the “male zone”, as football observations in 2015, which highlights the tends to be described (e.g. Welford 2011). complexity of this field. The material pre- When one talks about football, the im- sented here was acquired while conduct- mediate association is with the men’s ing interviews and observations in four football. It does not need any additional Swedish football clubs, but not with gen- words to be understood as a male activity. der in focus. However, the fieldwork hap- Because of this female football requires pened in the social space described and the adjective “female” before the name of acknowledged as being dominated by the game (field notes, 2016). As Pierre men. The intensity of this field and polar- Bourdieu commented in his book Mascu- ization in terms of the gender perception line Domination: “The strength of the made this perspective unavoidable. Fo- masculine order is seen in the fact that it cusing on small-scale agencies could be dispenses with justification: the androcen- one way to approach the taken-for-granted tric vision imposes itself as neutral and male domination that seems mostly un- has no need to spell itself out in discourses contested. The article deals with questions aimed at legitimating it” (Bourdieu 2001: that were triggered within this gendered 9). The norm has been established and one context. How are women framed in this gender’s domination has been institution- context? How do they negotiate bounda- alized. When I write about my study ob- Ethnologia Scandinavica, Vol. 48, 2018 124 Katarzyna Herd, That Little Football Girl ject, which is a set of Swedish male foot- trespassers and forcing them to apply cat- ball clubs, I can say “football” only, and I egories and evaluations already filtered reproduce a pattern of inequality that is and established through this domination taken for granted. (Bourdieu 2001:35). Further, gender In this article I problematize this specif- comes with the combination of class, age ic gendered space and the gender expecta- and ethnicity (to name some of the inter- tions that surround it. The aim is to ex- sections) that contribute to evaluations of plore how females are perceived and writ- the present form of football. ten about in the football context. This art- icle also presents a certain way of doing Women – Present but not Noticed masculinities while having femininities in Football environment is associated with a focus, exploring the margins that women certain type of masculinity and specific tend to be ascribed to and showing how displays of gender constructions, usually the centre can be disrupted (Fur 2006). strengthened by media depictions that fo- While taking on board my ethnographic cus on different sorts of aggression and experiences from several years, I shall violence, both by male fans on the stands present female participants in the “male and by players on the pitch. But women do preserve” who are supporters, who work watch football and they make up a con- for clubs, and deal with football profes- siderable share of spectators. A quantita- sionally as researchers. The available lit- tive study from 2006 from Sweden gives a erature concentrates mostly on females as number of 28 per cent for women present fans (Dixon 2015; Mintert & Pfister 2015; at the standing section during a match in Richards 2015; Dunn 2014; Pfister, Len- Malmö (Horsner & Söderberand 2006). neis & Mintert 2013). A recent British Danish researchers present similar figures study of female supporters focuses on (e.g. Pfister, Lenneis & Mintert 2013). their experiences in modern football and Football studies acknowledge the pres- rugby from a sociological perspective ence of women, yet they have also shown (Pope 2017). In Sweden, Aage Radmann that access does not mean equality (Wel- from Malmö University has been involved ford 2011). The norm has been firmly in a project about Swedish female sup- based on male supporters, with women porters. Women are present at stadiums in becoming “an oddity” in the masculine different roles, but their agency is often background. As Pierre Bourdieu re- filtered through the masculine reading of marked, “The dominated apply categories football. Thus, the negotiating and con- constructed from the point of view of the testing of borders that happens there is not dominant to the relations of domination, acknowledged. thus making them appear as natural” The category of gender is introduced (2001:35). While doing research I fell into here rather crudely, but because the inter- that trap. I started “noticing” women, writ- est in football is more inclined to be attri- ing in my notebook that there were many, buted to men (e.g. Mintert & Pfister that they were of different age, hopped 2015), this field does constitute a space of and sang in the standing section or accom- male dominance, thus making females panied their children (field notes 2015). I Katarzyna Herd, That Little Football Girl 125 fished them out of the crowd as something Devoted fans, referred to as ultras that I perceived as unusual due to my own groups with their picturesque accessories perception of football. (flares and smokes), are a relatively new Kevin Dixon (2015) and Carrie Dunn phenomenon (see Herd 2017; Testa 2009). (2014) have pointed out, referring to older They claim a strong influence on the phil- categorizations, that women still tend to osophy of being a “good fan” and behav- be branded as “new fans”, not authentic or ing according to specific rules during traditional, but civilizing, in contrast to matches, but as Maria stated, women had aggressive, authentic and norm-making rather limited access to specific sup- male fans. This “authentic” is rooted in the porters’ organizations, especially those perception of a working-class masculini- perceived as contesting the law and order. ty, especially in the English context. The One ultras group in Malmö was said to idea is that women have different reasons openly ban women from their structures to engage with football, or rather that foot- (field notes 2013). While attending an ball would not be the first and foremost away match I suddenly needed to get back choice of entertainment. One female inter- home and I was told I could not get into viewee, Maria, talked about interesting the same bus because women were not al- gender perceptions within the supporters’ lowed to travel with them. A group of organizations: young men from different social and eth- As a woman, you can only join Black Army and nic backgrounds, and also openly oppos- Sol Invictus, you can’t join the others.

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