University of Cape Town

View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by Cape Town University OpenUCT Town The copyright of this thesis rests with the University of Cape Town. No quotation from it or information derivedCape from it is to be published without full acknowledgement of theof source. The thesis is to be used for private study or non-commercial research purposes only. University Football, Femininity and Muscle: An Exploration of Heteronormative and Athletic Discourses in the Lives of Elite‐Level Women Footballers in South Africa by Mari Haugaa Engh ENGHAR002 Town A research dissertation submitted in fulfillmentCape of the requirements for the award of the degree of Master of Social Science in Gender Studies Of African Gender Institute UniversityFaculty of the Humanities University of Cape Town 2010 COMPULSORY DECLARATION This work has not been previously submitted in whole, or in part, for the award of any degree. It is my own work. Each significant contribution to, and quotation in, this dissertation from the work, or works, of other people has been attributed, and has been cited and referenced. Town Signature: Date: Cape Of University 2 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to express my sincere gratitude to Professor Jane Bennett for her invaluable guidance and mentorship. Had it not been for her caring and committed supervision this thesis would not have been completed. Thank you for pushing me further than I thought I could go. Town My teammates and fellow researchers Cassandra Clark and Lucy Mills Cape deserve a big ‘THANK YOU’ for all the support, encouragementOf and advice they have given me. Your friendship and collaboration has meant a lot to me. GMS, thank you for always being there when I needed you. University None of this would have been possible without loving support of my family in Norway. Thank you for always being there for me, and for encouraging me to follow my dreams! Finally, I would like to express my deepest gratitude to the inspirational South African women who have participated in my research projects. 3 ABSTRACT Normalised constructions of masculinity and femininity within a heteronormative social structure have shaped beliefs about women’s capacities, characteristics and bodies, and have constructed a hegemonic feminine ideal that has historically excluded the possibility of being simultaneously feminine and athletic. However, following developments in Europe and North America (such as Title IV and WIS) and the increased production and consumption of globalised sports, new and more athletic feminine ideals have emerged and opened spaces for women to form sporting and athletic subjectivities. As a part of this process, women’s football, across Town the world, has grown exponentially, in popular support and participation rates, since the first World Cup was organised in China in 1991 (Hong, 2004; Cox and Thompson, 2000). In South Africa, the development of structures for Cape women’s football was late, and women’s football is not yet fully professional. In South Africa football is viewed as a game for men, and it remains a flagship masculine sport thatOf serves to maintain and support masculine domination (Pelak, 2005). Because women’s participation in a sport like football is considered a transgression, there is a heightened need to mark women’s bodies as feminine, so as to reinforce the heteronormative and dichotomous constructions of male/female and masculine/feminine. University This thesis presents an exploration of the ambivalent relationship between empowerment and surveillance as it presents itself in the lives of elite‐ level women footballers in South Africa. It discusses empowerment and surveillance as they appear at the most intimate levels of women’s sporting experience, and impact on the ways in which women footballers discipline and regulate their bodies within the expectations of heteronormativity, femininity and athleticism. The discussion is based on qualitative, informal interviews with 18 elite‐ level women footballers in South Africa, 12 of which are currently members of the 4 senior women’s national football team, Banyana Banyana. The remaining 6 participants are members of one of Cape Town’s oldest and most successful women’s football teams. The interviews took place at a national team camp in Pretoria in October 2008, and in Cape Town between August and November 2008. Utilising discourse analysis and postmodern feminist standpoint theory this thesis concludes that the empowerment and transformation sport has the potential to offer women should not be assumed to follow directly from participation. Women’s access to sports participation and sporting subjectivities is stratified, and a complex and ambivalent relationship exists between empowerment and surveillance. This tense relationship between is particularly evident in analyses of Town gender/race/class intersections, heteronormativity and through examining women’s participation at a professional level. Although the neo‐ liberal feminine athletic validates sporting subjectivities and Cape offers women in elite‐ level South African football an arena for physical expression and freedom, this empowerment is deeply embedded within the Of regulatory schemes produced through constructions of a heteronormative feminine aesthetic. University 5 TABLE OF CONTENTS: INTRODUCING FOOTBALL, FEMININITY AND MUSCLE................................................ 8 CHAPTER 1 FEMINIST PERSPECTIVES AND THEORIES FROM THE NORTH.............12 1.1 INTRODUCTION ..................................................................................................................12 1.2 FEMINIST SPORT STUDIES...............................................................................................13 1.3 MASCULINITY, FEMININITY AND HETERONORMATIVITY IN SPORT ......................14 Masculinity, femininity and sport ................................................................................................... 16 Heteronormativity in sport................................................................................................................ 18 Testing femininity and womanhood.............................................................................................. 20 Homophobia in women’s sports..................................................................................................... 21 Changing femininity ............................................................................................................................. 24 1.4 SPORTBODIES, EMPOWERMENT AND SURVEILLANCE ............................................25 The body in sport................................................................................................................................... 26 The benefits of sports participation .............................................................................................. 28 Feminist theories of empowerment through sport................................................................ 30 Surveillance and the limits of empowerment............................................................................ 33 Disciplinary practices in elite sports............................................................................................... 36 1.5 CONCLUSION................................................................................................Town...................... 37 CHAPTER 2: SPORT, RACE AND GENDER IN SOUTH AFRICA.....................................39 2.1 INTRODUCTION..................................................................................................................39 2.2 PRE‐ COLONIAL AND COLONIAL SPORTS ....................................................................40 2.3 APARTHEID AND SPORT................................Cape................................ ..................................44 2.4 SPORT, NATIONBUILDING AND DEMOCRATISATION...............................................48 Conclusion................................................................................................................................................ 51 2.5 WOMEN AND SPORT IN SOUTH AFRICAOf ......................................................................52 Introduction............................................................................................................................................. 53 Women’s sport during colonialism and apartheid................................................................... 55 National policies on women’s sports since apartheid............................................................ 57 2.6 WOMEN’S FOOTBALL IN SOUTH AFRICA ....................................................................59 The emergence and establishment of football in South Africa.......................................... 60 The development of women’s football........................................................................................ 62 The current state of women’s football ........................................................................................ 66 2.7 CONCLUSIONUniversity................................................................ .....................................................70 CHAPTER 3: PERSONAL EXPERIENCE AND RESEARCH FOCUS.................................72 3.1 PERSONAL EXPERIENCE...................................................................................................72 3.2 RESEARCH FOCUS AND KEY QUESTIONS.....................................................................76

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