University of Tennessee, Knoxville TRACE: Tennessee Research and Creative Exchange Doctoral Dissertations Graduate School 8-2014 "Game Time is My Time. I Get to Define That:" Gender, Identity, and the National Football League's Female Fans Traci Yates University of Tennessee - Knoxville, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://trace.tennessee.edu/utk_graddiss Part of the Sports Studies Commons Recommended Citation Yates, Traci, ""Game Time is My Time. I Get to Define That:" Gender, Identity, and the National Football League's Female Fans. " PhD diss., University of Tennessee, 2014. https://trace.tennessee.edu/utk_graddiss/2876 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at TRACE: Tennessee Research and Creative Exchange. It has been accepted for inclusion in Doctoral Dissertations by an authorized administrator of TRACE: Tennessee Research and Creative Exchange. For more information, please contact [email protected]. To the Graduate Council: I am submitting herewith a dissertation written by Traci Yates entitled ""Game Time is My Time. I Get to Define That:" Gender, Identity, and the National Football League's Female Fans." I have examined the final electronic copy of this dissertation for form and content and recommend that it be accepted in partial fulfillment of the equirr ements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, with a major in Kinesiology and Sport Studies. Joy T. DeSensi, Major Professor We have read this dissertation and recommend its acceptance: Lars Dzikus, Leslee A. Fisher, Trena M. Paulus Accepted for the Council: Carolyn R. Hodges Vice Provost and Dean of the Graduate School (Original signatures are on file with official studentecor r ds.) “Game Time is My Time. I Get to Define That:” Gender, Identity, and the National Football League’s Female Fans A Dissertation Presented for the Doctor of Philosophy Degree The University of Tennessee, Knoxville Traci Yates August 2014 ii Copyright © 2014 by Traci Yates All rights reserved. iii Dedication This dissertation is dedicated to the memory of James Robert Yates. I love and miss you every day. Scooter iv Acknowledgements Dr. Joy DeSensi: I am forever indebted to you for your guidance and support. When I lost direction and could not see past my own failures, you offered the perfect blend of understanding and encouragement, along with a small kick in the pants. Thank you. Dr. Lars Dzikus: I still vividly remember the first day I met you. Had you not leapt across the hall, I might have decided to wait for another time. And that time may never have come. Your enthusiasm was and is infectious. You, sir, are a rare gem and I am so fortunate to have met you on this journey. Dr. Leslee Fisher: On the rarest of occasions, you find yourself in the right place, surrounded by just the right people, at precisely the right time. This happened for me the semester I walked into your Women, Sport and Culture class. Thank you for providing the space and opportunity to express myself, and for agreeing to be part of this experience. Dr. Trena Paulus: Truth be told, I almost didn’t make it through my first semester in your class, but I am so very glad I did. You taught me not only about methods, but also about life. I have such profound admiration and respect for you, and you deserve every one of the accolades and opportunities coming your way. Thank you for helping me grow. Mom: You are neither football fan nor feminist, but you continue to love and accept me unconditionally. And that is all that ever really matters. Erin Ellen: You are truly one of the most amazing people I know. Thank you for doing your best to keep me sane all these years. #BABF Robert Jerrod: No one challenges me or accepts my challenges quite like you. You, my friend, deserve far more than honorary status. Paul Small: I will never forget how you waited for me to realize what you already knew. Al Dunkleman: My sociological teammate. Thank you for carrying the load so that I could spread my wings. To all the friends, family, and colleagues who listened and waited, they say it takes a village. Thanks for being mine. To those who came and went along the way, this dream was bigger than all of that. v Abstract Based on existing literature relatively little is known about the female football fan in America. Previous research has acknowledged that these women exist, often in startling proportions. It has also identified some of the reasons why they attend the game and some of the perceived benefits of their participation as fans (Clark, Apostolopoulou, & Gladden, 2009; Dietz-Uhler, Harrick, End, & Jacquemotte, 2000). Yet we do not know the value they place on their fan identities, nor how they manage to negotiate being both women and fans in a sport environment that both subtly and not-so-subtly continues to reinforce the model of hegemonic masculinity. Therefore, the purpose of this research was to explore how the identities of female fans of the National Football League (NFL) were constructed and negotiated through the language used to describe their experiences. To that end, 35 blog posts from OnHerGame a website dedicated to female sports fans, during the 2012-2013 NFL season were collected and five women who self-identify as National Football League (NFL) fans and currently write for the site were interviewed for this study; in addition, my own bracketing interview (Pollio, Henley, & Thompson, 1997) was also included. The resulting data were analyzed using feminist poststructural discourse analysis (FPDA), revealing three major patterns of discourse: a) reproduction, b) resistance, and c) reinscription. Reproductive discourse included language that reinforced hegemonic ideas about football as male space (e.g., women as less knowledgeable and primarily heterosexually interested in the men who play), while resistant discourse was often employed in an effort to defy these stereotyped subject positions (e.g., portraying female fans as competent, knowledgeable and authentic). Though women largely produced these two forms in their online posts, interviews with participants revealed a third pattern whereby female fans reinscribed reproductive discourse practices in an effort to differentiate themselves from other women (e.g., assuming other women do not know, are not interested). vi Table of Contents Chapter 1 Introduction .......................................................................................................... 1 Statement of the Problem ............................................................................................................... 2 Purpose Statement ........................................................................................................................... 4 Research Questions .......................................................................................................................... 5 Significance ......................................................................................................................................... 5 Theoretical Frameworks Guiding Research on Female Fans ............................................. 7 Delimitations/Limitations .......................................................................................................... 10 Definition of Terms ....................................................................................................................... 11 Organization .................................................................................................................................... 12 Chapter 2 Literature Review ........................................................................................... 13 Sport .......................................................................................................................................... 13 American Football .......................................................................................................................... 14 Sports Fans ............................................................................................................................. 15 Measuring fandom ......................................................................................................................... 17 A Fan Typology ................................................................................................................................ 19 Fan Socialization ............................................................................................................................ 21 Fan Motivation ................................................................................................................................ 22 Gender ...................................................................................................................................... 23 A Performance ................................................................................................................................. 24 Doing Gender ................................................................................................................................... 26 Female Masculinity ........................................................................................................................ 29 Gender and Fans ................................................................................................................... 35 A Woman’s Place is in the Home ..............................................................................................