Female Fans, Gender Relations and Football Fandom

Challenging the Brotherhood Culture

Honorata Jakubowska, Dominik Antonowicz, Radoslaw Kossakowski

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9781000174069
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Gender Studies
• Index: Social Sciences

This book assesses the transformation of football fan culture from a gender perspective. Referring to the notions of homosociality, hegemonic masculinity and performative perspectives on gender and fandom, it investigates the processes of women entering the world of football fandom.

Drawing on multidimensional qualitative and quantitative research, the book analyses different aspects of female fandom, such as women's socialisation to be a fan, building their sense of fan identity, ways of performing fandom, and gender. Also, it explores the response of male fans by shedding light on the sense-making process of a growing number of female fans in the stands and its consequences for prevailingly male football culture. This study stands out for its richness and diversity of empirical material used in order to make a significant contribution to our understanding of social dynamics related to the changing nature of female football fandom.

The book is fascinating reading for researchers and students in a broad range of areas, including gender studies, sociology of sport, football, women's studies and Central Eastern European studies. It is also a valuable resource for scholars, and football and club authorities who have an interest in understanding the development of female football fandom and its impact on the male fandom community.

Part I

Female fandom

Theoretical and empirical investigation

1 Researching female fandom

In this chapter, we will situate our study against previous works on female football fandom. Through the decades, research on fandom has been mostly focused on men. The omission of female fans could be the result not only of their much smaller presence in stadiums but also of the fact that male scientists have dominated fandom research. ‘The practice of conducting observational research on football “hooligans” was deemed only appropriate for male sociologists’ (Richards 2015, 395). As a result, female researchers willing to investigate the male-dominated communities of football supporters face methodological challenges that have been undertaken recently by several authors (Poulton 2014; Richards 2015; Pitti 2019).

Being a fan (a supporter) – for most researchers – is tantamount to being a male fan. Fandom studies have been characterised by ‘gender blindness’, as described by Marcus Free and John Hugson (2003). The analysis of many ethnographies of football supporters has led these authors to the conclusion that a significant proportion of research misses the gender-related context. Even the most ‘classical’ studies on this topic (see, for example, Dunning, Murphy and Williams 1988) disregard the matter of gender. Investigations into fandom lack in-depth analysis not only of the relations between male and female fans, but also of the process of emerging and constituting of masculine identity. Other researches also confirm that the topic of gender identity in the male domain of football has not been studied very often (see Spaaij 2008; Kossakowski, Antonowicz and Jakubowska 2020).

Thus, it is not surprising that the analysis of female fans has remained on the margins of fandom research. As Kim Toffoletti and Peter Mewett (2012) state: ‘[S]tudies of women fans (or studies of fans that include some reference to women) are slowly accumulating’, however ‘it remains very much an under-researched area’ (p. 3). Fortunately, recently, many studies dedicated to women fans have been introduced in broadly understood football/fans studies. However, the appearance of research on female fans should not be considered an exploration of a completely new phenomenon that has recently appeared in football as women have always been present in sport. The works of, for example, Carrie Dunn (2014), Stacey Pope (2017), Kim Toffoletti (2017), and many other scholars across the globe (mentioned later in this chapter), confirm that studies of female fans in football (as well as in other sports) are growing in terms of numbers and importance. However, the existing state of the art reveals that there is a knowledge gap concerning female fandom in Central and Eastern Europe, which we want to address in this book.

The chapter is structured as follows. First, the emergence of female fans and different forms of female fandom are elaborated in depth. The next part, based on empirical research conducted by other authors around the world, describes the relation between male and female fans, and the strategies for reproducing and challenging gender order in the stands. In the last part, major findings on how female fans perceive their identity are presented.

The emergence of female fandom and its different forms around the world

The institutionalised modern sport ‘was created in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century by and for white middle-class men to bolster a sagging ideology of “natural superiority” over women’ (Dworkin and Messner 2002, 17). Men have organised and managed sport, including football, since its modern beginnings; men have also been key actors in playing sports. For some people, sport has been perceived as being ‘naturally’ divided in terms of the roles played by men and women, with the public sphere being seen as an arena of men’s activity and the private sphere being associated with female duties. Features seen as necessary to practise sport, such as physical strength, aggression, willingness to compete and risk appetite, have also been traditionally assigned to men (Messner 1992). Football fandom has fitted in this male world not only because of the competitive nature of matches, but also due to rivalry, sometimes directly, between the fans. However, one should note that despite the cultural and habitual limitations, female fans were not absent from football stadiums in the early days.

Analysing female fandom in the United Kingdom, where the first institutionalised form of football, as well as the first patterns of fandom, were detected, Robert Lewis (2009) remarks:

[D]espite the restrictions placed on women’s leisure time in this period [1880‒1914 – ed. authors], it is clear from evidence that a small but significant number of women could and did attend professional football matches throughout the period, and participated as consumers in this new leisure industry.

(p. 2162)

The author recalls studies mentioning, for example, the case of 2,000 female fans attending a match of Preston North End F.C. in 1885.¹ However, in the following years, due to ‘rough’ crowds, women had been discouraged from attending matches in bigger numbers. They would have preferred to attend matches sitting (the alternative was standing in densely crowded terraces), which was difficult due to the prices of these tickets. The data reveal that the infrastructure of stadiums was adapted mainly to one type of fan, that is, men, who largely ignored the lack of comfort in the stands. At the same time, it did not encourage those who gave thought to the conditions in which matches were watched. As Stacey Pope (2017) notes, stadiums in the late nineteenth century and first decades of the twenty-first century were not closed to women; however, they were ‘natural’ reservoirs for working-class men. Football matches and socio-cultural situations around them allowed men to escape from ‘paid work, as well as from demasculinising domestic constraints’ (p. 25).

It is fair to say that the post-Hillsborough (1989) situation strongly influenced football and fandom based in the UK in a multidimensional way. The transformation of terraces into stands (King 2002) facilitated the influx of women who might have been afraid of attending matches in the 1980s due to hooligan violence. Football fandom has become a space for the expression of identity for women in the same way as for men. As a result, women have started to form an integral part of the fandom community even if there are fewer of them than their male counterparts. This process can be referred to, after Stacey Pope (2017), as the ‘feminisation of sports fandom’.

According to Pope, a greater presence of women in sports (fans) crowds has been possible for two main reasons: the emancipation of women in society in general (more space for activities historically associated almost exclusively with men, for example the labour market and politics) and the transformation of sport itself – with the creation of an open and inclusive environment for women. As a consequence, the proportion of women attending Premier League matches has reached 30% (GlobalWebIndex 2018).

In other countries, the popularity of football has spread equally fast. The data from different countries allow a wide and differentiated image of female fandom to be presented. One should not forget that women’s presence in an ultras culture, which is the most spectacular form of expressing support in most European countries (except the UK region), and it attracts the most ardent fans. In Italy, the ‘homeland’ of the ultras culture (Doidge 2015; Doidge, Kossakowski and Mintert 2020), an organised style of fandom appeared in the 1960s. Although it has been strongly masculine, some female groups are an active part of this movement. Ultras groups were an attractive platform for young people with radical, non-conformist attitudes and some young women perceived them as a space in which to ‘address their invisibility and oppression in Italian society’ (Cere 2012, 48). The presence of women in the ultras structure was also a result of their demand to be recognised as ‘real’ football fans. Women were visible in ultras groups in the 1970s playing roles of active members rather than just the donna del capo [the leader’s woman] (Cere 2012, 49). In recent times, more than 30 organised female ultras groups have been detected in Italy, as well as the national association of female fans. As Alessandro Dal Lago and Rocco De Biasi (1994) show, although the ultras environment in Italy is firmly masculine and men take most of the leading positions, women can participate as members of ultras groups, and they can even act as spokeswomen.

In Germany, the presence of women in contemporary ultras groups is also visible. In some cases – as in St Pauli’s fandom – well known for its leftist, progressive agenda, women are very active, and they have an important influence on the local fandom community and political engagement (Totten 2016). In the case of some other clubs, women were forced out of attending matches at the time when there was a high level of violence in the stands. Some of them tried to keep up with the harsh conditions, using some ‘male’ features as one female fan of Bayer Leverkusen states:

I didn’t used to see many women. And if I did, then they used to be real “tough butches”. They were drinking real hard and they were well tough and quick to get into a fight. They really had to prove themselves to be accepted.

(Sandvoss and Ball 2018, 282)

Other female fans in Germany established their groups. The provocative names of particular women-only groups, for example ‘tits abroad’ and ‘hooli-geese’, can be considered a tool for counteracting the sexist attitude of male fans, a tool for neutralising sexism and the sign of irony female fans introduce in their situations (Sülzle 2004).

The passion of the fandom can express itself differently, as examples from many countries show. In Spain, one very popular form of fans groups is peñas. They have a clear sociable character: ‘Peñas are groups of friends and supporters that meet to watch matches involving their football teams’ (Llopis-Goig 2013, 2). Mostly, they are arranged and managed by men, as in many cases their main gathering places are Spanish bars. As Ramon Llopis-Goig states:

Historically, the small numbers of women who have attended matches have come from the higher social classes, and they went to the stadium, usually, as a simple companion or ‘ornament’ of men. Fundamentally they were considered to be passive spectators. If they showed any interest in being present at matches, their husbands were often suspicious of their motives.

(2013, 4)

This was a consequence of the fact that football in Spain, and sport in general, was always a ‘business’ for men. For example, at the beginning of the twenty-first century authorities from some clubs provided extra tickets for men to bring their wives to the stadiums, which illustrates that men had a decisive voice on the role of women in the stands. Elsewhere, Llopis-Goig (2007) analyses popular football chants in which women are perceived only in the context of being admirers of male football players. Interestingly, in the context of the data referred to, the biggest Spanish clubs – Real Madrid and FC Barcelona – allowed women to be members of the socios structure just in the first few decades of the twentieth century. However, in the structures of fans groups – the peñas – women were practically invisible.

Spanish female fans ‘feel uncomfortable in traditional peñas due to the strong male ethos and masculine undertones associated with such peñas’ (Llopis-Goig 2007, 180). Therefore, they established women-only peñas to enjoy football with no obligation to follow male rules. The first one was founded in 1984 in Valencia, followed by groups from other parts of the country (for example the Peña La Tentación Blanca – Real Madrid). Setting up female-only fan groups can be perceived as a better strategy to express fandom than an attempt to reorganise existing, traditional groups, particularly when some ‘transformations’ are impossible:

a woman cannot go into a bar alone in which there is a men’s peña. She can turn up with her husband, but not alone. She cannot turn up alone and have a coffee. This is why the women’s peñas have appeared.

(One of the respondents; Llopis-Goig 2007, 183)

The independent women’s groups demonstrate not only courage and the will to promote their own sense of fandom, but also reflect the general transformations of women’s lives in contemporary Spain.

Italy and Spain could be perceived as regions with a high level of masculine dominance in the football stands that place some limits on women being an active part of the fandom. However, it is not only the southern parts of Europe that are characterised by such phenomena. For example, the situation in the Nordic countries (which lead the way when it comes to gender equality; see, for example, Gender Equality Index 2019) is quite similar, which can be illustrated by research conducted in Denmark. The number of women participating actively in the fandom culture is not very high even under friendly circumstances.² An analysis of websites conducted by Pfister, Lenneis and Mintert (2013) revealed that ‘women were among members of the governing boards in most official fan groups. In contrast, women have no access to the small but very visible “firms” of casuals and hooligans, although some may accompany them sporadically’ (pp. 856‒857). Although the number of women watching football on Danish TV ranges from 10 to 30%, the number of female supporters in the stands rarely exceeds 10% (Mintert and Pfister 2015), which was also confirmed by observation of participants conducted at the Brøndby Copenhagen stadium (Pfister, Lenneis and Mintert 2013).

In terms of institutionalised structure, the first women-only group was established in Denmark in 2001 by female fans of Lyngby FC (although women were active in Lyngby fans’ organisations before). In 2012, the ‘Pink Lions’ group was established by female fans of FC Copenhagen. Both these groups are exceptions rather than the rule, which demonstrates how masculine the fandom environment is even in such a well-emancipated soc...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• PART I: Female fandom: theoretical and empirical investigation
• PART II: The local context of development of female fandom
• PART III: Performing female fandom in the male reservoir
• PART IV: Female fans in the eyes of others: male and football stakeholders’ perspective
• Conclusion
• Index