Sex, Friendship and Women’s Football

This book is contextualised by, makes connections to, and seeks to build on theory intersecting various fields: codes of women’s football globally; female sport participation globally; gender and sexuality studies; queer theory; and visual methods. Through showcasing women’s experiences of playing football, highlighting the ways in which players make sense of their gendered embodiment and performances, and exploring how gender is understood and regulated within the unique social context of a female football team, this book demonstrates why such discussions are crucial for advancing gender equality and theorization of genders in contemporary Western cultures. In giving voice to the lived experiences and perspectives of women who have and continue to play Australian Rules football, this book highlights the ongoing tensions, conflicts, contradictions, and absences of negotiating their passion for playing the game, the impact of gender on their playing experiences, and the significance of the social and cultural space of their football club to their lives. It provides a nuanced account of the power and significance of women’s social bonds in this space, explores how notions of female friendship and desire are caught up in heteronormative discourses, and engages in discussions of the ways in which genders, sexualities, desires, embodiments, and sociality are contested and negotiated among women in homosocial spaces. This book will be of interest to researchers, academics and students working and studying in the fields of gender and sexuality studies, queer theory, visual methodologies, sociology of sport, sports studies, female friendship, physical education, as well as those who play and work within codes of women’s football. Kellie Sanders is Lecturer in Physical Education, Health and Wellbeing at La Trobe University, Australia, teaching and researching in the intersecting fields of sociology of sport, education and Health and Physical Education with an interest in gender and sexuality studies, sociality, queer theory, and the construction, reproduction and regulation of space, power, and hegemony.