Pleasure and the Sanctuary Paradox: Experiences of girls and women playing soccer

Abstract

Arguably, girls’ and women’s soccer in England is currently experiencing amelioration in terms of participation numbers, media coverage and general public interest. Although, lurking behind these favorable statistics and the pretence of new developmental strategies sits soccer’s cultural millstone, weighing down social progression and limiting the credibility afforded to the game. This paper seeks to unearth how girls and women negotiate their experiences of playing against this backdrop of inferiority by giving them a ‘voice’. The study is explored through a lens of ‘performative pleasure’ as a theoretical standpoint for understanding the basis of activity which involved qualitative methods enagaging with 57 female players aged between 8 and 31 years. The examination uncovered that despite barriers to participation and the management of social stereotyping, girls and women found pleasure through playing. Soccer provided the players with a ‘safe space’ to experience leisure, but ironically this refuge was often needed in response to soccer-based teasing and ‘banter’: conceptualized as the Sanctuary Paradox. The current findings have implications for the management and execution of cultural change within sporting environments.

Keywords

girls paradox pleasure soccer women

Girls’ and women’s soccer¹ within the UK has seen a revival in interest and status over previous years, but this does not necessarily translate to a cultural reimagining of the game. The current paper seeks to explore and platform the experiences and voices of players engaging with soccer at this important juncture and to consider the ‘transformational challenge’ connected to the sport. This is contextualized by the Fédération Internationale de Football Association’s (FIFA) first edition of a universal strategy for women’s soccer, claiming that ‘football is the global game for women and girls’ (2018: 2). It is estimated that there are 26 million female players worldwide, which reflects a significant ‘numerical evolution’ in the sport (Woodward, 2017a: 694). The Union of European Football Associations (UEFA, 2017) has reported increases across Europe in the number of girls and women playing soccer, which now stands at 1,270,481 registered players. Furthermore, the number of registered players in England has increased by 19% since 2011/12 (UEFA, 2017) and girls’ and women’s soccer participation in affiliated leagues and competitions stands at 147,000, compared with 10,400 players in 1993 according to the Football Association (FA) (2017a).

England is set to host the Women’s European Championship in 2021 and UEFA have agreed a long-term contract with Visa as the first sponsor of UEFA women’s soccer (Wrack, 2018). Furthermore, Barclays have become the first title sponsor of the Women’s Super League (WSL), thought to be worth over £10 million across a three-year period (Whyatt, 2019). This comes at a time when the media coverage surrounding the women’s game has improved in light of the national team’s ‘Lionesses’ branding, which provides a semantic avenue for positive engagement (Petty and Pope, 2019). This upward trajectory is also mirrored by the academic field, with publications surrounding the female game increasing since the late 1990s (Valenti et al., 2018).

Efforts have been made by national governing bodies (NGBs) to build a more credible profile for women’s soccer. The FA’s (2017b) Gameplan for Growth strategy aims to double the number of female players by 2020, and UEFA’s (2018) ‘Together #WePlayStrong’ social media campaign seeks to disturb traditionalviews surrounding girls’ and women’s appropriateness for soccer. The recent restructuring and rebranding of the women’s soccer pyramid is a constructive example of the efforts being made to improve the women’s game in England. Unfortunately, these seemingly positive strides towards acceptance mask the many issues that continue to exist within girls’ and women’s soccer. Advances have been made in relation to equality and inclusivity, some maintaining that it ‘no longer remains just for men’ (Ben-Porat, 2009: 883). This perceived progress, however, can be described as a version of ‘soft essentialism’ (Messner and Bozada-Deas, 2009) whereby women maintain a position of ‘persistent invisibility’ (Woodward, 2017a).

At the English local level girls’ Regional Talent Clubs (RTCs) and women’s teams are being disbanded due to financial struggles and restructuring challenges (Foster, 2018; Mitchell, 2015; The Guardian, 2017; Sale, 2016), leaving many young players without a talent pathway to follow. Dunn and Welford (2015: 93) report that a patriarchal hegemony surrounding the English game ‘remains untouched’ and that the female version of soccer continues to sit outside of what soccer is to the masses. At the global level cultural attempts at change continue to be marred, as demonstrated by the 2018 Ballon d’Or awards ceremony when the first ever woman winner, Ada Hegerberg, was asked to ‘twerk’ on receipt of her prize (Barr, 2018). Publications surrounding the female game in the past 15 years have tended to focuson sexualities (Caudwell, 2003, 2007), femininities in educational settings (Jeanes, 2011; Renold, 2005), elite or adult soccer (Pfister and Pope, 2018; Pitti, 2019; Stirling and Schulz, 2011) and fandom (Pope, 2013, 2017). In light of this, the purpose of the current paper is to draw attention to the reality of girls’ and women’s soccer participation amidst a backdrop of perceived inclusivity and progression. To tackle this, the structure of the article will first explore the rhetoric surrounding women’s soccer before connecting to the notion of ‘pleasure’ as an essential aspect of sporting enjoyment. Moving on to the research methods and then analysis, this paper covers the themes of pleasure, paradoxes, friendships, and challenges to participation.

Girls’ and women’s soccer culture: progress or hyperbole?

For women, achieving success in sport can be viewed as a challenge to normative constructions of femininity, whereas playing sport for men further demonstrates their ties to masculinity (Stirling and Schulz, 2011). Dunn and Welford (2015: 91) argue that women’s soccer is not considered ‘real’ soccer because of the summer league system, artificial pitches and restricted league structure. These adaptations have impacted upon the structural and physical aspects of the women’s game, which instead of strengthening the sport have diluted it in a bid to mould it around the men’s. Improvements in terms of standards of play and the numbers involved in women’s soccer have been made, but these continue to be undermined by ideological constraints and lack of cultural change (Woodward, 2017b). Pfister’s (2015) meta-analysis of women’s soccer reports that although the situation is changing, female players do not receive the same level of resources or prestige as their male counterparts.

In Woodward’s essay on time and temporality within women’s soccer, this positive increased engagement with the game and lack of ideological change ‘are stories being told at the same time’ (2017a: 690). FIFA (2018: 4) themselves acknowledge this paradoxical situation by reporting that ‘the game is both in rude health and in need of fundamental change’. Burke’s (2018) critical examination of women’s perceived empowerment through participation in masculine sports explains that political-cultural shifts are not possible whist women’s sport continues to be framed by men’s sporting benchmarks and histories.

Previous tensions have been documented globally around ‘the uncertain market for women’s football’ (Williams, 2013: 100); to this end the state of girls’ and women’s soccer in the UK is turbulent and fraught with contradictions. So, why do girls and women in England continue to play soccer in this culturally archaic environment? In order to address this question thoroughly, it is important to take a step back and understand the basic reasons for participation in sport.

Pleasure and reason for participation

Arguably, one of the most important and significant reasons for engaging with and sustaining participation in sport is for pleasure. Pleasures can be theorized by both biological means and socially constructed methods (Pringle, 2015), and previous research has connected pleasure to intrinsic motivation in relation to enjoyment, fun, and learning (Weinberg and Gould, 2015). It is important to note, however, that pleasure is complicated and multifaceted, as Rinehart demonstrates when unpacking the concept of ‘horrible pleasure’ (2015: 23) taken from Shakespeare’s King Lear to signify how something can be concomitantly pleasurable and non-pleasurable to different people at the same time. Pleasure as discussed by Torkildsen is used to illustrate the interconnectedness of play, recreation and leisure for management purposes (Taylor, 2011). The functional benefits of pleasure are particularly apparent in studies of running. Caudwell (2015) describes the value of running as ‘an anaesthetic’ in relation to pleasant ways to tackle and dilute feelings of adversity. Furthermore, the women in Leedy’s (2009) study reported running as a catalyst for well-being, empowerment and therapy; they found ‘sanctuary and solace’ through their experiences of running (Caudwell, 2015: 108).

These examples from running are relatable to studies from Stride et al. (2018) and Thing et al. (2017) that center on women between the ages of 30 and 50 years old who are regarded as the ‘forgotten age’ in relation to both policy-making and academic research (Stride et al., 2019). The soccer fitness classes within the research by Thing et al. (2017) were viewed as ‘enabling’ for the women involved and soccer was seen as a ‘free space’ away from other constraints linked to work and family life. Soccer was referred to as a ‘refreshment of the soul’ and the women reported feeling like ‘someone else’ when playing. Ultimately, for the women involved in this example, ‘playing soccer serves as a space to “breathe” in their everyday life’ (Thing et al., 2017: 438).

Stride et al. investigated the re/engagement with soccer for women within the ‘forgotten age’ group. They reported that despite the ‘weight of history’ (2019: 10) former players were burdened with, they still found a way to appreciate soccer again. Former players enjoyed the inclusivity linked to their involvement with their weekly, recreational soccer sessions as opposed to their previous experiences of alienation with regard to the patriarchal culture surrounding mainstream soccer. These players enjoyed soccer for soccer’s sake in a low-commitment and pressure-free environment. The women in this example demonstrated ‘agency in their resistance and resilience’ to a previous ‘exclusionary structure’ (Stride et al., 2019: 10).

Other reasons for girls’ and women’s participation in soccer included a sense of togetherness, succeeding as a team, soccer being fun and identity-affirming (Fasting, 2004; Jeanes and Magee, 2014; Pielichaty, 2019). Players have reportedly enjoyed being competitive, aggressive, skilful and determined (Scraton et al., 1999) and have felt able to ‘let go of gender role expectations and do what they love doing, namely playing soccer’ (Grundlingh, 2010: 52). Furthermore, Pielichaty’s previous study demonstrated that soccer was utilized as a platform for girls to prove ‘the boys’ wrong as well as describing the sport as ‘relaxing, energetic, a chance to tackle people and take your anger out on something’ (2015: 498). Cox and Pringle’s paper reports on ‘specific footballing pleasures’ (2011: 229) and the transformative power of pleasure to help players tackle inequality and contribute to sustained participation. These previous studies highlight players’ determination to participate and succeed in soccer, against the backdrop of historical and continuing challenges to engagement.

In summary girls and women play soccer for a plethora of reasons which connect to female empowerment, agency and pleasure. This current paper seeks to add worth to the current research corpus by furthering the understanding of how girls and women find pleasure in the game amid ingrained social stigma and constraining stereotypes. This investigation is valuable because girls’ and women’s voices have potentially been side-stepped amongst the hyperbole declaring a change in women’s soccer culture.

Research approach

This paper draws upon data from a wider research project examining girls’ and women’s soccer culture. For the purposes of the current study, player experiences will be understood through responses to individual and group interviews and a reflective task that took place across a soccer season. This article focuses on two research questions: why do girls and women play soccer? And what barriers do they experience through playing the game? My researcher position as a former soccer player is important to explain at this juncture, as it allowed me to take on an ‘insider’ perspective. Due to this, standpoint epistemology is utilized by the current study, which seeks to understand knowledge through the standpoint ‘we ourselves occupy’ (Sprague, 2016: 53).

Theories of pleasure have historically resided in several discipline areas, including: governance (Karlsen and Villadsen, 2016), psychology (Freud, 2015; Reisenzein, 1994) and tourism (Wong et al., 2018). Pringle et al. (2015) advocate ‘pleasure’ as a potential lens for sporting examination; a theoretical tool in which to see ‘things afresh’ (2015: 6). According to Pringle et al. (2015), pleasure has not been granted the respect and attention it deserves within academic exploration into sporting engagement, which they position as:

The multiple pleasures derived from sport are productive in constituting subjectivities, social belongings, nationalistic fervor and, for some, even reasons for living (Pringle et al., 2015: 1).

This version of pleasure and its multiplicities aligns effectively to sporting team culture and links to identities as changeable and negotiable (Spade and Valentine, 2017). To extend this theoretical frame further, a ‘performative pleasure’ lens will specifically be utilized to examine and understand the experiences of girls and women soccer players. Performativity as inspired by Butler (1988, 1990, 2011) relates to the way in which gender as a social (by)product is ‘performed’, through a stylized repetition of acts without one stable basis. This performative pleasure lens will allow for concomitant gender and pleasure theorization whereby ‘acts’ or participation performances will be explored in line with displays marking the extremities of pleasure and/or displeasure. Performative analysis has previously connected to both pleasure and pain (Madison, 2006) and also aligns itself effectively to earlier examinations of girls’ and women’s soccer (Jeanes, 2011; Ratna, 2013). Furthermore, Cox and Pringle (2011) advocate the significance of ‘footballing pleasures’:

Pleasure is an aspect of social life worthy of critical study as it lays at the heart of political issues in sport: for if there was no pleasure to be gained in sport there would be no need to struggle against sporting injustices (Cox and Pringle, 2011: 231).

It is important to frame pleasure in this way because it may be assumed that male-dominated, English soccer is one that could ordinarily inhibit pleasure for females who play.

Research design

The research design involved 57 female players across three types of engagement: school soccer, academy soccer and adult soccer, all based within England. These three sites of engagement were chosen as they typify the structured places in which girls’ and women’s participation is commonly found. The cross-over analysis also provides a greater depth of examination because it allows for the social nuances connected to varying and inter-related sites to be addressed. Academy soccer is equivalent to RTCs or youth soccer set-ups catering for talented children and young people, whereas ‘adult soccer’ defines players over the age of 18 years playing in local, regional or professional clubs. In total 18 players took part at the non-elite, school site at both the U13 and U15 level, 33 players participated at the academy site (a club for elite, young talent) spanning five age groups: U9s, U11s, U13s, U15s and U17s, and finally 6 adult players took part in the research. The adult players varied in age (23–31 years) and experience (regional club soccer through to international, elite-level soccer). For the purposes of this current study, ‘elite’ can be understood as the academy in which players have to trial to be selected to join and for adult players who play semi-professional or professional soccer.

At the school site 10 focus groups were conducted (5 per team) in total which mostly took place during school break-times, over a four-month period. My presence at the soccer academy spanned the nine-month season and therefore group conversations and interviews were spread out over a longer timeframe. I was able to talk to players individually or in pairs/small groups when the players were available during their coaching sessions. Finally, the six conversational interviews with adult players took place over an eight-month timeframe and all but one were located at players’ family homes.

The term ‘conversation’ is used purposefully here to indicate the fluid and more informal nature of the interview process. Conversations are academically useful to gather rich data through narrative story-telling (Hardin and Whiteside, 2009; Sparkes and Smith, 2014) whilst simultaneously building rapport with participants through shared and relaxed meanings. My previous soccer experience meant that I could establish a valuable relationship with those involved in the research through shared cultural meanings surrounding soccer.

Further to this, the U13 and U15 players at the soccer academy were also asked to bring to a training session a written reflection on ‘why do you love soccer?’ to supplement the interview process. This was a small written activity task to complement the data collection stage, the majority of which platforms the spoken word. It was important from an ethical perspective that this study drew upon a research design that was inclusive and informal to encourage engagement. Furthermore, it was extremely prudent that ethical procedures were conducted sensitively and thoroughly due to the age ranges of the players involved in the study. To this end, interviews were always conducted in publicly accessible spaces that were familiar and known to the players involved, often in proximity to other players, parents and/or coaches. All ethical approvals were granted prior to the research beginning and parental/guardian permissions were granted. Pseudonyms have been allocated to the participants to allow for anonymity but also to give a name and voice to the players involved.

Data analysis

It was important to ensure that individual richness, in terms of the depth and meaning of the participants’ voices, was not diluted through the data analysis stages. A great deal of sensitivity and care, therefore, were taken to ensure the ‘texts’ positioned and demonstrated in the shared research space were effectively utilized. This was managed through the application of discourse analysis, whereby the interviews and focus groups in this example were utilized as ‘discourse data’, where ‘participants produce talk from their own perspective’ to account (rather than report) data (Nikander, 2012: 400). Discourse analysis is valuable because it incorporates language used within its enmeshed social setting, and importantly, reality is sought to be understood by the conversations or ‘text’ shared (Hall and Chambers, 2012). Fairclough (1995) explains that discourse cannot be understood in silo but is rather influenced by both internal and external relations and these relations are dialectical in form. Discourse can gain meaning through the power relations, social structures and contexts that they mediate, and Locke (2004: 1) ‘views discourse as coloured by and productive of ideology’. Discourse(s) do not operate within a vacuum but instead are utilized to reflect and reify certain societal positions within specific contexts.

Critical discourse analysis (CDA) seeks to:

Analyse the constitution of the subject in its historical and social context from a diachronic (i.e. longitudinal) and synchronic (i.e. cross-sectional) perspective (Jäger and Maier, 2009: 38).

This type of analysis is fitting given the socio-historical, male-dominated space of English soccer culture. The relationship between discourse and power is a nuanced and complex one and it ‘is through discourses that power is realized and knowledges subjugated’ (Nicholls et al., 2010). The mercurial state of power and discourse is explained by Fairclough (2010: 4) as relational but separate, as parts that ‘flow into each other’ to create meaning. The relationship between pleasure and discourse within girls’ and women’s soccer is one which rests on the internal and external relations that occupy the cultural and structural ‘powers’ prevalent in soccer. It was important to utilize a critical approach to discourse analysis, as it can both interpret and explain social injustices and then utilize knowledge to potentially combat these (Fairclough, 2010).

The constitutional integrity of the players involved was examined by a careful and complex manual coding process. This was realized by manually working through the transcripts, searching for patterns through the texts in an approach which valued the voices of the informants involved. It is acknowledged that the majority of texts are ‘hybrids’ pulling together several discourses at the same time (Hall and Chambers, 2012: 300) and therefore this current paper sought to analyze how players shaped and recreated discourse(s) in and around soccer.

Previous research identified earlier allowed me to form a framework for ‘discourse building’ but it did not impact upon the flexibility of the data analysis stages, which allowed for ‘new’ patterns to arise. As such, patterns that developed from the research relate to ‘footballing pleasures’ (Cox and Pringle, 2011), reasons for playing, and paradoxes and transformation. The following sections will report the study’s findings across all three sites in unison to reflect the prominent experiences that were reported irrespective of age or level.

Analysis

For the ‘buzz’ of the game

All players involved in this study loved to play soccer and enjoyed the game on many different levels and for various reasons. Players expressed their reasons for playing as ‘the buzz you get from kicking that little bag of air about’ (Jenny, adult player) or the chance to be competitive, socialize or get fit; soccer was meaningful. The physical play and the sense of achievement through participation were notable for players of all ages:

The best thing about playing soccer is when you get to like score goals and working as a team and if you like, don’t pass and hog the ball you won’t get any chances to score because you won’t have any players to pass to into space near the goal (Harriet, U9).

I think it’s just something I’m good at, everybody likes doing something they’re good at. And, I don’t know I just love it; you can’t really beat the feeling when you’ve got the ball at your feet, you make a good pass or you shoot and score or you set one of your teammates up. I like the team environment a lot, it gives you friends and builds your character (Ellie, adult player).

The multi-dimensional benefits of participation are highlighted here in connection to ‘character building’ (see Doty, 2006; Lumpkin, 2011), friendship-making and a pure passion for the sport. Responses from the written reflection that follow are grouped together to complement the spoken feedback:

I like playing soccer because it’s fun and you never know how it’s going to end (Orla, U13).

I like playing soccer because there’re so many parts to it and they’re all amazing! I just love playing it because of everything! (Lisa, U15).

I love soccer because I can see all my (chums) friends and after a long day at school let all my energy out and have a good time. I always look forward to it! Learning new things and progressing as a player is what I aim for (Esme, U15).

These reasons were in line with Grundlingh’s (2010); the women and girls in the current study played because they were passionate about soccer and enjoyed the developmental and fun side of participation. Pleasure is ‘performed’ through learning, development and enjoyment. Players recounted an all-encompassing engagement with soccer, as Michelle (adult player) explains: ‘soccer took over kinda a lot of my life, but I loved it so much it was a good thing’. The ‘acts’ involved in soccer participation transcended into other aspects of daily life as the pleasure performance is viewed holistically.

The players in the current study drew upon their own experiences of negotiating participation within the gendered milieu of soccer. Olive (U13) admitted ‘I play boy sports’ when describing the activities she enjoyed, and Gail (U15) explained that others were shocked when they discovered she played soccer, which they perceived as ‘more of a guy’s game’. This was consistent with Emma’s (U13) experiences too:

Even though most people think it’s like boys play soccer, girls do ballet or whatever; when girls do play soccer I think they find it a bit more interesting and when they do watch it they find it a bit more surprising how good some girls can be.

Emma described the surprise element connected with seeing talented female players. This gendered understanding of soccer was also highlighted by a group conversation at the school (U13s):

Lara:

In primary not a lot of people played soccer, it was just like me and a friend and all the rest were boys, we played with them. And then if like a girl tackles a boy they make a big deal out of it, like [imitating shock intake of breath] you got tackled by a girl. Like girls can’t play soccer and it’s a big deal it they tackle you.

Researcher:

And that’s still happening is it?

Several girls together:

All the time.

Rebecca:

I can’t tackle a boy because I get made fun of.

Researcher:

You get made fun of if you tackle a boy?

Rebecca:

Yeah they’d be like how can a girl tackle a boy?

The experiences of participating as expressed by the players aligned to and recycled dominant discourses focusing on the male-dominated field of soccer in England. In the case of the U13 group, transformation was inhibited through fear of the repercussions of challenging the physical and cultural preserve of male soccer..

Players in the current study were aware of the ‘sporting male hegemony’ connected to English soccer (Renold, 2005: 57). The majority of players were introduced to the game by male coaches and PE teachers, fathers and male friends recreationally (see Scraton et al., 1999; Stirling and Schulz, 2011). It must be noted that despite the players’ understanding of the social and cultural context of soccer, they still all performed ‘player’ in their own, committed way. The players were mindful of previous (and current) stereotypes surrounding the game but each one continued to play and find pleasure through their soccer displays. As such, players demonstrated an awareness of dominant discourses surrounding the game but these were interwoven with their own ‘footballing pleasures’ (Cox and Pringle, 2011), creating new positive discourses within a ‘hybrid’ (Hall and Chambers, 2012) of interconnecting relations.

The Sanctuary Paradox: freedom and constraint

The girls and women involved in the research significantly valued soccer and the pleasure they gained through playing. They relished the game itself, they enjoyed seeing their friends at training, and they prized the feeling of achievement linked to participation. The players, however, did not enjoy the persistent bullying, teasing and berating for being girls and women who played soccer. The majority of U9 players believed boys thought they were weak and older players recalled experiences of marginalization through participation:

When I started the school when I was 8, I got comments from boys saying that ‘girls were rubbish at soccer’ and they thought I was a bit weird to play for this team. And then I started to play soccer with them and with my mates at break time and then they were like ‘oh my god you really are quite good’ so I kind of proved them wrong. Boys are boys (Lucy, U13).

The lads would pick the lads and then we were left over…we were always last to be picked, probably because we were girls. It was no issue, not to me anyway (Michelle, adult player).

The accounts above demonstrate situations of inequality but also highlight the normalizing process players undertook to tackle these barriers. Displeasure is performed here and the semantic ‘shrugging off’ of negative comments and actions as ‘boys are boys’ and ‘it was no issue’ provide an insight into the acceptance of this type of culture within soccer. Performativity can be viewed in an empowering sense, allowing for resistance and change in soccer spaces (Jeanes, 2011); however, the acceptance explained by players in this account demonstrates the constrained ‘agency’ of some players and acceptance of male-dominated discourses surrounding the game.

The majority of girls and women in this research had directly experienced or were aware of gender-based soccer abuse: ‘banter’ or bullying that was linked to female participation. Kay (U15) referred to it as banter as though it was an expected, light-hearted and jokey part of playing. This banter can be interpreted as the ‘taken-for granted, insider scripts and discourses’ (Hall and Chambers, 2012: 298) which recycle the perceived notion of soccer as a male-only preserve. This, however, is not so straightforward, as demonstrated further by an exchange with Zoe (U17):

Researcher:

Have you ever been kind of teased or bullied for playing soccer? Have you always been accepted at school and stuff?

Zoe:

Oo yeah absolutely, all the lads are like ‘oh yeah soccer’ and all this like, they think it’s brilliant. You get the odd she’s a lesbian comment but it’s all banter, do you know what I mean.

Researcher:

How do you deal with it?

Zoe:

I just sort of go ‘oh yeah I am’ and just go along with it, I think it’s quite funny.

Researcher:

Is that still a stereotype that’s around school now?

Zoe:

Oh yeah absolutely you get comments all the time.

Researcher:

I know it was around when I was at school but I thought they might have moved on by now.

Zoe:

Aw no, they don’t no, it just gets worse. All the lads on my bus used to be like ‘oh yeah she’s a lesbian.’ But I was quite friendly with them so I knew they were joking, do you know what I mean. I’d never used to get offended by it coz I used to be like ‘oh yeh I am’ like just take it as a joke you know what I mean. Some people take it quite offensively but I’m just like yeh.

Researcher:

Did it ever make you want to stop playing?

Zoe:

Oh no not at all, no. Like as I say, I just take it on the chin, just like yeh, go along with it.

Overall, Zoe speaks positively about her acceptance in soccer but despite this still detailed the soccer-based negativity she was accustomed to. This exchange with Zoe highlights the competing discourses between acceptance and exclusion of soccer playing. Zoe’s participation challenges femininity in its ‘ideal typical form’ (Paechter, 2006: 261), which is problematic for the boys in one sense but they also ‘think it’s brilliant’. This paradoxical situation of both acceptance and resistance provides girls and women footballers with a precarious transformational stand.

Sarah, an experienced international player, spoke about being called a ‘man’ at school by the boys and yet highlighted that soccer provided a sanctuary for her:

It wasn’t just a hobby, it was a bit of a sanctuary for me. It was somewhere where I went where I kinda felt safe and I felt like I was good at something, I felt like you could just forget everything else that was going on once you’re playing.

This quote underlines an original concept developed from this study: the Sanctuary Paradox, namely the notion that girls and women accepted soccer abuse would be part of their lives but still found soccer to be a safe place to escape to and enjoy. This strongly connects to the deep and contradictory meaning of pleasure as exemplified by ‘horrible pleasure’ (Rinehart, 2015). Pleasure is not merely an enjoyable dimension of participation but comes with complexities and caveats to socially maneuver.

Amy’s soccer sanctuary related to stress relief, which is commensurate with the idea of soccer as a safe place or retreat:

I love soccer because it’s something I’ve wanted to do all my life, I get to see my mates, it’s a good way to relieve problems/stress of school and I get to do something I love (Amy, U15).

In this context Amy mentioned problems at school, which connected the importance and significance of both soccer playing and school life. The use of space and place here can be taken to be both physical and socially constructed space where girls and women would go to when playing soccer. Soccer in the following examples provides a safe place devoid of judgment and a catalyst for freedom:

When you want to play soccer you just kind of feel like a different person, all the things that everybody said about you just kind of like goes away. You are just kind of in the moment on how it is. Like you forget about what anyone’s ever said to you, what anyone’s ever like judged, it’s just you on your own with a ball (Emma, U13).

Because now I’ve got two children and kinda life’s so hectic it is just nice to get away from that and obviously it is something to do which I love and obviously being back with the girls I used to play with it is so nice to build that relationship and become friends again (Michelle, adult player).

Michelle discussed her return to soccer and how it offered her a personal space of freedom (see Thing et al., 2017).

The word ‘forget’ is used by Emma and Sarah to indicate the way soccer involvement provided not only a physical space but an emotional space away from their everyday strains. Kassing acknowledges that paradoxes ‘can be empowering’ (2018: 1098), which is the case for the players in the current study, who viewed the sanctuary aspect of participation as liberating. Girls and women managed the Sanctuary Paradox and their ‘acts’ of participation, by normalizing the negativity they may have received from others for playing soccer, whether by sidelining it as ‘banter’, like Kay (U15), or by ‘proving the boys wrong’ through skilful play, like 8-year-old Lindsey.

The epitome of the paradox in the current study was heightened by the harsh, cruel and undignified bullying received by players, adjacent with the peaceful and calming notion of a soccer sanctuary. Sarah explained the sanctuary as a safe space, where she excelled at something and would forget about ‘everything else that was going on’ in her life. Yet ultimately, soccer playing was a contributory factor to a ‘hectic’ life, whereby players’ femininities and sexualities were being interrogated through playing. Femininity, for these players, was questioned on the basis of the female athlete paradox (Kassing, 2018), which conceptualizes the potential mismatch between womanhood and athleticism due to perceived ingrained ideologies regarding women’s appropriateness to sport. Also, the players’ sexual identities in relation to the lesbian label often attached to the game (Harris, 2005) were also shown to be a source of teasing in the current study. It must be noted, that although the Sanctuary Paradox related to many of the girls and women involved in the research, it did not cover all of their experiences.

Friendships in and around soccer spaces

A theme that has not received a great deal of coverage in previous literature on girls’ and women’s soccer is that of friendships. Soccer playing, as reported in the current study, was a site for development, competition and excellence, but also for seeing friends and building relationships, as Elle (U15) explains:

I like to play soccer because I think it’s challenging being in goal and I like being in competitive sports. I’ve made lots of new friends by coming here and having a laugh!

In this example, pleasure performance is demonstrated through shared work ethic, enjoyment and laughter. Some players found it difficult, however, to balance soccer playing with friendship maintenance, as discussed by Lucy and Kelly (U13):

Researcher:

Does soccer get in the way a little bit of being with your friends then?

Lucy:

When I was at primary school I was always playing soccer with all of the boys and my friends were a bit annoyed at me because I was playing soccer with all of the boys.

Researcher:

What, female friends was it?

Lucy:

Yes

Researcher:

And they wanted you to come and play with them a bit more?

Lucy:

Yes

Researcher:

What are they like now?

Lucy:

Erm they’re better but most of my friends have gone into the high school…but I’ve made new friends [female] and they all like soccer so it’s a bit different.

Researcher:

What about you, Kelly, did you play soccer with the boys and girls at lunchtime?

Kelly:

Yeah but they were fine with it [her female friends] and they just watched.

Lucy and Kelly demonstrated the way in which they both tried to accommodate their soccer playing with school friendships. In this example, soccer is presented as a potentially divisive space for girls to mediate, and because of this friendships grow or adapt depending on the player’s ability to manage this space. Lucy explained that friends she made later on into her childhood were more interested in the game and Kelly did not acknowledge any issues with being accepted by her friends. This example reifies the perceived normality of soccer playing for boys in and around educational settings (see Emmanuel, 2017; Swain, 2000) and how girls use their talent as ‘currency’ to ‘borderwalk’ (Thorne, 1993) into the ‘boys’ soccer space’.

Later in the conversation, Lucy shared, ‘my friend said I taught her to play soccer and I inspired her to play’, which suggests an emergent change in the traditional manner in which players normally entered the sport. This was also voiced by Fiona (U11), who had inspired many of her female friends to play soccer at school and they now all asked if they could play too. Friendship ‘acts’ and the ‘performing friendships’ within soccer spaces creates a facet of pleasure that is transformative and liberating. This aligns with Themen and Van Hooff (2017: 550), who note that ‘women’s football is a site of resistance’ whereby player bonding and friendships are utilized positively to defy convention. The internal relations surrounding ‘friendship’ discourse, therefore, were outwardly influencing the external relations connecting to the soccer ‘object’, which allows for epistemological resistance and change (see Fairclough, 2010). These findings were not applicable to the majority of players but do demonstrate the importance of fellow players and friends in providing a supportive environment to engage with soccer.

Discussion

The purpose of this current paper was to shed light onto the contemporary experiences of girl and women soccer players. This examination is rooted in the social landscape that English women’s soccer is currently immersed, namely a contradictory period governed by notions of both progress and stunted cultural change. Drawing upon ‘performative pleasure’ as a theoretical lens for investigation (see Butler, 1988, 1990, 2011; Pringle et al., 2015), this paper has demonstrated that girls and women negotiate ways to find pleasure in soccer despite the deeply ingrained, patriarchal hegemonic culture that continues to occupy the sport in England. The connectivity between power and pleasure in sport is significant and ‘can be understood as discursive, enacted and embodied’ (Pringle et al., 2015: 1). Pleasure as a gateway into the examination of girls’ and women’s playing experiences positions soccer as a space for happiness and pleasure whilst simultaneously trapped within a complex and unequal social-political nexus. This soccer sphere of competing discourses could appear to be problematic for players to maneuver, but the girls and women in this study manage and control the textured and nuanced space of English soccer in their own ways.

Players of all levels were acutely aware of the perceived inferior position their ‘version’ of the game occupied within sporting hierarchy. Players sought to normalize their engagement by performing participation in a way that accommodated their love of the sport. This normalizing process involved continuous engagement, forming and maintaining soccer-based friendships, and managing negativity through trivializing it as ‘banter’. Banter, to some extent, is accepted by the players in the current study as a normal part of their performance of ‘player’; however, the basis of this banter is often derogatory, hurtful and represents underlying issues of oppression. Pleasure-seeking for girls and women players was not straightforward and these players negotiated the complex landscape of pleasure and participation to continue their love of the game.

Previous research into the functions of sport has reported on the positive benefits of participation in connection to well-being, empowerment and therapy (Leedy, 2009). An extension of this is the Sanctuary Paradox within the current research which conceptualizes the ironical position that soccer can take in the lives of the girls and women who play. The women runners in Leedy’s study, however, did not report running itself as a source of distress, whereby in the current study soccer provides a space or sanctuary for refuge despite also being one of the reasons why women and girls seek safety. The pleasure experience through soccer is recalled strongly when players are active within their soccer ‘sanctuary’. Soccer players in this current study have channeled their pleasure of the game by overriding negative perceptions of their participation by fully immersing and absorbing themselves within soccer performance. This connects to Rinehart’s (2015) contextualizations of pleasure as an oxymoronic and complex facet of our lives. This also draws both parallels and differences with Thing et al. (2017); similarly, soccer for the current players provided breathing space away from other constraints of everyday life. The players in the current study were younger than the ‘forgotten age’ group of Thing et al.’s work, but the current findings still demonstrate a relevancy for younger players. Soccer, however, cannot be viewed homogenously as ‘free space’ for the players in the current study as their rites of passage through and in-between participation were still controlled by dominant discourses and structural powers that continue to be crystallized within English soccer.

The findings of the current study connect to Burke’s ‘freedom fallacy’ vis-à-vis participation being ‘simultaneously both empowering and oppressive’ (2018: 5), which highlights the complexities involved in soccer engagement. Despite the general ‘freedom fallacy’ that seemingly exists, players at the local level of the current study were able to form and maintain personal freedoms in relation to their pleasure performance. These performances were demonstrated through the acts of friendship building, encouraging other girls to play and learning new skills. Freedoms at the micro level can be deemed empowering and significant to the girls and women who played. Friendships and introducing other girls to the game of soccer was a site for resistance as shared by Themen and Van Hooff’s (2017) work and encapsulates new ways of ‘doing’ soccer.

Conclusion

Participating in soccer was highly meaningful to the players in the current study and offers a significant amount of personal pleasure and value. Pleasure is viewed as being an essential component for participation but one that does not ‘protect’ the players from potential inequality and injustice once they leave the soccer sanctuary space. This paper seeks to highlight the effort and sophistication that players exert to sustain their performance of ‘player’ whilst facing ongoing social and cultural hurdles. Players meaningfully and masterfully negotiate the whirlwind of competing discourses that engulf English soccer in connection to both inclusionary and exclusionary practices and culture. Routes to transformation were noted in ‘footballing pleasures’ (Cox and Pringle, 2011) and the pure enjoyment of the game, as well as the unity of playing that came from soccer friendships (Themen and Van Hooff, 2017). Providing a voice here for the girls and women to express themselves and platform their experiences does connect to a transformational purpose. These routes, however, did become challenged when players faced teasing for their participation. The impact of the Sanctuary Paradox in its very being is paradoxical as it provides safe passage for players to enjoy and progress in soccer as well as limiting the extent to which transformational change can occur.

Sports clubs and NGBsalike have a duty to commit to facilitating transformational change in sport. Ideas to develop this could include: shaping the structures at club level to place equal value and worth on both girls’ and boys’ provision; empowering girls and boys to take action and to speak out against injustice; and lastly, creating an open environment for children and young people to enjoy their participation. Soccer playing can and does provide an avenue for girls and women to challenge dominant discourses surrounding the game, but simply participating is not enough, and ‘shrugging off’ abuse and discouragement as banter means ‘real’ cultural resistance has no stability.

Footnotes

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Notes

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