‘Forgive me for saying, but rugby is not a game for women:’ an exploration of contemporary attitudes towards women’s rugby union

Abstract

While sport has traditionally been seen, and represented, as a male domain, some sports, such as rugby, have been particularly ‘gender-typed’ as masculine. However, in recent years, this narrative has been challenged by the rising profile, and popularity, of women’s rugby. In response to these shifts, this paper uses a survey to explore rugby fans’ attitudes towards women’s rugby and employs a framework adapted from the study of football to make sense of the data. The findings suggest that although some rugby fans’ attitudes align with the earlier football model, covert misogyny is a less salient category. Furthermore, female fans of rugby are as likely to hold overtly misogynistic and sexist attitudes towards the women’s game as male fans. Finally, it suggests that the middle-class culture of the sport is more likely to lead to careful impression management when discussing women’s rugby, which is reflected in our use of the category of ‘gender-bland’.