Abstract
This study explores the gendered narratives constructed in the coverage of the 2016 Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) European Championship football tournament in selected English newspapers. Using qualitative textual analysis, the study tests the efficacy of three established classifications and draws them together with a new, fourth classification thereby creating a typology of the (re)presentations of emphasised femininity. The analysis suggests that despite the increasing prevalence of female sports journalists and the increasing coverage of female athletes in a variety of sports, including football, the reporting of men’s football in the English popular press continues to cast women in subordinate and sexualised roles. Furthermore, women who challenge these roles, particularly those who establish their own voice within the event’s discursive space, are criticised.
Highlights
This study explores the gendered narratives constructed in the coverage of the 2016 Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) European Championship football tournament in selected English newspapers
Much analysis on the representation of femininity in sport focuses on the mediation of sportswomen, which has left a significant gap in research about thepresentation of women and the articulation of femininity in the discursive space centred around male sport(s)
The short article about Vardy’s Twitter use was accompanied by a photo of her in lingerie, reinforcing both the dominant classification of women found in the analysis – the ‘sexualised pin-up’ – and the contradictory discourse identified by Ferrante (1994) in her study of baseball, where women were afforded the dual roles of bringing comfort and support to their menfolk while being sexual temptresses who are to blame for the players’ failure. These findings suggest that despite improvements in the coverage of female athletes, coverage of other women associated with sport, female non-athletes presented in coverage of men’s football, remains highly resistant to change and continues to demonstrate entrenched gender ideologies and dominant representations of femininity
Summary
This study explores the gendered narratives constructed in the coverage of the 2016 Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) European Championship football tournament in selected English newspapers. Clayton and Harris (2004) noted that footballers’ partners and the way they were represented in the media conformed to a particular look, being ‘slim, attractive and with tanned complexion, complementing their “natural” femininity with glamorous and often skimpy outfits’ (2004: 325) leading them to identify the typology of The Pin-Up Wife. They went on to argue that such ‘associations with stereotypically beautiful women are powerful images for the production of an individual masculine guise and in the construction of a masculinised footballing milieu’ (2004: 324)
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