‘Partners’, ‘mothers’, and ‘tomboys’. female football fans in the structural trap of assigned roles in Poland

Abstract

ABSTRACT The number of studies on female fans has recently increased, reflecting the growing number of women in the stands. Studies pay special attention to women’s identification and engagement in football fandom and the ways women struggle for recognition. However, they tend to marginalize the role of other actors in the process of feminization of football. This paper intends to fill this gap by describing the roles imposed on female fans by male fans and other stakeholders. The study draws on interviews conducted with male fans as well as other stakeholders. It tries to show that football culture offers a fixed repertoire of available roles for women: ‘partners’, ‘tomboys’ and ‘mothers’. The research argues that the identified set of social roles tends to reproduce masculine hegemony in the football stands. It is due to the fact that in order to be a part of fandom culture women have to fit into traditional gender roles and meet expectations provided by men instead of developing a distinctive female fandom.