Abstract
This article reports on the findings from a social anthropological ethnographic study conducted within the area of women’s freestyle wrestling in Barcelona. The study focused on exploring female wrestlers’ experiences of the connection between their participation and visibility in this sport and the hegemonic gendered cultural schemas established within our society in relation to gender. The ethnography comprised participant interviews and observations which enabled an exploratory thematic analysis of the relevant experiences of female wrestlers and situates these in the context of gender relations in the sport and in society. The preliminary findings are that freestyle wrestling in this context remains a sexist environment and wrestling shows still include stereotyped discourses when it comes to the staging of women’s matches. While there has been some development in terms of female participation in this environment, male dominated discourses, practices and infrastructures still represent a significant barrier for the development of women’s wrestling in Spain.
Highlights
IntroductionMy aim with this paper is to analyse women’s wrestling in the city of Barcelona
Introduction and Context ofWomen’s WrestlingMy aim with this paper is to analyse women’s wrestling in the city of Barcelona
A show is held every month during the ten-month-long season and represents an opportunity for the male and female wrestlers to put everything they have learned in their training sessions into practice
Summary
My aim with this paper is to analyse women’s wrestling in the city of Barcelona. There are women’s wrestling schools in three other cities around Spain (Barcelona, Madrid, Bilbao and Seville) and, as such, these are areas where freestyle wrestling shows are held. This study focuses on the area of women’s wrestling and I will look at female wrestlers who have already made their competitive debut and others who are just starting out, training in a school with a view to entering a wrestling show at a later date. The Telecinco channel, the Spanish broadcaster, renamed it ‘Las Chicas con las Chicas’ (Girls vs Girls) for the Spanish audience. Telecinco did not dub the original into European Spanish, broadcasting the Latin American Spanish version, they did contract the services of the commentator, Héctor del Mar.
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