ABSTRACT
The marginalisation of women is not unique to football of course, but a relic of historically acquired inequalities of the sexes in sport in general. Critical inquiries into the world of sport have disclosed that sport has always been a ‘sexual battlefield’ in which familiar stereotypes of men and women are communicated and reinforced (Boyle and Haynes 2000: 127). Sport emerged as a conservative domain for the representation of gender since male domination in sport was established in the 19th century. Biological scientism and the social organisation of modernity, in particular the segregation of gender roles, provided the ideological nutrient for the legitimation of gender discrimination in sport. While the spread of liberal democratic ideology in the latter half of the 20th century triggered tremendous changes in patterns of leisure and consumption, and in relations between the sexes, cultural and economic constraints have continued to act upon women’s representation and participation in sport. It is equally true that whilst
the advance of consumer society has opened new opportunities for women’s participation in sport, competition with men’s sport has severely threatened its financial base, its access to limited, yet likewise claimed, resources, and its media coverage. In the West, economic market principles may have overtaken sexist ideology and discrimination against women in sport, but in so doing the power relations between the sexes have been disguised and the male prerogative preserved.
