ABSTRACT
Phenomenology, much like symbolic interactionism, is a diverse enterprise. In the following chapter Joseph Kotarba and Matt Held owe primarily to the existentialist tradition in their grounded analysis the deeply personal meanings and experiences of females who play American football. Female football players are by no means as popular as their male counterparts, and indeed the marginality – and one might even suggest the deviant character – of such practices turns out to be precisely the source of meaningfulness, uniqueness, and distinction for their sense of self-identity. As these women become accustomed to tackling “like women,” the social world of American football becomes feminized while at the same time their playing bodies begin to assume new meanings: from stigma to pride, from exclusion to inclusion, and from lack of comfort within one’s skin to embodied authenticity. Tackling “like women” thus turns out to be an exercise in the care of the gendered self. As Kotarba and Held explain, for women who play football, performance is all about authentic femininity, one violent hit at a time.
