ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the relationship between Fijian women, rugby and heteropatriarchy. It presents the stories of predominantly indigenous and non-heteronormative women, whose pursuit of the game, despite severe backlash at family and community levels, is explored as both overt and covert resistance against postcolonial heteropatriarchy. The chapter also examines the women’s use of rugby as a medium of oppositional gender embodiment and assesses the extent to which they have successfully appropriated the game’s nationalist symbolism to disrupt the gendered rugby discourse. These are aided by several conceptual tools, including ‘varieties of patriarchy’, ‘patriarchal bargain’ and ‘hegemony’. Women and non-heteronormative Fijians have similarly experienced physical as well as socio-political forms of domination. Gender justice advocacy has conventionally been denounced as an ‘anti-Christian and anti-Fijian’ sacrilege that ‘would destroy the essential nature of Fijian indigenous society’. Women rugby players have historically faced an array of backlash at family and community levels, in stark contrast to the concerted assistance offered to male players.
