%0 Journal Article
%T Re
%A Beth Fielding-Lloyd
%A Jack Black
%J International Review for the Sociology of Sport
%@ 1461-7218
%D 2019
%R 10.1177/1012690217706192
%X In 2015, the England Women¡¯s national football team finished third at the Women¡¯s World Cup in Canada. Alongside the establishment of the Women¡¯s Super League in 2011, the success of the women¡¯s team posed a striking contrast to the recent failures of the England men¡¯s team and in doing so presented a timely opportunity to examine the negotiation of hegemonic discourses on gender, sport and football. Drawing upon an ¡®established-outsider¡¯ approach, this article examines how, in newspaper coverage of the England women¡¯s team, gendered constructions revealed processes of alteration, assimilation and resistance. Rather than suggesting that ¡®established¡¯ discourses assume a normative connection between masculinity and football, the findings reveal how gendered ¡®boundaries¡¯ were both challenged and protected in newspaper coverage. Despite their success, the discursive positioning of the women¡¯s team as ¡®outsiders¡¯, served to (re)establish men¡¯s football as superior, culturally salient and ¡®better¡¯ than the women¡¯s team/game. Accordingly, we contend that attempts to build and, in many instances, rediscover the history of women¡¯s football can be used to challenge established cultural representations that draw exclusively from the history of the men¡¯s game. In such instances, the 2015 Women¡¯s World Cup provides a historical moment from which the women¡¯s game can be relocated in a context of popular culture
%K 2015 women¡¯s world cup
%K established-outsiders
%K gender
%K sports media
%K women¡¯s football
%K women¡¯s sport
%U https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/1012690217706192