WOMEN AND FOOTBALL IN BRAZIL: A POSSIBLE GAME?

• Grant number: 19/07231-4
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships abroad - Research Internship - Doctorate
• Effective date (Start): August 10, 2019
• Effective date (End): March 26, 2020
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - Psychology - Social Psychology
• Principal Investigator: José Sterza Justo
• Grantee: Talita Machado Vieira
• Supervisor: Rui Manuel Proenca de Campos Garcia
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Ciências e Letras (FCL-ASSIS). Universidade Estadual Paulista (UNESP). Campus de Assis. Assis , SP, Brazil
• Research place: Universidade do Porto (UP), Portugal
• Associated to the scholarship: 17/18130-9 - Women and football in Brazil: a possible game?, BP.DR

Abstract

Traditionally, sports are linked to the ideals of masculinity, being usual the promotion to the sport practice between men, because, supposedly, would aid in the development of aptitudes and characteristics desirable them: virility, courage, competitiveness and strength. Such a perspective is related to the established norms of gender, which classify and qualify bodies according to the binary principle of the sex-gender system. In the Brazilian context, football is the sport where such concerns arise in a forceful way, above all by the game of visibility-concealment of the modality in the media that, arbitrated by diverse interests and dominant forces, puts to advantage the masculine soccer and obfuscates the feminine one. Based on these considerations, we raise the following questions: What constitutes the experience of women practicing football in the areas of income and training, regarding gender normativity present in this sport? What difficulties do these athletes face in entering and remaining in competitive football? What difficulties, satisfactions and empowerments do they experience in football? Based on these inquiries, the objective of this project is to investigate the experience of women practicing soccer. For this, the qualitative research will have as a unit of analysis new entrants in the career of soccer athletes and women who already practice this profession. Such field investigation will be carried out next to a football club which has basic category and main women's football team. We will adopt cartography as a methodological strategy, using interviews and observations, as instruments of data collection. At the end of this research trajectory, we hope to accumulate theoretical and empirical conditions to discuss the impact of gender norms on the subjectivation of women who elect soccer as a profession.