women’s soccer – Football Scholars Forum

The 2015 Women’s World Cup: Impact and Aftermath

November 23, 2015November 9, 2022 alegi

In the final session before taking a much-deserved mid-season holiday break, the Football Scholars Forum will discuss the impact and aftermath of the 2015 Women’s World Cup. The session is scheduled to take place on Tuesday, December 1, at 1:45pm Eastern U.S. Time (-5 GMT).

The online discussion is set to include many of the writers and scholars who expertly contributed to international media coverage of the tournament.

As is traditional with FSF, a common set of readings (and a video lecture!) will help spark and sustain conversation on a number of topics and questions related to the WWC: from FIFA, plastic pitches, and global inequalities to match ethnographies, the first U.S. victory in 16 years, and what’s in store for women’s football in the years to come.

Please RSVP to Alex Galarza (galarza DOT alex AT gmail) and provide your Skype username if participating for the first time. Follow the convo on Twitter via the hashtag #FSFWWC15

Shared Resources

Jean Williams, “Women and Soccer: Research Agendas and Policy Debates,” plenary lecture at The Futures of Women’s Soccer Symposium, Duke University Forum for Scholars and Publics, April 10, 2015 [watch]
Jean Williams, “Women’s soccer evolution a product of pre-World-Cup-era resolve,” Upfront & Onside/SI.com, June 9, 2015
Brian Oliver, “All is not as rosy as it seems in the world of women’s football ahead of World Cup,” Inside The Games, June 7, 2015
Laurent Dubois and Brenda Elsey, “As Women’s World Cup nears its end, perspective on a month in Canada,” Upfront & Onside/SI.com, July 3, 2015
Shireen Ahmed and Dave Zirin, “African Artistry and Anger at the Women’s World Cup,” The Nation, July 1, 2015
Laurent Dubois, “France vs. Germany quarterfinal highlights best of women’s soccer,” Upfront & Onside/SI.com, June 27, 2015
Brenda Elsey, “A first-hand account of Brazil’s Women’s World Cup clash with Spain,” Upfront & Onside/SI.com, June 17, 2015
Moya Dodd, “FIFA, football and women: why reform must specify inclusion and investment,” Submission to Francois Carrard, Chair of FIFA Reform Committee, October 2015
Rose Eveleth, “An Ode to Sydney Leroux’s Eyelashes,” Screamer, June 30, 2015
Andrew Guest, “Field Notes: An Anthropology of the Women’s World Cup” The Allrounder 26 June 2015

Additional Resources

Series Upfront & Onside/SI.com Throughout the Women’s World Cup an array of accomplished writers and scholars filed regularly from Canada with an eye on bringing a wide-ranging scope to the 2015 tournament. The cast of writers featured many Football Scholars Forum members, including: Laurent Dubois, Jean Williams, Brenda Elsey, Jennifer Doyle, Shireen Ahmed, Joshua Nadel and Lindsay Sarah Krasnoff.

Shireen Ahmed, “Women’s World Cup May Seem Like a Feminist Fairy Tale, But the Fight’s Not Over”, RH Reality Check, July 10, 2015

Jean Williams, “When Two Elephants Fight, It is the Grass That Suffers,” Football Scholars Forum, December 1, 2015

Gwendolyn Oxenham, “Pinoe’s Biggest Fan,” Ussoccer.com, June 14, 2015

Andrew Guest, “A Thinking Fan’s Guide to the Women’s World Cup” The Allrounder 4 June 2015

Margery Masterson, “Watching the Women’s World Cup in the USA,” womenworkvalue2015, June 2015

CIES, Women’s Football Survey 2014 [pdf]

A Pitch of Her Own

December 10, 2014May 20, 2015 alegi

Author (standing, first from left) with Ethiopia's national women's team. National Stadium, Addis Ababa, 2011. Photo: Saavedra. — Author (standing, first from left) with Ethiopia’s national women’s team. National Stadium, Addis Ababa, 2011. Photo: Saavedra.

By Martha Saavedra

Martha Saavedra is Associate Director of the Center for African Studies at the University of California Berkeley. Trained as a Political Scientist, she has taught at St. Mary’s College of California, UC Berkeley, Ohio University and the Escuela de Estudios Universitarios Real Madrid. Her research has ranged from agrarian politics, development and ethnic conflict in the Nuba Mountains of Sudan to gender and sport in Africa to a collaborative project on representations of Africa in Chinese popular culture. She has been on the editorial boards of Soccer and Society; Sport in Society; and Impumelelo: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Sports in Africa. A veteran of Title IX battles, she has played soccer for over 30 years and coached boys teams for 12 years.

On Tuesday at the University of California, Berkeley, I attended a panel discussion on Gender for a New Century: Countering Violence and Social Exclusions. The panel focused on important issues that the international community will be addressing in 2015 via United Nations’ assessments of efforts derived from the Millennium Development Goals and the Beijing Platform for Action frameworks. Faculty from UCB raised a number of really important topics including transnational labor markets, migration, sustainability, water & sanitation, disability rights, 2+ genders systems, culturally embedded gender-based violence, economic policy implications, nationalism and education. Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, United Nations Under-Secretary-General, Executive Director of UN Women, the featured speaker, responded to these points and suggested how gender might be addressed given the convergence at the UN of post-2015 MDG and Beijing 20+ discussions. It was an invigorating discussion setting out important aspirations, points of leverage, and boundaries for upcoming high level and impactful debates. Yet, nary was intimated about sport, physical activity, or, that all important endeavor, football.

Earlier that day in the office, before the gender event, a couple of us watched the United Nations sponsored ‘Africa United’ videos on youtube featuring Idris Elba as well as Carlton Cole, Yaya Touré, Andros Townsend, Patrick Vieira, Kei Kamara and Fabrice Muamba. (Also dubbed in Krio and French.) You’ve got to watch them if you love football, and ‘007 Idris, and if you are at all involved in efforts to confront the fears, misconceptions and realities of the current Ebola outbreak in West Africa. Idris says “Its key strength is passing.” How can you not believe? “We are not heroes.” The health workers – “you are the true heroes”. The world’s most important team. Kudos to them. Not much to argue with there. But, of course, the UN does not call upon women footballers to help carry this message.
Read More

The National Teams We Know Nothing About

December 9, 2014June 2, 2015 alegi

By Gwen Oxenham

Gwen Oxenham is the author of Finding the Game and coproducer of the documentary film Pelada. A Duke University soccer alum, she played professionally for Santos FC in Brazil in 2005. Gwen received an MFA in creative writing from the University of Notre Dame and currently teaches English and plays in pickup games in Southern California.

In 2004, I played futebol feminino for Santos FC. We hitchhiked to practice, shared our field with a horse, slept four or five girls to a room, wore XL hand-me-downs from the men, did plyometrics over make-shift cardboard hurdles and often ran sprints on the main highway, occupying a lane, cars swerving around us.

This experience made me wonder about the women’s football happening in the rest of the world: If this was what futebol feminino looked like in Brazil, the mecca of futebol, what does the women’s game look like in other countries? What’s it like to be a female player in Ecuador? In Côte d’Ivoire? In Argentina? Like Brenda Elsey and Joshua Nadel noted in “Marimachos: On Women’s Football in Latin America,” television networks and newspapers are slow to cover even big events like World Cup qualifying tournaments. If media outlets don’t even cover outcomes, how little is out there about the actual experiences of women footballers?