Article
Football, it’s a man’s game:
Insult and gendered discourse
in The Gender Bowl
Discourse & Society
22(5) 547­–564
© The Author(s) 2011
Reprints and permission: sagepub.
co.uk/journalsPermissions.nav
DOI: 10.1177/0957926511405574
das.sagepub.com
Jacqueline McDowell and Spencer Schaffner
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, USA
Abstract
Women’s participation as athletes in American football precipitates gendered conflict, in that the
routine reproduction of masculine discourse and identity is challenged. As such, the purpose of
this study was to explore how the creation of discourses of masculinity and femininity undermine
most women’s access and acceptance into American football. Utilizing critical discourse analysis,
an analysis of The Gender Bowl (Jordan et al., 2005), a reality TV program featuring a full-contact
football game between women and men, revealed how men sought to preserve the social
relations of football and how women sought to contest this masculine domain in part by adopting
typically masculine linguistic practices of insult. Results of the analysis revealed interdiscursivity
of two discourses of gender relations: discourses of conservative gender relations iterated by
the men, discourses of conflict from both men and women, and discourses of egalitarian gender
relations iterated by the women.
Keywords
battle of the sexes, football, gender, Gender Bowl, insult
Let’s leave the women folk at home, this is football, women folk don’t play football. Women
folk watch football, they enjoy football, we appreciate them watching, but guys, let’s leave the
women folk home and let’s get to business. (Put Up Your Dukes, former sports television talk
show)
There are so many things about playing football that seem to me uniquely American. Anybody
can succeed, anybody can play, but you’ve got to work hard to do it. (Dean Cain, American
actor, cited in Lineback, 2004)
Corresponding author:
Jacqueline McDowell, Department of Recreation, Sport and Tourism, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign,
104 Huff Hall, MC-584, 1206 South Fourth Street, Champaign, IL 61820, USA.
Email: [email protected]
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Discourse & Society 22(5)
The two introductory quotes serve to exemplify some of the contradictory gendered
discourses surrounding American football. In the first quote, football is seen as an
exclusively male sport; whereas, in the latter quote, Dean Cain expresses the notion that
the game, as ‘uniquely American’, is necessarily defined by full access to participation.
These conflicting discourses help define American football as a potential site of gendered contestation because of the ways that the sport has been traditionally designated
as a masculine, aggressive activity that precludes female participants (Koivula, 2001;
Postow, 1980). In American football, ‘male athletes are portrayed and perceived as
tough, hard players who rarely express emotions other than aggression and anger and
only smile to celebrate victory, while women play the role of cheerleaders, who are
perceived by the viewer to be feminine and glamorous, exhibiting cheerful emotions
and glittering smiles, demonstratively cheering on “their guys”’ (Shaw and Hoeber,
2003: 351). For women to compete with and against men on what is referred to as the
gridiron of American football is both to challenge traditional constructions of American
masculinity and to question the extent to which democratic ideals of full participation
are realized in the American public sphere.
This is a study of just such a competition, staged in the form of a reality TV show
called The Gender Bowl (Jordan et al., 2005). The Gender Bowl centered on a fullcontact football game between two teams – one all-male and the other all-female. We
read The Gender Bowl as both a rupture from and a re-entrenchment of the traditionally
gendered, masculinist nature of American football. This ambivalent reading of the contest is in part because of limitations posed by the structure of the reality TV event itself:
the men’s team in The Gender Bowl, for instance, consisted of former high school
football players between the ages of 30 and 48,1 while the women’s team consisted of
professional female football players at the height of their athletic careers as members of
the National Women’s Football Association (NWFA, 2008).2 So, in a very important
way, the structure of the contest undermined its viability as a struggle for equality.
Nonetheless, our discourse analysis of the transcript from The Gender Bowl (which
included more than the sporting contest itself) reveals examples of female participants
contesting their traditional exclusion from the masculine domain of American football
with male players seeking to preserve entrenched forms of male status and privilege.
Additionally, we describe a complex relationship in the dynamics of linguistic gendered
conflict in which complementary and symmetrical schizmogenesis (Tannen, 2005: 31,
135) coexist in gendered conflict. As we describe, the central conflict of The Gender
Bowl, which is to say the battle-of-the-sexes sporting contest itself, is defined by symmetrical schizmogenesis. That symmetrical pairing is only put into motion, however,
through a critical sequence of linguistic banter defined by complementary schizmogenesis. This is a case study in which female participants actively appropriate practices of
linguistic insult that have been traditionally marked as masculine aspects of all-male
sporting events (Adams et al., 2010). Multiple forms of conflict – linguistic and physical –
are enacted in The Gender Bowl to amount to a momentary rupture, which is followed by
the ultimate reestablishment of concretized social systems.
Through our analysis of The Gender Bowl, we show how the creation, development
and reiteration of discourses of masculinity and femininity have been a significant
McDowell and Schaffner
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mechanism for the gendering of sports and how these discourses are one way that most
women’s access and acceptance into American football is undermined. We first present a
conceptual framework outlining the development of discourses of masculinity and
femininity in sports and how these discourses contribute to the continued existence of
gendered sports, and normative boundaries discouraging women’s acceptance into
traditionally masculine sports. Finally, in order to gain insight into the development and
reiteration of gendered discourses and their influence on individuals’ participation in
sports, we engage in an analysis of transcribed media clips from The Gender Bowl.
Conceptual framework
In the sport domain, many gendered discourses prevail centered around the reinforcement of masculine hegemony and the reproduction and reinforcement of a ‘White and
heterosexual hegemonic femininity’ (Krane et al., 2004: 316). For instance, in trivialization or marginalization gendered discourses, gender relations are instituted as a hierarchy
of male domination and female subordination (Pirinen, 1997); and thus, these discourses
range from those that seek to reveal and challenge ‘natural’ forms of dominance to one’s
seeking to maintain male domination. In contrast to these discourses, egalitarian discourses of gender relationships seek to expose discriminatory practices and remove
structural or human barriers that prevent females from fully participating in sport.
The aim of equality discourses is to ensure equal opportunities for men and women, and
these discourses point to cultural conceptions of femininity rather than ‘any inherent
­limitation of women’s bodies’ as a major barrier to women’s participation in sport
(Pirinen, 1997: 239). Finally, in separatist discourse, competitive sport has been criticized
for encouraging racial and gender discrimination, male superiority, homophobia, aggression and violence; and, as a result of these criticisms, many sport feminists have sought
women-only competitive or non-competitive practices outside the male-dominated sport
system (Hargreaves, 1994; Pirinen, 1997).
Despite the presence of discourses serving to contest current gender relations in
sport, discourses serving to maintain masculine hegemonic gender boundaries have
marginalized those seeking to challenge such ideologies. The incessant verbalization of
these discourses make inequitable gender relations in sport appear to be natural when in
fact such relations are specious; contemporary sociality is based largely on prejudice,
injustice and inequality (McGregor, 2003; Van Dijk, 1993). The vitality and reinforcement of these discourses is further maintained by multiple social mechanisms. For
example, the gendering of sports is maintained through sport typing, whereby certain
sports are defined as male (such as football or boxing), female (such as synchronized
swimming or rhythmic gymnastics) or gender neutral on the basis of descriptive and
injunctive societal gender norms (Kane, 1995; Laberge and Albert, 2000). As sport
typing is justified on the basis of generalized biological differences, women, as a whole,
are perceived as not capable of performing such activities, thus continuing to support
the continued and wide-scale segregation of sport by gender (Kane, 1995).
Metheny (1965) and Postow (1980) surmised that sports labeled as feminine were
ones that allow female participants to remain true to the stereotyped expectations of
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femininity (such as being graceful and nonaggressive) and that provide audiences with
spectacles of beauty and aesthetic pleasure. In contrast to these characteristics,
Metheny (1965) argued that the attributes of masculine sports include: (a) the utilization of body contact to physically overpower the opponent; (b) direct use of bodily
force to move heavy objects; (c) projection of body into or through space over distances; and (d) face-to-face competition in situations in which body contact may happen. These characteristics are believed to be suitable expressions of masculine
attributes such as aggressiveness, effectiveness and power (Koivula, 2001; Metheny,
1965). Such norms of conflict and antagonism also have linguistic dimensions. As
Adams et al. (2010) have shown, in their study of male coaches and players, ‘toxic
language’ is used in all-male sporting contexts to both maintain and construct particular
forms of masculinity.
As a result of sport typing, for many years women’s sport opportunities have been
restricted; however, women have started entering traditionally all-male sports in
increasing numbers (Laberge and Albert, 2000; Pirinen, 1997; Wedgwood, 2004).
Such entry has been selective and continues to be an ongoing struggle, as they encounter a ‘Catch-22 situation’ in that they compete on unequal terms and are unequally
recognized for their achievements (Byrson, 2003). As noted by Byrson, ‘each layer
ensnares a certain number of female participants, or would be participants. If the first
layer does not get you, then it is very likely that one of the subsequent ones will’
(2003: 307). We see this in the very structure of The Gender Bowl in that young, professional female athletes are pitted against older, non-professional male quasi-athletes.
If the female participants were to defeat their male opponents, such a victory would be
conditional.
Current gender relations in sport are likewise maintained by erasing women’s accomplishments, making selective gender comparisons, ‘regendering’ and classifying female
athletes as either mutants (Kane, 1995) or homosexual (Broad, 2001). First, via erasure,
the systematic media invisibility of females playing sports exclusively identified as
male (such as rugby, ice hockey) serves to protect beliefs that these types of sports and
the physical attributes needed to succeed (strength, speed, aggressiveness) are the
natural domain of males. Also, the ‘regendering’ of women likewise serves to maintain
current gender relations in sport. Regendering is when a female who displays superior
athleticism is purported to perform like a male; this discounts female capabilities by
equating superior athleticism with maleness (Kane, 1995). Moreover, females who
actively participate in traditionally male sports or appropriate stereotypical masculine
behavior face being labeled as ‘deviant mutants’. The label refers to women who, as a
result of deviating from traditional expectations of femininity, have their standing as real
females questioned (Kane, 1995). Many successful female athletes have been labeled as
lesbians because of their deviation from traditional gender role behavior (Broad, 2001;
Kane, 1995; Koivula, 2001), while others have been subjected to sex tests (such as
Caster Semenya3) to prove that they are biological females. Finally, the suppression of
evidence of a sport continuum is likewise maintained through selective gender comparisons when men and women compete together. For example, in a co-ed event, such as a
marathon race, the male winner’s time is typically emphasized over the female winner’s
time, but it is not recognized or highlighted that the female winner outperformed a
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significant number of men (Kane, 1995). This selective gender comparison serves to
privilege men and maintain male hegemony.
Methodology
This study is based on close readings of a transcript of the reality TV show The Gender
Bowl (2005), and our focus is on interviews with participants and some filmed talk-ininteraction. Fairclough’s theory and method of critical discourse analysis (CDA) guided
our analysis, as CDA aims to show how language is inconspicuously involved in establishing and maintaining current social issues and problems (Fairclough, 1995, 2001; Van
Dijk, 1993). CDA is guided by three defining central tenets: (a) discourses are shaped
and constrained by social structures (such as class, gender, age) and by culture;
(b) discourses shape and constrain individual identities, relationships and systems of
knowledge and beliefs; and (c) CDA focuses on the relationship between actual words,
discursive practices (i.e. rules and conventions governing thoughts, speech and actions)
and the social context (Fairclough, 2001; Huckin, 1997). Thus, in line with these guiding tenets, CDA has been defined as the analysis of ‘written texts and spoken words to
reveal the discursive sources of power, dominance, inequality, and bias and how these
sources are initiated, maintained, reproduced, and transformed within specific social,
economic, political, and historical contexts’ (McGregor, 2003, para. 6).
Data analysis
The television broadcast of The Gender Bowl was transcribed verbatim with special
attention placed on the participants’ use of stress, modulation and gestures. (Transcription
notations are provided in the Appendix at the end of the article.) The Gender Bowl
lasted 2 hours and 25 minutes, and the focus of our analysis was on all pre-game and
one-on-one interview talk-in-interaction; we also attended to a short press conference,
which is part of the reality TV show, and to voice-over commentary made during the
game. It is important to note that, like all reality TV documentary shows, The Gender
Bowl depicts an edited version of reality that heightens such things as sensationalism
and drama through editing, post-production techniques, scripted behaviors and speech
manipulation – all of which are used to attract viewers (Booth, 2004). Despite having
some scripted scenes, reality TV shows, in featuring spontaneous talk-in-interaction,
can be revealing in terms of societal values and behaviors. We view The Gender Bowl as
a highly filtered, yet highly revealing site of linguistic and physical contestation.
In line with the tenets of CDA, analyses were conducted at three levels: (a) the actual
text; (b) the discursive practices; and (c) the larger social context (Fairclough, 1995). At
the text level, a microanalysis of the sentences, phrases and words was conducted to look
for overt and subtle manifestation of dominance. CDA was used to examine linguistic
choices, primarily pertaining to rhetorical constructions and lexical choices. In particular, we looked for insinuations, omissions, presuppositions and connotations. An analysis
of the discursive practices entailed an analysis of gendered rules, expectations and norms
that dictate socially accepted behavior and influence how individuals think, act and
speak (McGregor, 2003). At the third level, an analysis of the immediate social context,
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The Gender Bowl, and gendered discourses in the larger US society, was conducted
to uncover conventions that determined the appropriateness or inappropriateness of
American football for females.
Findings
What we define as the ‘battle of the sexes’ frame is the predominant structuring feature
of The Gender Bowl, meaning that most utterances in the event index this particular kind
of sporting contest and cultural drama. As Tannen describes, a frame is ‘a subordinate
category within which meaning must be interpreted’ and situated language use is only
understood ‘by reference to a frame’ (2005: 32). The ‘battle of the sexes’ discourse is
anchored in the 1973 tennis match between Billie Jean King and Bobby Riggs; a central
feature of such events is a ‘patriarchal fear of women winning the battle’ (Sunderland,
2004: 43) and thus unsettling codified notions of separate gendered spheres. There is an
implicit assumption that, via such a sporting contest, one group can gain or maintain an
advantage at the expense of the other. Sport, then, is seen as a particularly salient cultural
battlefield for larger societal issues.
In the case of the football game at the center of The Gender Bowl, the battle-of-thesexes frame is indexed by men and women football players and coaches in different
ways. Specifically, the interdiscursivity of two discourses of gender relations is apparent: a discourse of conservative gender relations and an opposing discourse of egalitarian gender relations (Lazar, 2000). This interdiscursivity, which is oppositional, is
brought into being in the encounter through the linguistic appropriation (by the female
participants) of a discourse of insult. The particular form of insult that is adopted by the
female participants has been described as characteristic of all-male talk-in-interaction in
mainstream organized sport (Adams et al., 2010). In The Gender Bowl, the male participants routinely reveal commitments to maintaining gender inequality and conservatism.
The conservative discourse of gender relations, which is aligned with trivialization
and marginalization discourses, favors a traditional, asymmetrical relationship between
females and males. Through this discourse, women and men are encouraged to abide
with the circumscriptions inherent in traditional gender roles, responsibilities and expectations. A battle-of-the-sexes event is referred to by the male participants as an opportunity to maintain superior male athletic ability and showcase inferior female abilities,
regardless of age or training.
In contrast, following their strategic deployment of insult, the female football players
referred to the battle-of-the-sexes event as an opportunity to ultimately establish gender
equality. Egalitarian discourses counter gender defined roles and strive for gender parity
in all aspects of public and personal life (Lazar, 2000; Pirinen, 1997). The contest, for the
female participants, seemed to be viewed as a way to engage in what we have referred to
as symmetrical schizmogenesis, or mirrored conflictual behavior, as a mechanism for
ultimately repairing rifts and disparities between men and women.
The appropriation of insult
In their study of an all-male British football (soccer) team, Adams et al. (2010: 293)
find that ‘the construction and regulation of masculinity’ is established and maintained
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by ‘two types of discourses … (a) masculinity establishing discourse and (b) masculinity
challenging discourse’. In this research, insult is found to be a key part of the challenging
discourse and integral to the maintenance of normative male gender in the context of
competitive sport. Insult helps with the regulation of dominant forms of masculinity at
multiple levels. Hypermasculinity is both productive of and produced by many forms of
mainstream sporting behavior. As Esera Tuaolo (2006: 3) has written in his autobiographical account of being a closeted gay man in the National Football League in the
USA: ‘In other words, [the other players] would have taken me out so that their own
masculinity would not be questioned for playing alongside a sissy’. Hypermasculine
American football is a zone of strict internal policing.
As reality TV programming, The Gender Bowl begins with several drama-establishing
scenes. The narrative begins with the over-30 male participants being recruited to the
team and then met with a surprise: their opponents will be female professional football
players. In the initial encounter between the two teams, members of the all-female team
begin to insult the male participants with a ‘male challenging discourse’ focused on
questioning virility. Excerpts 1 and 2, uttered by female participants, demonstrate this:
1.
2.
I see some balding going on back there. What’s up with that? Some gray- Some gray. What’s
all this? ((Points at her stomach)) Big boy 77, what’s all this? ((taps her stomach)) Where
your other shoe at? Ya’ll look broke down. BROKE.. DOWN!
<in a soft baby voice>That’s okay, I’ll rub your tummy for you.>
This verbal performance, initiated by female participants long before the actual football
game begins, comprises the beginning of the contest. It is through the appropriation of
the modality of insult that the female participants both attempt to ‘level the playing
field’ and incite animosity in the men – a requisite for the contest to take place. The
use of insult functions in the exchange as what Tannen has described as complementary
schizmogenesis (2005: 31, 135). Unlike the sporting contest itself, which is marked by
symmetrical physical conflict, this moment in The Gender Bowl is marked by complementary (or quite different) linguistic behavior: the female participants co-opt discourse
patterns marked as masculine in order to incite rage in the men. Of course, it is this rage
that American football depends upon. Complementary and symmetrical schizmogenesis
work in tandem in this instance of gendered conflict, with the female participants upsetting established balances of order in order to gain their chance, through the symmetrical
sporting contest, to achieve their goals of gender equity.
Two responses made by male participants in response to insults from female participants index the extent to which verbal dueling (Schwebel, 1997) both creates a sense of
rupture and becomes integral to setting up the physical conflict:
3.
4.
Coach: When those women started calling them out, started talking noise. They [the male
players] saw that they were for real. They were going to bring it. A sense of urgency came
among them.
Men’s assistant coach: I don’t like them coming into our house and talking smack to us on
our field about what they’re going to do to us. This is our game. This is our sport. Always
has been. If we lose this game we are forever gonna be known as the guys who let women
in to … What’s next?
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As the coach of the all-male team says, ‘a sense of urgency came among them [i.e. the
male players]’. It is worth noting that without this sense of urgency (rhetoricians would
call it a verbally constructed exigence [Bitzer, 1968]) on the all-male side of the conflict,
the game would not transpire. Without the game, the socio-political goals of the female
participants (discussed below) could not be initiated. It is through the appropriation and
then deployment of insult that the female contestants bring the sporting contest that is at
the center of The Gender Bowl into existence. A verbal battle initiates the physical battle
on the field.
Discourse of conservative gender relations
Attempts by the female participants in The Gender Bowl to disrupt longstanding power
relations were not met without a fight. Discourses of conservative gender relations were
expressed by the male football players and coaches, and were evidenced in four primary
ways: (a) via expressions of perceived biological gender differences; (b) with references
to females lacking football cultural capital; (c) through the reiteration of gender stereotypes; and (d) via the use of asymmetric denotations to reference men and women.
Biological gender differences. In the sports realm, there is a lens of gender polarization
which works to maintain the notion that males and females’ athletic abilities are inherently different (Cahn, 1994; Coakley, 2004). This discourse of biological gender differences makes unnecessary and tenuous category distinctions that work against women’s
interests (Sunderland, 2004). Evidence of these perceived biological differences is
provided in the following exemplary statements, as the men implicitly refer to women as
athletically inferior:
5. When I saw the women – I was disappointed because I wanted to play – and nothing
against the women or anything like that, but I wanted to play a real football game. You
know? … There are two absolutes. You know. Women cannot write their names in the
snow and they can’t play football with men.
6. I don’t believe in any way, shape or form that we’re going to lose to – to this team, to these
women.
As reflected in statement 5, there is a sense that the presence of women on the football
field diminishes the ‘reality’ of the game, and this reality is grounded in the ‘absolute’
reference to male genitalia. In line with battle-of-the-sexes discourse, perceived superiority of men to women is grounded in the conviction that the men’s football team would
not lose to the women’s team. The contest is seen, then, as an opportunity to reaffirm
male embodied superiority.
Notions of gendered superiority were physically embodied in several ways in the
conflict. This was reinforced by the fact that the women used a smaller football (while on
offense) than the men. Many sports such as basketball and handball likewise implement
smaller balls for women’s sports – even though there is no evidence to show that women
cannot use a same-size or larger ball than men. Thus, the discursive construction of
women, as embodied in ways that are athletically inferior to men, helps to ensure that
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women remain marginalized from participating in American football. This ideology of
female inferiority persists, however, not because of biology but because of ‘socially
constructed and rigidly maintained sport structures’ (Kane, 1995: 201).
Cultural capital differences. In addition to the men’s conceptions about women’s athletic
inferiority, some male participants in the event likewise questioned whether the women
had the mental capacity to comprehend the seemingly complex logistics of American
football. Two statements of this kind were made by male participants:
7.
8.
Women.. DON’T understand football.
Women don’t understand football because genetically they weren’t made up that way.
American football, in these utterances, is not only a physical but an intellectual all-male
enterprise. This notion, expressed by several male participants, that women do not and
cannot understand football, attempts to render football as akin to other male-dominated
domains such as science and engineering. The game is constructed in this way as a conceptual edifice that women cannot enter, not due to exclusion but because of embodied
female shortcomings. Women are unfit for comprehending the apparent complexity of
the game, not because of their training but because of their ‘genes’. In this way, again, it
is the female body that is perceived as too overly encumbered to allow for full participation in the game. Seen another way, the threat that women pose is not only participatory,
but a threat of the female body. In the homosocial, close-contact environment of American
football, it is the female body and its perceived valences that intrude upon the game.
Women, it is presumed, have an unsuitable ‘nature’ and physical build. As professional
football players, it can be taken for granted that the female participants have expansive
knowledge of the logistics of American football, but as a result of societal stereotypes,
even when women have a high degree of football cultural capital, they are only admitted
as ‘honorary’ lads (Whannel, 2007). Further, Whannel asserts that few females ‘develop
that train-spotter fanaticism that permits the squirrelly array of information that can be
flourished to prove credentials’ (2007: 14).
Prevalence of gender stereotypes. Stereotypical expectations of femininity include such
characteristics as being graceful and nonaggressive (Koivula, 2001; Metheny, 1965). An
example of the influence that gender stereotypes have on women’s sport participation
options is illustrated in the following comment made by the assistant coach of the
­all-male team:
9. Women are beautiful creatures. We as men have been taught to open doors for women,
walk on the sidewalk against the street for women, protect and to provide for women.
They do not belong in a football game with us.
The assistant coach’s depiction of women reflects traditional gender typifications of ‘The
Lady’ (Boles and Atkinson, 1988; Clinton, 1982). According to Clinton (1982), prescriptive temperamental and behavioral characteristics of a ‘lady’ include being good, delicate, innocent, kind, weak, pious and calm. Although originating in the antebellum
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period, these social ideas of womanhood have not died and have been reiterated for
generations. These characteristics, along with the coach’s assertion that women be nurtured, protected and provided for, contradict the aggressive nature of football.
The women were likewise aware of gender defined social expectations, as illustrated in a comment made by Cheryl, one of the tight ends for the women’s team:
10. Men don’t accept women playing football becaus:e it’s a very physical:, aggressive
game. And men don’t like to think of women being physical and aggressive.
Similar to the assistant coach’s comments, Cheryl’s statement highlights the prevalent
notion that women’s participation in American football contradicts these stereotypical
expectations and thus is met with disapproval (Koivula, 2001). Cheryl’s comment is
subtly different from that of the assistant coach, though, as he portrays anxiety on behalf
of the men as emanating from a male desire to protect women while Cheryl directly
describes female players as a threat to men.
Use of asymmetric denotations for women. Asymmetric denotations based on gender
were highly prevalent in The Gender Bowl. Asymmetric denotations are observed when
polar opposite terms of address, such as boy and girl and man and woman, are used
inconsistently when referring to men and women of similar age or status (Mean, 2001). For
example, excerpts 11, 12 and 13 illustrate the discursive use of ‘girls’ by the male football players to reference the females. The term was used five times throughout The Gender Bowl – all by the men.
11. I’m going to knock down big girls.
12. We’re not going to loose PERIOD, but I DEFINITELY don’t want to lose to any girls. I
want to be able to slee:p at night alright.
13. You think that I am going to let these girls come in and walk in on me, bring me down in
front of the nation. It’s serious.
Terms of address can be used to denote power and solidarity, and the significance of
particular forms of address lies in the history of pattern usage that marks them with
respect and affection or with contempt or condescension (McConnell-Ginet, 1988; Mean,
2001). For example, addressing an adult female by calling her ‘girl’ is viewed by many
as offensive and demeaning to women, especially due to the parallel objection to use of
the word ‘boy’ for a male past puberty. The word ‘girl’ insinuates a lower social status
compared to adult males. However, in certain interactions, typically female–female, the
use of the term ‘girl’ can be used to express a supportive and friendly connection and
it is not always inappropriately juvenilizing. This follows Van Dijk’s assertion that ‘occasional, incidental, or personal breaches of discourse rules are not, as such, expressions of
dominance. This is the case only if such violations are generalized, occur in text and talk
directed at, or about, specific dominated groups only, and if there are no contextual
justifications other than such group membership’ (1993: 261).
Accordingly, in the context of The Gender Bowl, we surmise that referring to the
women as ‘girls’ was not done with respect and affection and is a manifestation of efforts
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557
to maintain and assert male dominance. The term ‘girl’ was used condescendingly as an
expression of the men not fully respecting their female opponents. Similar to saying that
someone ‘plays like a girl’ or ‘throws like a girl’ (Young, 1998), the reference to women
as girls is used derogatorily. By not utilizing an age-appropriate label, the men are in
essence downgrading the perception of women’s athletic ability while asserting that such
ability is forever embodied as a lack. Additionally, this frequent condescension of women
to girls further reinforces the perception that the ‘battle of the sexes’ is unequal, with
women being on a lower level than men.
In contrast to the men’s use of the term ‘girls’ to address the women, the women use
the less pejorative addresses ‘ladies’ or ‘women’ to reference one another:
14. Gentlemen, we are the ladies of the National Women’s Football Association, your opponents in The Gender Bowl.
15. LADIES let’s scho:ol these men.
The only time throughout the event that the women were referenced as ladies by the men
was at the end when the quarterback, Ron Stage, commented: ‘Of most respect to you
ladies. Good luck to you, but like we’ve always said, it’s a man’s game’. Although the
low status of the female players is contested with the term ‘ladies’, male participants
deployed the term ‘girl’ to reinforce the notion that American football is not meant to be
played by women. The term ‘women’ was used 35 times throughout the show – 23 times
by the men and 12 times by the women.
Discourse of egalitarian gender relations
In contrast to the ways in which the battle-of-the-sexes discourse was engaged with by
the male participants, the women’s discourse is defined by equality between opponents.
The discourse of egalitarianism in The Gender Bowl is manifested through discourses
that support perceived biological gender similarities and the struggle for equal
opportunities.
Biological gender similarities. As evidenced in the males’ discourses of conservatism, the
male participants express views of the women as possessing a similar or lower level of
athleticism than they do. These suppositions, however, are in contrast to the women’s
view of their athleticism. For example, three of the female players made the following
comments:
16. I- I am physically in better shape than EVERY guy on that team.
17. I definitely think that women have the ability to be JUST as aggressive as men.
18. I’m not going to sit here and say that I can match up with every single one of those guys
standing over there, but as a team we can match up against that team over there.
These statements reveal that the women perceive that they are on equal or near-equal
terms in the competition, and that the ‘battle of the sexes’ is an equitable contest.
Additionally, in contrast to the men’s statements, their comments reveal that they feel
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they are athletically and mentally similar or superior to the male football players – thus
supporting Kane’s (1995) conviction that every elite male can’t outperform every elite
female in the same sports.
Equal opportunities discourse. The female players constantly reiterated their purpose of
seeking parity which motivated them in The Gender Bowl:
19. My grandmother was born without the right to vote.. and I was born without the right to
play football.
20. When I was younger there weren’t any opportunities for football. There were limited
opportunities for women in sports period.
21. This is our fight for the right to play and be taken seriously.
22. <solemn> Remember the struggles of all the women before us who ever fought for any
great cause that we take for granted today. >
23. I really- REALLY want to win this game because I believe that we will open the eyes of
many Americans.
As noted in excerpt 19, through the reference to women fighting for the right to vote,
access to football is about much broader forms of societal access and has a significant
political dimension. By referencing the women’s suffrage movement in the USA, these
women feel that they have been denied equitable opportunities in sports; thus, the women
show that they not only want to prove that they can compete and beat men in American
football, but also that they can redefine American football as a sport not just for men. The
intent of this redefining of the sport is to ‘open the eyes of many Americans’ and to elicit
increased sports opportunities for all women.
The ramifications of conflicting gendered discourses
The presence of these conflicting gendered discourses raises the following questions:
What are the consequences of the women’s fight for acceptance into American football,
and what opportunities as well as gender inequalities are created and maintained as a
result of these discourses? We posit that three main consequences and opportunities
emerge. First, the women participating in this traditionally masculine domain appropriated certain linguistic practices and behaviors traditionally marked as masculine. A second ramification of females entering traditionally masculine sports is that men expressed
feelings that their manhood is challenged. Third, we surmise that the normative boundaries that separate male and female sports gradually become dismantled (even though
reification exists).
The appropriation of masculine behavior. When the women competed in The Gender
Bowl, they consciously or unconsciously appropriated stereotypical masculine behavior
and language practices in order to be successful. For example, some of the women made
the following comments:
24. I have to be a man to prove that women can play football.
25. I like cracking heads you know? <laughs>That’s what I like.>
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26. When I’m in the game, I’m the animal.
27. You don’t think we’re for real. I’ll smack you down to the ground. You know, I’ll take
them on. I’m not afraid.
28. If we have to pound on these old guys just to prove a point we are definitely ready to do
that.
As evidenced in excerpt 24, the player explicitly equates playing football with not only
masculine behavior, but ‘be[ing] a man’. Additionally, in excerpts 25–8, the association
of masculine behavior with football is implicitly revealed through the women’s use of
stereotypical masculine aggressiveness (i.e. being an ‘animal’, ‘smack you down to the
ground’ and ‘pound on these old guys’). When women participate in traditionally masculine sports, it contradicts the ideological notion that women are frail and vulnerable, but
it simultaneously reaffirms values and experiences of aggression and violence (Coakley,
2004). As such, proponents of separatist discourses encourage the formulation of womenonly competitive and noncompetitive sports that discourage aggression and violence.
The avoidance of these traits, however, does not challenge societal gender expectations
or assist women in their fight for parity, as women are still encouraged to maintain a
societally defined femininity.
Manhood challenged. Similar to other researchers, Duncan and Messner (1998: 170)
noted that sport is a crucial site for the construction of male identity and that it ‘provides
opportunities for men to assert their dominance at a time when male hegemony is continually challenged and opposed in everyday life’. Thus, when women play American
football, they pose a direct threat to a highly salient masculine identity category (Snyder
and Spreitzer, 1989). As embodied in excerpts 29 and 30, this threat was very apparent
in The Gender Bowl:
29. Coach Larry Brown speaking to the team: This game guys, has tremendous magnitudes,
and I have to come clean. It is not the type of game that you think. It is a totally different
game and it has an enormous magnitude. Unbelievable, but it’s a different game. The
opponents that you are going to play, you guys are going to meet them in a second, and
there is a lot riding on this.
30. Men’s assistant coach: LET’S PROTECT THIS GAME, PROTECT OUR MANHOOD.
AND PROTECT THIS SPORT! THIS IS OUR HOUSE. NO ONE’S COMING HERE
AND TAKING AWAY OUR MANHOOD!
There is a cultural commonplace that certain sports such as football or hockey turn a boy
into a man, and as a result sports have been used as an agent to socially construct masculinities and to define manhood (Coakley, 2004). As Tuaolo (2006) notes, participants
in sports such as professional football take on the role of self-policing gender and sexual-orientation norms. Sabo and Panepinto (1990) surmise that American football is
used as a male initiation rite, and through football, boys learn appropriate masculine
behaviors, beliefs and values, and what the dominant culture determines it means to ‘be
a man’. The assistant coach’s statements explicitly state that the men’s manhood is at
stake if they lose this game. Coach Larry Brown’s statement likewise expresses a feeling
of uneasiness when he contemplates a possible defeat by the women. Hence, when
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women play American football, the perception is that they are interfering with the
homosocial, all-male and time-honored initiation rite into manhood. Also, according to
traditional gender expectations, males are regarded as athletically superior to women;
thus, when a woman beats a man in sport, his manhood is challenged and undermined.
Male participants evidence awareness about the consequences of losing this football
game, as seen in the following statements:
31. You think that I am going to let these girls come in and walk in on ME? Bring me down in
front of the nation?.. IT’S SERIOUS.
32. I will tape myself up until I have to be carried off the field before we <laughing>lose to a
bunch of women in front of national TV.>
33. I don’t want to be a part of the first coaching staff that loses to women in a football game.
I don’t want to be associated with that, just like those guys don’t want to be associated with
being the players that lose.
34. If by some wi:ld freaking nature that we lost to these women…This tells people – this is
how Texas would respond. They’d have my bags packed at the Oklahoma border and
they’d be waiting on me. I could never go back into that state again. I would have to move
north. No question.
35. If I’m one of the first guys to lose to women in a football game it’s going to be kinda difficult and <laughing>everyone would be making fun of me too and they would have a
right. >
36. As a man’s man, if I coach this team and it does not come out in a winning fashion – I
swear to you that it’s been unthinkable a lot of thoughts have been running through my
head today. I think I may leave the country for a little while.
These statements show that perceived consequences of losing to women include being
shunned and teased by others. The men’s fears are intensified by the fact that if they lose
against women, that loss will be nationally publicized. Additionally, some of the men’s
statements imply that they would not feel like a ‘man’ anymore. It is interesting to note
how many of the men hold an unfounded assumption that they would be the first men to
lose to women in a sports competition. Previous unknown and known matches between
men and women, such as Billy Jean King’s defeat of Bobby Riggs in a ‘battle of the
sexes’ tennis match, have demonstrated that women can outcompete or compete on an
equal level with men (Coakley, 2004). The persistent recurrence of battle-of-the-sexes
events suggests, however, that such victories on behalf of female competitors offer only
temporary and partial ruptures in the larger, hegemonic systems of male dominance.
Breakdown of gendered normative boundaries. A third consequence of women entering
traditionally masculine sports was evident in the men’s fear that if they lose this game,
the normative boundaries that separate male and female sports will be brought down. To
illustrate, the assistant coach of the men’s team and one of the male players made the
following comments:
37. <irritated>I don’t like them coming into OUR HOUSE and talking smack to us on our
field about what they’re going to do to us. This is our game. This is our sport. Always has
been. If we lose this game we are forever gonna be known as the guys who let women in
to – What’s next?>
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38. <irritated>You’re not seeing guys trying to play field hockey teams. We’re not suiting up
to play field hockey. We’re not suiting up to play – you know? Synchronized swimming
with the women. You know. Why can’t football just be for men? >
These statements reflect the guarding of American football from women. American football is deemed male territory (such as our house, our game, our sport); thus, the perception exists that if the women win this game, not only do they gain entrance into American
football, but they may gain more opportunities to encroach on whatever is perceived as
the male domain. Further, excerpt 38 reiterates discourses of acceptable sports for women
(i.e. field hockey and synchronized swimming) and an acceptable sport for men
(i.e. football). Other sports where men succeed, such as ice dancing and gymnastics, are
not on this participant’s list.
In response to the perception that the manhood of the male participants is threatened
and that women are encroaching upon male sports, male participants in The Gender Bowl
responded in ways to defend their turf. These responses were verbalized in the following
statements:
39. Men’s assistant coach: I told the guys you need to hit them so hard that they realize they
made a career decision by doing that.. in the wrong way.
40. And it’s going to be a lot of pain.
41. The VERY first play, we have to send a message.
One of the fears of women participating in ‘male’ sports is that men feel that they cannot
be aggressive enough because they do not want to hurt the ‘frail’ women; however,
contrary to the men toning down their physical aggression, they express desires to make
sure that these women understand the consequences of their actions (Coakley, 2004).
As evidenced in excerpts 39–41, the men in The Gender Bowl want to show aggression
in order to reaffirm the masculine nature of the sport.
Conclusion
This analysis explored the strategic appropriation of insult by female participants and the
presence of gendered discourses in The Gender Bowl, a football game pitting men and
women against each other. The analysis of The Gender Bowl revealed that a longstanding
battle-of-the-sexes discourse was constructed differently for the male and female
football players. In the discourses of conservative gender relations, the men viewed the
women as having physical, intellectual and cultural capital deficiencies, and they referred
back to gender stereotypes that would support the exclusion of women from American
football. Women playing football challenge these stereotypes that categorize sports as
male or female and, thus, could undermine the legitimacy of the sport gender binary. In
contrast, the discourses of egalitarian gender relations revealed that the women did not
hold the belief that they lacked the necessary human capital to compete with the men,
and as a result they sought equitable treatment. These discourses could help facilitate
positive change in the overall athletic community by expanding people’s assumptions
of the boundaries and appropriacy of conventions within gender roles, and also by
increasing sport participation opportunities.
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Although these competing discourses were revealed in the analysis of The Gender
Bowl, one cannot negate the role that media plays in shaping discourses. As noted by
Van Dijk (1993), one way of enacting power is by controlling the context. This is to say
that it is probable that the producers or editors of this instance of reality TV constructed
the discourse in a way to not only support the presence of a battle-of-the-sexes
discourse, but also to present competing discourses and, thus, a kind of gendered drama.
A faction of men on the football team could have espoused discourses of egalitarian
gender relations, but their voices could have been silenced. The verbalization of egalitarian discourses by the men would aid the women’s fight to undermine the legitimacy
of masculine hegemonic discourses surrounding American football and other ‘male’
sports and dismantle the normative gender boundaries in sport, as the zealots for equality
would come from both sexes.
The involvement of men in the discontinuation of the gender sport binary is imperative, because when the women are on one end of the battle promoting egalitarian gender
relations and the men are on the other side promoting conservative gender relations, the
current systems of inequality are maintained because of the dominant nature of conservative discourses. For those females who have the power to shape gender relations in sport,
many will not lead a social transformation of sports because ‘they have become part of
the dominant hegemonic sport group – they are the major beneficiaries of the current
social arrangements in sport’ (Sage, 1998: 77). Thus, as the individuals in power in the
sports domain are predominantly White males (see Coakley, 2004; Lapchick, 2008),
change will only occur at the lower levels of sports when those in power change
ideologies.
Notes
1. The women’s ages were not disclosed.
2. The NWFA was formed in August of 2000 by Catherine Masters and consisted of over 40
teams throughout the entire USA; however, the association did not field any teams in 2009.
As the NWFA did not field any teams during the 2009 season, all but one team joined the
Women’s Football Alliance or Independent Women’s Football League.
3. The International Association of Athletics Federations mandated the testing of South African
athlete Caster Semenya after she recorded record times in the 800-meter race (Levy, 2009).
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Appendix: Transcription conventions
((words))Double parentheses enclose transcriber’s comments, in italics.
?A question mark indicates a relatively strong rising intonation.
.
A period indicates a falling, final intonation.
,
A comma indicates a continuing intonation.
. .Dots indicate silence (more dots indicate a longer silence).
:
A colon indicates an elongated sound.
CAPS
Capitals indicate emphatic stress.
<laughs>Angle brackets enclose descriptions of vocal noises, such as laughs,
coughs.
<manner>words>Angle brackets enclosed descriptions of the manner in which an
utterance is spoken, such as high-pitched, laughing, incredulous.
The transcript notation is adapted from Tannen et al. (2007).
Jacqueline McDowell is an assistant professor at the University of Illinois at UrbanaChampaign in the department of Recreation, Sport and Tourism. She received her PhD in
kinesiology, with an emphasis on sport management, from Texas A&M University. Her
research focuses on issues of diversity and inclusion in sport organizations.
Spencer Schaffner is an assistant professor at the University of Illinois at UrbanaChampaign in the department of English. He received his PhD in language and rhetoric
from the University of Washington. He has published in such journals as the Journal of
Sport and Social Issues, Ethos, JAC, Kairos and American Literary History.