Sex, Friendship and Women's Football

This book is contextualised by, makes connections to, and seeks to build on theory intersecting various fields: codes of women's football globally; female sport participation globally; gender and sexuality studies; queer theory; and visual methods. Through showcasing women's experiences of playing football, highlighting the ways in which players make sense of their gendered embodiment and performances, and exploring how gender is understood and regulated within the unique social context of a female football team, this book demonstrates why such discussions are crucial for advancing gender equality and theorization of genders in contemporary Western cultures. In giving voice to the lived experiences and perspectives of women who have and continue to play Australian Rules football, highlighting the ongoing tensions, conflicts, contradictions, and absences of negotiating their passion for playing the game, the impact of gender on their playing experiences, and the significance of the social and cultural space of this women's football club to their lives. It provides a nuanced account of the power and significance of women's social bonds in this space, considering how notions of female friendship and desire are caught up in heteronormative discourses and engaging in discussions of the ways in which genders, sexualities, desires, embodiments, and sociality are contested and negotiated among women in homosocial spaces. This book will be of interest to researchers, academics, students working and studying in the fields of gender and sexuality studies, queer theory, visual methodologies, sociology of sport, sports studies, female friendship, physical education, as well as those playing and working within codes of women's football.