Elliot Erlij

Gender Construct in Sports and the According Perceptions of these Roles of Male and Female sports players; A case study on football at a Catholic High School in Madrid

Started Apr. 28, 2023

Abstract or project description

Examining the construction of gender roles within the context of a Catholic High School in Spain, my research looks into the manifestation of these roles in the school's sports, and gender treatment between the school's sports, specifically focusing on football. This paper will focus on football against the backdrop of the 2023 Women's World Cup Controversy, where Jennifer Hermoso was nonconsensually kissed by Luis Rubiales, a man who wielded great power in the realm of football in Spain. The research will also develop an understanding of how gender roles are construed at this high School and how it manifests in the school’s sports, with a particular focus on football. How do high school student players internalize these roles? My research will explore related inquiries, such as whether the girls' teams are treated equally as the boys' teams. To what extent do the school's policies and athletic practices provide equal opportunities to both? How are girls treated when they enter male-dominated sports at a high school? And, how do girl sports players correspondingly perceive the gender roles systematically set up for them by the school? Focusing on football amid the backdrop of the 2023 Women's World Cup controversy about the nonconsensual kiss planted on Jennifer Hermoso, and by using surveys and interviews with male and female football players, the research examines how gender expectations impact the teams. Based on my case study, this essay argues that masculinity and dominance construct gender roles in football and other sports in three distinct ways; through peer pressure, positions of power, and systematic gender inequality. Through my findings, I concluded that the presence of gender norms in sports exists at my school, and they are maintained mostly by the school's lack of prioritization of addressing these issues, and through the perpetuation of these roles in student peer influence and male dominance occupying positions of power.