Has It Never Been a Better Time to Play? Opportunity, Empowerment and Contested Terrains of Women’s Grassroots Football in Australia

Abstract

The introduction of the semi-professional Australian Rules Football League for Women (AFLW) in 2017 was indicative of a broader ‘boom’ for women and girls’ sport in Australia. The ‘boom’ promised not only newly created, or enhanced, professional pathways for elite women athletes but also a commensurate change in the community sport landscape, backed by a gender equality framework, that would offer women and girls new, and supported, opportunities to play sport. This paper investigates what happens when these opportunities are taken up by examining the experiences of a senior women’s football team in a community-level Australian Rules football club in Melbourne, Australia. Drawing on 11 semi-structured interviews with players, we consider the transformative potential, for these individuals and for gendered power relations, that might be generated from women’s participation in traditionally masculine sporting spaces. The findings reveal contradictory moments of both emancipation and empowerment on one hand with ambivalence and disempowerment on the other. Women’s participation in Australian Rules Football is a contested terrain that is simultaneously embodied, cultural, and social, and we note the experiences and strategies that women utilize to negotiate their engagement with football. We argue that increasing “opportunities” for women to play football is not enough for the transformative promise of the AFLW to be met, and as such, further highlight the ongoing contested terrain of women’s sport.

1. Introduction

At the end of the day it’s just a game, but we’ve always been told we can’t do it, that we’re not strong enough, that you know, we’re not able bodied enough, that we’re going to get injured, that it’s bad for us, that it’s wrong, that you know, women shouldn’t be aggressive and they shouldn’t tackle and I really like that I can now have that and that I can say well yes I can and yes I am good at it.

(Mia)

The above quote from 28-year-old Mia captures her feelings about taking up the contact sport of Australian Rules Football (henceforth ARF) and demonstrates individual experiences of empowerment by overcoming dominant expectations of deficit feminine bodily potential. Mia’s statement is also positioned in a broader political and social context in Australia (and other industrialised nations) where opportunities for women to engage in previously hegemonically masculine sports are ‘booming’ (Elliott et al. 2023). This includes the ‘active’ removal of traditional barriers to women’s participation by stakeholders, sport organisations, government policies, and even sports media (Casey et al. 2019), and the accompanying belief that gender equality in sport can increase levels of equality in other parts of society (Theberge 1997; English 2020). Put simply, Mia’s positive and empowering experiences gained from playing ARF are reliant on broader structural and cultural changes in the way the sport is organised and how its resources are distributed.

The history of gender inequality in sport indicates, however, that Mia’s experiences are anything but simple. Messner (1988, p. 208), writing almost 40 years ago about the ‘contested terrain’ of women’s bodies and empowerment in and through sport, articulated the following:

Organized sport, as a cultural sphere defined largely by patriarchal priorities, will continue to be an important arena in which emerging images of active, fit, and muscular women are forged, interpreted, contested, and incorporated. The larger socioeconomic and political context will continue to shape and constrain the extent to which women can wage fundamental challenges to the ways that organized sports continue providing ideological legitimation for male dominance.

McLachlan (2019) argues that we should be cautious about an uncritical and ahistoric celebration of the ‘boom’ in women’s sport and any subsequent narratives of progress in gender equality, as they can obscure continuing and new forms of resistance and oppression. Our research question is to understand the physical and social experiences of women like Mia who take up the traditionally masculine sport of ARF in their adulthood to interrogate the transformative potential of sport and recognise any “emergent contradictions in this system” (Messner 1988, p. 208). We consider the ways in which their engagement with ARF may identify contradictory moments of empowerment and emancipation on one hand and resistance and inhibition on the other. As a “contested terrain”, women’s use of their bodies in ARF has the potential to highlight internationalised, social, and structural forms of empowerment and conflict.

A characteristic of the contemporary ‘boom’ for women in sport is the attempts to create, and hence equalise, the professionalised opportunities for women to play competitive, revenue-generating sports (Bowes and Culvin 2021; Pavlidis 2020; Taylor et al. 2020; Thomson et al. 2022). This usually involves women playing traditionally hegemonically masculine sports such as cricket, soccer, rugby, ice hockey, ARF, etc. Commensurate with the logic of professionalisation is that this will have a flow-on effect on participation rates for girls and women at a grassroots level, lower the levels of dropout because of increased playing opportunities and improved conditions, and as a result improve pathways and revenue for even higher-quality professional women’s sports (see, for example, Brice et al. 2022; Casey et al. 2019; Elliott et al. 2023).

Such rapid changes in the sporting landscape can be fraught and, in this case, produce a two-speed economy for women’s sport. At the elite end, there is an acceleration commensurate with professionalisation, increased media coverage, improved training facilities, and development opportunities, while at the grassroots end, one finds the continuation of old and the emergence of new structural “inequalities and challenges that are day to day realities” (Adams and Leavitt 2018, p. 160). In agreement with Adams and Leavitt (2018, p. 167), we need to move beyond celebratory discourses of gain, achievement, and progress to critically consider the current state of girls’ and women’s sport as a “complicated, non-linear, non-universal success story”. Certainly, this would be the case for elite sport. Cooky et al. (2021) note that the considerable body of research that has looked at the quality and quantity of women’s sport in the media over the past 40 years indicates that very little has changed, and that women’s coverage remains “dismally low” (Cooky et al. 2021, p. 366). Persistent gendered inequalities in the Australian context are seen in leadership positions in sport organisations (Morgan et al. 2024), salaries and conditions for professional players (for example, Marshall et al. 2022; Taylor et al. 2020), media coverage (McDonald et al. 2023), and increases in online abuse (McCarthy 2022).

At a community level of sport, Jeanes et al. (2021) note that despite attempts to create greater gender equality, the allocation of, and access to, space served to reproduce restrictive gender relations and maintain masculine privilege and power. Research on experiences of playing these types of hegemonic masculine sports has tended to focus on elite or sub-elite levels (for example, Fletcher et al. 2024; Pavlidis 2020; Taylor et al., 2020). The experiences at the grassroots level have concentrated primarily on teenage girls (for example, Bevan et al. 2020; Elliott et al. 2023; Pielichaty 2020; Wedgwood 2004). Of note, despite the research on inequality above, several of these point to positive and emancipatory experiences from playing. Wedgwood (2004), utilising Young’s (1980) framework of feminine bodily comportment and mobility, demonstrated how schoolgirls playing ARF caused them to experience their bodies in radically different ways from their previous socialisation, producing a sense of freedom and emancipation.

To summarise, the above research indicates that women and girls’ inclusion in traditionally male sporting spaces remains a complex and contested terrain, involving the navigation of individual bodies through the embodied process of doing, within multiple social and structural fields of being. This paper aims to fill a small gap in the research on gender in sport by focusing on the experiences of adult women who committed to playing ARF in a competitive community league. In what follows, we briefly introduce our context and methodology before discussing our key findings. Firstly, the excitement and solidarity formed through a newfound physicality coupled with contradictory forms of embodiment expressed through levels of competency and injury. Secondly, we examine the concept of contested terrain in relation to the resources, time, and space made available to women playing ARF at the community level.

2. Context and Method: Playing Footy at the Sharks

Despite women playing ARF for over 100 years (Hess 2011), the recent acquisition of the women’s game by the Australian Football League (AFL) and, in particular, the launch on 3 February 2017 of the inaugural season of the women’s league (AFLW) signalled a significant moment in the sport. The introduction of an elite women’s competition was expected to have economic, social, and cultural impacts on women’s sport participation (Willson et al. 2018). The inaugural AFLW season exceeded all expectations with substantial media coverage and spectator demand often surpassing stadium capacity (Willson et al. 2018). The interest in women’s football grew at all levels, from grassroots to elite (Burke et al. 2023), and, after the announcement of the AFLW in 2016, there was a 21 percent increase in female participation before the competition had even begun (Squiers 2017). This increase in participation has been labelled as a ‘boom’ in women’s football across the country (Alomes 2019; Willson et al. 2018).

Although women’s football has existed since at least 1915 (Hess 2011), many of these clubs were women-only spaces, and the leagues were administered by women (Burke et al. 2023). The ‘boom’ in ARF associated with the AFLW resulted in AFL clubs that were previously men-only developing women’s teams. At the community level, a similar trend occurred with clubs forming teams for women and girls and the associated community leagues forming women’s competitions modelled on those of the men (Burke et al. 2023). In this way, ARF sought to duplicate itself across all levels of the sport through the inclusion of teams and competitions for girls and women. The Sharks (pseudonym) is a typical club in this regard. Formed in the 1950s, it operates in one of the eight Victorian metropolitan football leagues. In July 2017, the Sharks advertised in the local newspaper:

We want you in the green and blue! It’s never been a better time to play football. Be part of the inaugural SFC Women’s Senior Team for the 2018 season. Come to our meet, greet and try session on Wednesday, July 26th.

Subsequently, the first author and the participants who make up this research began playing ARF as members of the senior women’s team in 2018. Most clubs in the area were starting women’s teams, so similar advertisements were appearing often, and many of the first author’s sporty peers were signing up. Typical of the logic of duplication were plans for an exponential increase in the women’s game to match that of the men’s. For example, the league that the Sharks played in offered one women’s division with 13 teams in 2018, two divisions of 10 teams each in 2019, and three divisions of 8 teams each in 2020 (to say nothing of the offerings for girls at the junior levels). Community sports clubs like the Sharks operate out of facilities managed or leased by local government. Many of these facilities were designed without women’s participation in mind, and the sudden increase in teams undoubtedly strained resources, especially the fields and ovals the game is played on (Casey et al. 2019; Hanlon et al. 2022; Jeanes et al. 2021).

Nevertheless, for most of the women who joined the Sharks’ women’s team in 2018, the opportunity to play ARF offered the realisation of a lifelong interest in playing. Whilst mostly novices to playing competitive ARF, the women in this study were not novices to sport. Indeed, all had various levels of socialisation through a variety of competitive sports, including netball, basketball, soccer, swimming, athletics, and a couple in ARF. Their sporting histories are important to note as, whilst the Sharks and ARF were new to them, they were experienced in the Australian community sport model and therefore embodied taken-for-granted aspects of playing sport such as turning up on time, following rules, coaching, and aspects of teamwork and discipline.

The players all identified as cisgender women and were aged between 21 and 33 years old. Further, they were relatively culturally homogenous, identifying primarily as ‘white’, though one player also identified as New Zealand Māori. While white women still face sexism and barriers to competing in traditionally male sports, women of colour face additional barriers, and the rise of participation in sports is not evenly spread across all women (Carter-Francique and Flowers 2013). Sanders (2020) describes how ARF bodies in the popular media, literature, and iconography are still depicted as “for the most part professional athletic male Caucasian bodies” (p. 287). Therefore, ethnically diverse and women’s football bodies are under-represented. The Sharks team, although overwhelmingly made up of white women, is representative of the area in which the football club is located (ABS 2016).

This research was part of a broader project that sought to understand the contemporary boom in women’s sport from the perspectives of those who were purportedly benefiting from it, namely the women involved in these activities. As such, it is framed by a critical feminist perspective that seeks to listen to the lived experiences of women in sport. The project had university ethics approval and consent from the Sharks football club to conduct the research. To understand the experiences of women who played ARF at the Sharks, the first author (who was a founding player) utilised ethnographic techniques to document the social interactions in the field. This involved participating in two 1.5 h pre-season training sessions per week from November 2019 to March 2020 and an overnight training camp. All players on the women’s team were informed about the ethnographic component and granted consent for it to occur. Whilst field notes were completed after each training session, COVID-19 and subsequent restrictions resulted in the cancellation of the 2020 season.

The data in this paper is drawn from semi-structured interviews that were informed by ethnographic insights, the primary author’s own experiences of playing at the Sharks, and Wedgwood’s (2004) application of Young’s theory on feminine comportment and mobility. Information about the interviews was posted on the teams’ private Facebook group (the main form of communication), giving the opportunity for the 22 players on the team to be interviewed if they chose, a form of generic purposive sampling (Bryman 2016). Participation was completely voluntary, and informed consent for interviews to be recorded and pseudonyms to be used was provided by all participants. Eleven players volunteered, and semi-structured interviews lasting between 30 min and 1 h were conducted with each of them. The sample size represented 50% of the players.

The interviews started with questions about each player’s sporting history, namely when they began, what the activity was, how they got involved, and what experiences they remembered. From here the questions shifted to understanding why they decided to start playing ARF as adults and then if and how their experiences differed from playing other sports, especially in relation to physicality and embodiment. Finally, questions were asked about players’ experiences of the broader club culture and the position of women in it.

Due to COVID-19, interviews were conducted via the video-conferencing platform Zoom. The record function was used to create an audio recording of each interview. Data were transcribed immediately after each interview, which provided a chance to begin to understand the common themes in the data and tailor questions for later interviews (Bryman 2016). Themes were initially identified by the first author and were coded without needing to fit into a pre-existing coding frame (Braun and Clarke 2006). This analysis was then presented and cross-checked with the other two authors, who offered suggestions for refinement. Themes were identified on a latent level to ‘examine the underlying ideas, assumptions, and conceptualisations—and ideologies—that are theorised as shaping or informing the semantic content of the data’ (Braun and Clarke 2006, p. 84).

3. The Contested Terrains of Women’s Community Football

In the following section, we discuss the findings under two themes. First, we describe how the players relished their opportunities to try football, something they felt had largely been denied to them until the advent of the AFLW. Here we identify how the players were able to develop physical skills as they had the freedom to try new things in a fairly ‘low stakes’ competitive environment. We outline the ongoing relevance of Young’s (1980) modalities of feminine existence for understanding embodied empowerment in the AFLW era. While Young had stated that the restrictive socialisation of girls (i.e., throwing like a girl) had opened up since she had constructed her argument (Burke et al. 2023), we found that the participants in this study did speak about how they had to re-learn how to move their bodies in order to execute some of their new football skills—this was specifically relevant to tackling; which requires bodily contact and physical force that were new to the participants.

Secondly, we position the women’s team within the broader social and organisational structure of a historically male club and juxtapose the individual experiences of empowerment gained through football with the continued inequalities and struggles of being women footballers. In this section, we examine both how women identify hostility and ambivalence and how they work to negotiate these inequalities through various attempts to gain legitimacy, either by becoming more serious and competitive or by accepting the status quo, being grateful for any opportunity to play, and maintaining a belief that things will get better over time.

4. Contested Embodiment

For most women at the Sharks, the catalyst for playing ARF was undoubtedly the launching of the AFLW competition. It tapped into a collective imagination formed from growing up in Melbourne, where ARF is the biggest game in town. The momentum created around ARF resonated with the players, as demonstrated by Sophie (28), who had played one season 10 years previous and stopped due to sexist comments from others:

Once women’s football just began to boom a little bit more, I then felt like I could, you know there was a lot more people standing up for women’s footy, so I felt like I was more supported to go back and play.

The way the AFLW had been advertised and the social commentary surrounding it created, at this grassroots level, a sense that choosing to play was about more than just sport; it was about being part of social change. Ella (25) captures this feeling:

I think for the most part, you know, all the women playing are really respectful of each other and I think we’re all sort of, even between teams, we’re all supportive because we’re doing something that we all probably thought we’d never be able to do.

A key aspect for players at the Sharks was a sense of solidarity grounded in the reality that most of them were learning to play a new sport as adults.

As soon as I went to one training, I was like ‘yep, these are my people’ [laughs]

(Mia, 28)

For most of our players, there were no procedural barriers to joining the Sharks, and the subsequent collective support and environment were overwhelmingly welcoming. However, despite the contemporary celebratory progress narratives about women being able to play any sport they choose (McLachlan 2019), this does not mean that their involvement in ARF went without (continued) resistance:

Well, I wanted to start playing a little bit earlier but my partner at the time was like ’women don’t play football, that’s gross’, we’re not together anymore needless to say [laughs]

(Mia, 28)

The worst person in my life was actually a teacher… he was really awful, he told me that I shouldn’t be playing a man’s game… and just really sexist remarks about me playing footy

(Sophia, 28)

Friends probably haven’t reacted very nicely to it at all, it’s all a very big joke that my sexuality is questioned when I get back onto the football field which is, I just guess not nice, so yeah I have two, two of my closest friends in particular have told [my male partner] to watch out… so I wouldn’t really talk to my friends much about playing footy

(Lucy, 22)

Forms of sexism and homophobia persist about the choices these women make regarding the use of their bodies; however, this did not deter these players from prioritising ARF and managing these tensions either by ending a relationship, calling out sexism, or, in Lucy’s case, not talking about it.

Despite all having some form of sporting background, ARF required the acquisition of a whole range of new skills and physical embodiment. The traditional approach to learning a sport in Australia targets children through modified versions of the activity, followed by a focus on skills and an introduction to competitive games (Eime et al. 2022). Therefore, a group of adult women all starting a new, competitive sport is atypical and made possible because they are all starting at relatively the same point, namely as novices.

As soon as I had the first couple of training sessions, I just loved it because everyone was not good at it, but we were all having so much fun, giving it a go

(Zoe, 21)

As a result, the newness of the skills was exciting as players felt rewarded when they saw dramatic improvement. Many also said the skills were harder to execute than other sporting skills and made for feelings of accomplishment like no other:

I just remember when I would do something well and I was just like ‘I can’t believe I just did that, did you see that, I just did a thing’, so it’s just like this constant pride, joy, happiness

(Lucy, 22)

Whilst generic skill development and learning were central to the explanations of empowerment that the Sharks players provided, there is also something specific about the physicality required in ARF that heightened their perceptions and experiences of individual empowerment. Specifically, the aspects of the game requiring a high degree of physical force include tackling, bumping, and shepherding. This created the unique experience of a group of adult beginners learning new skills and new modalities of movement while participating in an activity that may still be considered ‘gender-inappropriate’ (Wedgwood 2004, p. 142).

Iris Marion Young (1980) describes the socialisation of female embodiment under three modalities. When discussing the modalities of feminine movement, Young (1980) describes an ‘inhibited intentionality’, whereby women and girls often assume they cannot complete an easy task before even attempting it. When attempting a task, they may display a ‘discontinuous unity’ whereby the untrained female will often not engage her whole body for a physical task with the same naturalness as the equally untrained male would, such as using only the lower half of the leg to kick and not following through with the movement (Wedgwood 2004). Feminine movement tends to also show an ‘ambiguous transcendence’ where women generally take up less space than is available for them, tending to keep their limbs as close as possible to their bodies while walking, standing, sitting, and when playing sports (Wedgwood 2004).

These modalities are a useful framework to analyse physical experiences in ARF. Despite sporting histories that disrupt Young’s contradictory modalities, the players at the Sharks experienced an internal contest with, and departure from, their previous modalities of movement through tackling and the contact elements of ARF. As an activity that these women had not been socialised into, learning to tackle provided both unnatural and scary.

I don’t think it ever feels natural running at someone and putting your arms around them, but once I started doing it, I didn’t have a problem with doing it and now I’d say it comes naturally

(Gabrielle, 21)

Completely unnatural tackling,…. like my first instinct was to make the space rather than to go in for a tackle, so yeah it took probably that whole first season to get it in my head that no, I should be going in for the tackle, like I can actually, you can be physical in the game rather than keeping distance

(Isabella, 33)

The apprehension caused by learning to use one’s body in a previously inconceivable way took time to overcome.

It was worse than I thought, it was like, I just, I don’t think I expected how strong the other player to be and how quickly they could get me to the ground, but yeah it wasn’t what I was expecting

(Gabrielle, 21)

I think it was really hard and I had a massive shock. I was like ‘oh that really hurt’ and I needed just a moment to go like I’m ok

(Ella, 25)

Further aspects, such as tackling, produced moments of reflexivity regarding using their bodies in such forceful ways:

I was kind of shocked, I just lay there for a second and then I was like ok and just got back up and kept playing, I think from then on, I was like ‘ok, I can actually go in hard’

(Phoebe, 23)

I just remember like lying there for a couple of seconds and I’m thinking about it and I’m like ‘am I okay? am I?, arms and legs work’ and I just remember being slightly disorientated for a few moments

(Lucy, 22)

Women have traditionally been taught to experience their bodies as “fragile encumbrances rather than as tools with which to get something done” (McCaughey 1997, p. 92). This led to many women interviewed feeling as though they needed to seek permission before using their bodies forcefully. Some players experienced some hesitancy when using new skills such as tackling. Young (1980) describes a double hesitation, based on a lack of confidence that their bodies have the capacity to complete the movement and the fear of being injured. Once they overcame the initial hesitation and learned in a supportive environment, many found tackling to be an empowering aspect of playing football.

I love tackling, at first, when I first started, I was probably a bit apprehensive but probably after my first few sessions when we did tackling, I loved it, it was so good, yeah and I really enjoy it now

(Zoe, 21)

I think it makes you feel good when you get a good tackle and you get a free kick or you know just being able to use your body in a way that you’ve never been able to do it before, or that people don’t expect you to use it in that way

(Ella, 25)

Ella’s quote above reflects another common response from players regarding learning to tackle and being confident in using one’s body in such a way, namely an awareness (and perhaps pride) in breaking gendered stereotypes.

It almost took someone to tell me it’s ok, you need to be more aggressive and you need to, you can be, you’re just not, you’re just not used to it, cause you know, as women we’re not supposed to be, we’re supposed to be placid and like ‘ooh no, don’t touch me’

(Mia, 28)

I like getting tackled because I want people to think that no, I’m not some weak little girl, like I can actually take it

(Zoe, 21)

The results of tackling and contact on players bodies also became symbols of pride and empowerment as forms of injury, especially bruising, became emblematic of legitimacy and of being genuine players of ARF.

I would rock up to uni on a Monday and all of the girls who played footy would be like oh look at this massive bruise I got and it was sort of like a, how cool’s this that we’re all like connecting through football sort of thing, and then just discussing our games

(Ella, 25)

I liked having a black eye for a bit because I felt like I looked really tough

(Zoe, 21)

I remember showing my friends and being like yeah this is how tough I am, like got all these bruises from footy

(Elise, 25)

Such collective ‘badges of honour’ were shared in other public ways, such as via social media posts (see Image 1, Image 2).

While it could be said that bruises are a reminder for women of how empowered they felt while getting them and therefore should be shown off, it can also be argued that the glorification of injury perpetuates one of the worst parts of the male-dominated model of sport (Hardwicke et al. 2024; Young and White 1995). Similarly, whilst the display of injury and badges of honour was celebrated within the football community, this was not necessarily the response from family members, for example:

People thought I was insane because one, just for a girl to play in general, but for me, my size, you know my grandma cries about it [laughs], people freak out when I tell them that I play, yeah it’s not really my family’s favourite thing

(Grace, 21)

I always told [my dad] like ‘what’s the difference between me and [my brother]? why is it that you’re worried about me but not worried about [him] getting hurt?’

(Zoe, 21)

It was like, that’s a netballer’s injury, that’s always going to happen, you know, it was don’t play for the 6 weeks, but it wasn’t don’t play ever

(Ella, 25)

Despite the reality that injury and risk are inherent possibilities in most sports, these reactions indicate how these women choose to use their bodies is contested by others and demonstrate the ‘cultural paradox of girls using physical force’ (Wedgwood 2004, p. 124) that reinforces ideas about gendered bodies and appropriate masculinity and femininity.

There are other contradictory aspects of empowerment found in forms of body contact, as expressed by Mia:

I definitely feel like I have a lot more aggression, and that I have a lot more confidence when I play football, cause when you play other sports that we previously have played, you’re not allowed to be aggressive, you’re not allowed to assert yourself as being confident or that you’re strong…. I think that’s something that we love, we as females who play football, it’s that you can, if you are angry, you’re allowed to be angry and you can use that anger in a certain way.

Mia’s confidence and strength emanate from a newfound aggression and a channelling of anger in an ‘appropriate’ way. This also suggests a departure from initial reasons for playing at the Sharks, namely:

[I wanted] a club that was starting out so I could be a part of it and not have to compete too much because it was more about fun and just giving something a go as opposed to being really competitive

(Ella, 25)

Whilst players all experienced some form of physical empowerment through their participation in a game that requires the use of physical force that challenges gender stereotypes, Mia’s comments reflect a focus on performance, competitiveness, and dominance that perhaps runs counter to the notion of fun and having a go.

The players who took part in the interviews all agreed that their original motivations for joining the Sharks were about shared goals of learning and enjoying a new sport without pressure to perform in a like-minded, supportive social setting where, as Zoe (21) suggests, ‘like if you stuff up, you stuff up and nobody cares, that’s why I think I just like it’.

Whilst this sort of environment creates the conditions to nurture these women and provides a safe space to have a go without fear of judgement, it is apparent that this can become a source of tension. Firstly, as noted by Zoe, who had played netball, previous socialisation into sport for these women was in the competitive sport model, where pressure and performance are a reality. In other words, the norms and values of competition are embedded in their previous experiences and understanding of sport. Undoubtedly, as individuals gained competency and skill in playing ARF, the concept of ‘standard’ or who is a good/bad player will start to impact the way women individually experience football and make sense of their own performance. Secondly, the team exists in a competitive league, with promotion/relegation and a finals series. Initial feelings of “I enjoy playing football so much, I didn’t really care about if we’re winning” (Grace, 21) are overridden by the concept of the work ethic. Trying hard and losing by lots only makes sense if the effort results in losing by less, and then maybe even winning.

However, the biggest issue that creates the tension between performance and participation is the reality of being a women’s team in a club with a long men’s history and established traditions, rivalries, and hegemonic beliefs about gendered bodies and physical capacities and abilities. It is to this contested terrain, namely the women entering historically men’s spaces, that we move to next.

5. Women in a Men’s Club

Whilst the women interviewed experienced various forms of empowerment through their new modalities of movement, including enhanced confidence, joy, pride, solidarity, and sense of belonging, their individual feelings of empowerment were not experienced without gendered struggles. The positive experiences and feelings mostly occurred when the team was set apart, namely training and matches when the women could create a welcoming and accepting environment. However, this team must exist within the larger club structure. This is summed up succinctly by Mia (28):

It’s very male dominated and yeah you can play, but what is the cost of that?

As women have made their way as players into a previously exclusively male space, they are required to do so on male-defined terms. Mia had experience playing at a women’s-only club for a season prior and was asked about the differences. She noted the resistance to change:

I think they’re so used to doing things one way, just for them, that now that they have to spread their resources a little bit, I think it’s very challenging for them and I just don’t think that all clubs that have men’s teams as well are really willing to give the females a shot.

The women’s team would not exist without the club, and although women have created a team environment that suits their needs and interests, they still must exist within the larger club environment and structures. The male club leaders are celebrated by the club and local community for offering a senior women’s and junior girls’ program, as the growth of opportunities available for women in these competitions is often praised in a way that still privileges male perspectives (Burke et al. 2023). While merely introducing the team is considered progress, there are clear examples that the required support has not been provided for the team to flourish. The unequal distribution of tasks within the football club environment translates into typical perceptions of what (and who) are important and valued (Willson et al. 2018). While women have made their way into more playing and decision-making roles, they still must abide by the male ‘rules’ of the social space. According to Jeanes et al. (2021), the lack of importance placed on the contributions of women helps to maintain the gender hierarchy and the control and influence men have over the club.

As Elliott et al. (2019) highlight, progress narratives of women playing ARF can create an additional barrier because it can lead to many of the practical obstacles of participation being overlooked, which further reinforces ARF as a space privileging boys and men. In a study on Australian adolescent girls who play soccer, cricket, and ARF, Bevan et al. (2020) found that sports clubs have an important role as they can assist participation but also actively limit participation through inequality and discrimination in forms such as male teams being given better fields, promotion, equipment, and time slots for training and games.

When discussing the challenges of playing football as a woman, Elise spoke of the hierarchy of teams within the club, demonstrating the perceptions of the women’s team in the club:

People get around [the senior men’s team], that’s what they want to see, whereas senior women’s has kind of been, it kind of gets stacked somewhere in between, it’s not even as big as some of the junior footy, like it’s not seen as the same kind of hierarchy, where senior men and women are up there [indicates with hands], it feels like we’re kind of down here somewhere, the importance that the club places on us is, is really low

(Elise, 25)

A common theme when asked about the challenges of playing football was the lack of respect for, resources allocated to, and power held by the team. Many found the club and its decision-makers to be ambivalent to their existence, often speaking of how important the women’s team (and junior girls’ program) was to the club, without backing them via support or resources. Elise continues:

It’s definitely a challenge when you know, you’re trying to be a serious team and you want to be important to your club and you see certain things happen where you’re like oh this wouldn’t happen if it was the men’s team, like when we train and we don’t have lights, when we don’t have equipment, when we don’t have physios, when we don’t have good coaches and a team of coaches behind us, supporting us, when we can’t get people to do goal umpiring, we can’t get people to do scoring, like just those little things.

The lack of resources and space allocated causes women to feel as though their position as footballers is not taken seriously and reproduces previously existing attitudes ‘that women in sport have never been taken seriously and they’ve never demanded the attention of other people, or they’ve never gotten it’ (Mia, 28).

As one can feel the frustration in the unequal distribution of resources the women’s team experiences, it is also noted that they want to be taken ‘seriously’ or regarded as a ‘serious team’. This returns us to the previous tension between having fun and learning versus demonstrating characteristics of being ‘serious’ or approaching things like the men’s teams. As identified earlier, this approach revolves around winning at all costs, which includes a willingness to sacrifice one’s body, engage in violence, and play through injury. The incongruity between perceptions of what the team should be results in a lack of respect, as summed up by Gabrielle (21):

I remember one day we had a match scheduled for a Sunday afternoon and there’s been a muck up with scheduling, so the under 14’s or the under 12’s (boys) used the main ground and we got moved a couple of hundred metres up the road, to play on this really shitty school oval which was about half the size, it was actually really insulting, particularly when the girls would be paying significant registration fees, putting a lot of money in over the bar and really supporting the club and just to be shafted was quite, it was just horrible, I remember being particularly angry about that because it just really highlighted how we were perceived.

Further, the women’s team has actively tried to improve their situation, though with little success. The team has advocated for better access to club resources since the beginning. Despite this, there has been a lack of tangible change:

We think that it might be getting better because they’ve heard us, they’ve heard our complaints but I haven’t really seen much change, like I feel like it’s the exact same as when we first started, like what’s changed? I actually can’t think of one thing that’s really changed.

(Zoe)

The onus of this change (for example, more resources) has constantly been put on the women themselves. Gabrielle (21) speaks of the expectation for the women to put in a similar level of commitment as the men before the club has been willing to commit to providing appropriate resourcing:

For people to expect so much from players, they need to be able to give us like at least, you know, the same training times and same grounds and all that sort of stuff and then from there I think if the club’s putting all that in and the leagues putting all that in, like you need to expect it from your players

However, it was clear throughout the interviews that regardless of the parts of their experiences that could be improved, women were just grateful to be able to play. In her study on AFLW players, Pavlidis (2020) found that even with the second-rate conditions women in sport face, it is expected that they should be happy and optimistic. Many players in her study expressed happiness just to be playing regardless of the conditions. Similarly, at the Sharks, players tried to justify the lack of resources and respect.

I feel like some people are impatient with that and they feel like we should have exactly what the boys have now and I think they don’t realise that, you know, [the Sharks] started what, in the 60’s I think or the 50’s… so they’ve got huge history behind them and it’s been males up until recently

(Isabella, 33)

Pavlidis (2020) suggests that optimism and happiness with the status quo is a strategy that might result in a higher chance of belonging. Issues have been raised with the club multiple times, but there is a sense within the team that if they are patient and just continue showing up, things will slowly start to become more inclusive.

To combat the lack of importance placed on the team by the club, Phoebe (23) suggested on-field success may be a way to gain capital within the club:

I think that it’s just a generational thing, men have been playing footy for so long so of course they’re still in that mindset of it’s their club kind of thing, but I think as long as like we keep playing and especially when clubs are successful, like if [the Sharks] women won like the grand final or something, we would definitely be taken more seriously I think so it’s just about keep playing and you know getting involved I suppose.

For most, the negativity only enhanced their desire to play and prove these people wrong. Although focusing on adolescent Australian Rules players rather than adults, Elliott et al. (2019) found that many girls had experienced their peers undermining their participation in a ‘boys sport’ through degrading, hegemonic, or sarcastic remarks. Most of the girls in this study also showed motivation to ‘prove the haters wrong’ and continue their involvement in football. This is echoed by Zoe:

It’s a bit more physical and you feel like a bit tougher, you feel like yeah, I get tackled but I still am up and playing, I think especially as girls, I like getting tackled because I want people to think that no, I’m not some weak little girl, like I can actually take it and I’m not going to go cry like majority of people would think, so I think that’s why I like it.

As a social and cultural space, the Sharks football club’s attempts at being part of gender equality through the inclusion of a women’s team demonstrate the ongoing and enduring issues related to community-level sports. Whilst only in its 3rd season at the time, these interviews identify the ways players rationalise or contest enduring experiences of ambivalence and inequality. Strategies to prove the ‘haters wrong’ focus on performance and acceptance of even greater risk by going in harder. Considering the individual feeling of empowerment the women discussed through learning to tackle, it is not surprising that this might become an option; however, this puts the onus of changing the cultural and structural inequalities that are present on the women’s capacity to demonstrate aggression and physicality, rather than on the (men’s) club to change its attitudes and allocation of resources.

6. Conclusions

To conclude, we return to the notion of contested terrain. Our aim was to understand the embodied and social experiences of a group of adult women who take up ARF in the context of the ‘boom’ in women’s sporting opportunities in Australia. At an individual level, women at the Sharks demonstrate the emancipatory potential from challenging feminine modalities through the unique physicality of ARF. Whilst this physicality is affirmed within the team, it is not necessarily appreciated by significant others in their lives. Simultaneously, there emerge the beginnings of internal conflict within the team about the rationale for playing, put simply for ‘fun’ or ‘seriously’. These individual experiences are then placed within the historically masculine context of the Sharks club, whose concept of inclusion and gender equality sees women as an addition to the status quo rather than an opportunity to reimagine and redistribute power relations. Hence, our players identify simultaneous moments of empowerment and disempowerment that are then negotiated and rationalised in various ways.

It is clear throughout this paper that women’s sport is a site of debate, negotiation, and conflict; however, in the contemporary moment, there is a widely uncritical, ahistorical acceptance of the ‘boom’ for women in sport. Whilst participation and opportunities to play most sports have increased for girls and women in Australia, one should be wary of adopting the “simplistic notion that women’s increasing athleticism unambiguously signals increased freedom and equality for women” (Messner 1988, p. 207). As Messner (1988, p. 198) also articulates, “within a reflexive historical framework, we can begin to understand how sport (and culture in general) is a dynamic social space where dominant (class, ethnic, etc.) ideologies are perpetuated as well as challenged and contested.”

In proclaiming a ‘boom time’ for women in sport, sport evangelists have taken up, and uncritically reproduced, the assumption that there has been a continuous ‘natural progression’ of lineal improvements that has also translated to broader equality for women in society (McLachlan 2019). This rhetoric has carried into the community sport space by new players, who are happy to get a chance to play and move their bodies in new (albeit more violent) ways. While being included in this way does illustrate some challenges to the status quo and possibly illustrates a more gender-equal society, the ‘emergent contradictions’ evident here, however, are that in the face of ongoing sexism and homophobia, the players have largely adopted a frame of gratitude, optimism, and persistence to explain their experiences. To uncover the two-speed economy connected to the rapid professionalisation of women’s sports, more research needs to focus on the experiences of women at the community level from which to advocate for new approaches for achieving gender equality in these sporting spaces. Taking on the un-reflexive, ahistorical ‘boom time’ position ignores previous gender equity (both successful and unsuccessful) efforts and potentially obscures the ongoing contestation over women’s embodiment, equality, and freedom, and as such, the patriarchal power relations of historically male-dominated sports are not being transformed in any meaningful way by the inclusion of women in these clubs.