Fotbollsflickors känsla för genus. Meningsskapande om jämställdhet genom sportmediers genusrepresentationer

Abstract

Studies on how people use media is a recurring theme in several research areas, not least in terms of the variety of media habits that describe how we relate to others and ourselves in a complex society. Several studies about media genres and audience preferences show how the stories people tell also hold them together within social relations. This article starts from a micro-social perspective to investigate a specific community, namely a group of seven football-playing teenaged girls, and their thoughts about gender, power relations, and sports media. The material consists of two focus group discussions about gender, sports media content, and female footballers, which are analyzed through the concepts of participation, passion, and frustration. The aim is to discuss gender equality in a Swedish context in order to widen the understanding of identity processes. The article also draws on a study from 2006 on female footballers and media gender representations. Concepts from media and gender studies inform the theoretical perspective on gender and media reception. The article uses an understanding of the concept habitus, based on how storytelling embedded in cultural contexts reveals ideology, myths, and gendered power structures. The female identity (habitus) is a situated position from which women narrate, form, and express the self. The results of this study clearly indicate how female identities not only situate relational gender structures, but also potentially involve claims for gender equality and citizenship. The female footballers use the process of narrating the self in complex ways in their everyday life, oscillating back and forth between feelings of participation, passion, and frustration.