Women as consumers of a male domain : Australian Rules Football and its female fans
Mewett, Peter and Toffoletti, Kim 2007, Women as consumers of a male domain : Australian Rules Football and its female fans, in AAS 2007 : Transforming Economies, Changing States : Australian Anthropological Society Annual Conference Abstracts, Australian National University, Canberra, A.C.T., pp. 70-70.
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Title
Women as consumers of a male domain : Australian Rules Football and its female fans
AAS 2007 : Transforming Economies, Changing States : Australian Anthropological Society Annual Conference Abstracts
Publication date
2007
Start page
70
End page
70
Publisher
Australian National University
Place of publication
Canberra, A.C.T.
Summary
Looked at from a global perspective, sports are mostly male preserves. Those played by women seldom attract a large spectatorship and the numerous at-ground viewers of men’s play mostly are men. An exception is Australian Rules Football (AFL), a male sport that since the 19th century has drawn a considerable female following, with women accounting for about half of the ‘live’ crowds. From single-person and focus group interviews conducted with female AFL fans, we examine how women voice their support for a sport characterised by hyper-masculinity in players’ on-field and off-field behaviours, in the organisation and control of the sport, and in the ‘natural’ authority credited to men’s voices in commentary and interpretation of it. Given their marginalisation in AFL and in sports generally, what do women fans gain from their avid support of AFL and how does this influence the construction of their identities as women? We examine these issues from a perspective supporting the idea of multiple, fragmented identities.