Kicking Center

Gender and the Selling of Women's Professional Soccer
Erscheinungsjahr 2018
ISBN: 978-0-8135-8677-9
Verlag: Rutgers University Press

Buch, Englisch, 220 Seiten, Paperback, Format (B × H): 151 mm x 228 mm, Gewicht: 296 g

Reihe: Critical Issues in Sport and Society

Girls and young women participate in soccer at record levels and the Women’s National Team regularly draws media, corporate, and popular attention. Yet despite increased representation and visibility, gender disparities in opportunity, compensation, training resources, and media airtime persist in soccer, and two professional leagues for women have failed since 2000. 

In Kicking Center, Rachel Allison investigates a women’s soccer league seeking to break into the male-dominated center of U.S. professional sport. Through an examination of the challenges and opportunities identified by those working for and with this league, she demonstrates how gender inequality is both constructed and contested in professional sport. Allison details the complex constructions of race, class, gender, and sexuality in the selling and marketing of women’s soccer in a half-changed sports landscape characterized by both progress and backlash, and where professional sports are still understood to be men’s territory.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Allison, Rachel

Fachgebiete

• Sozialwissenschaften Soziologie | Soziale Arbeit Spezielle Soziologie Freizeitsoziologie, Konsumsoziologie, Alltagssoziologie, Populärkultur
• Sozialwissenschaften Soziologie | Soziale Arbeit Soziale Gruppen/Soziale Themen Gender Studies, Geschlechtersoziologie
• Sozialwissenschaften Sport | Tourismus | Freizeit Sport Ballsportarten

Inhaltsverzeichnis

- List of Abbreviations 
- Introduction: Kicking Center
- 1 Women’s Soccer in the United States  
- 2 Business or Cause? Contested Goals
- 3 We’re Taking Over! Constructing the Fan Base  
- 4 Image Politics and Media (In)Visibility
- Conclusion: Kicking Forward?  
- Appendices
- Acknowledgments
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index

Über Autor(innen)

Rachel Allison is an assistant professor of sociology and faculty affiliate of gender studies at Mississippi State University in Starkville, Mississippi.