(Dis)Regarding Women’s Football: Marginalized Experiences of a Sport Phenomenon - Ileana Gabriela Szasz

The article examines how women in different socio-political contexts in Romania have engaged in football and how they negotiated their path in spite of the systematic and systemic disregard of their participation. For over five decades thousands of women have practiced organized football, however their place as athletes remains marginal not only in a male dominated sport but also in the collective imagination. The Romanian Football Federation has no official records of women’s football before 2014. Current initiatives of development are many times met with reluctance from the actors involved in the world of football and the public. Based on data collected over a period of one year through life stories interviews with former players and other actors involved in women’s football, archival media analysis and ethnographic research carried at a local team, the analysis brings forth women’s experience and the mechanisms developed to overcome misogynistic and discriminatory attitudes from state-socialism to the market-driven economy. The aim of this endeavor is to recognize the neglected and ignored realities of women football players and to see how this attitude has interfered with of the development of the game.Article by Ileana Gabriela Szasz, illustrated by Maria Cucu, read by Katia Pascariuhttps://theanthro.art/disregarding-womens-football-marginalized-experiences-of-a-sport-phenomenon-ileana-szasz/