LAUSR

Feminist sports scholars have often characterised sport as a masculine domain. It is within the traditionally masculine domain that ideologies of male superiority are produced and reproduced and male dominance is structurally and symbolically maintained. Despite the number of female fans having increased in recent years, researchers understand sports fandom as limited to men and an activity which maintains the gendered hierarchy. The disregard of women as sports fans gives the impression that women fans are something different, less legitimate than the ‘authentic’ male fan. In The Feminization of Sports Fandom Stacey Pope is attempting to fill this gap by highlighting the importance of watching professional sports for many women and contextualising the experiences and expectations of women, which have been largely ignored by many academics. The Feminization of Sports Fandom draws on feminist thinking and intersectionality and describes the current situation for 85 female fans of both rugby union (Leicester Tigers) and football (Leicester City) in the ethnically and culturally diverse City of Leicester. Stacey Pope’s empirical data consists of semi-structured interviews. The sample contains three groups one ‘young’ group, 20–27 years old, one ‘middle aged’ group aged 28–59, and one ‘older’ group, 60 years and older. Despite Leicester’s ethnically diverse population, nearly all Pope’s sample was white and heterosexual. As such diverse ethnic minorities are not well represented. The book is structured around eight chapters. Pope provides an extensive history of recent changes in women’s lives in areas such as education, work and the family which have opened up opportunities for women to become sports fans. The empirical findings presented in chapters four to seven provide evidence of women’s motives and attachments as sports fans, by examining women’s journeys into their fandom and how they have negotiated their place in the predominately male domain of sports fandom. In chapter two Pope argues that the feminisation of sports fandom can be explained by two major changes in contemporary society which have allowed some women to challenge their exclusion from sport, both as players and fans. Pope highlights the feminist movements and women’s liberation movements in the 1960s and 1970s of particular importance in leading to crucial changes in the areas of education, work and the family for women. These generational changes have been important in the so called ‘post-feminist’ era from the 1990s and have allowed women to exert greater control over their leisure time, including becoming sports fans. Pope argues this ‘genderquake’ in the 1990s, has seen a rebalancing between the sexes which has led to greater equality for women. In chapter three Pope introduces her ‘feminization thesis’. She argues recent changes in professional sport have created a more welcoming environment for women as fans and consequently women now make up a substantial section of the sports crowd. Pope shows that the number of female fans have increased in recent years in the UK – in the Premier League the female fans are around 26% of the total number of fans for the 2014–2015 season; the corresponding proportion of rugby union fans is around 18%. She also argues that previous meanings of the term feminisation have been unhelpful in legitimising women as fans and has led to homogeneity in categorising women fans as ‘middle class’ or sexually attracted to male players and as such, does not consider the diverse nature of female fans. Pope provides empirical data in chapters four to seven informed by a feminist framework. The main aim was to gain a greater understanding of sports fandom in the leisure lives of women in football and rugby union. Through empirical research Pope unravels and articulates women’s journeys into their fandom and provides a detailed explanation how women fans have negotiated their place in this male domain. Leisure studies 2018, Vol. 37, No. 4, 473–477