You run like a girl

1. kick off – INTRODUCTION

Sport is of tremendous importance throughout Europe. The number of people interested in sport increases every year. Sport is a growing economic and recreational factor. Sports clubs, associations, and organisations are important and influential institutions in society. As a result of this importance, sport also has a social and political function. More often that not, however, traditional structures with their various orientations, interests, and needs keep sport from fulfilling its social and political function. In most cases, sports clubs and associations are very reluctant to comment on current problems such as peace, drugs, or violence, for example.

While sport cannot and should not be a repair shop for fixing grievances produced by society, the persons in charge in sports organisations cannot and must not turn their backs on current problems. Football is the most popular team sport in Europe. The rising number of spectators in professional football demonstrates the high level of acceptance the game continues to enjoy. Football is marketed and successfully sold as an “event.” As a mass phenomenon, football is not a reflection of society, but rather a place where cultural notions influential in society are being produced or reinforced. Thus, football is part of society. This is why football can be an important instrument for reaching people with diverse backgrounds, experiences, and identities. 59% of all European citizens believe that sport provides an opportunity for counteracting all forms of discrimination (European Commission Sport Barometer, 2003).

All members of the football community must be strengthened time and again in their awareness of problems such as racism and discrimination. In order to tap the full potential of the football game, however, all forms of discrimination need to be counteracted. While racism is frequently on the agenda, discrimination and abuse based on sexual orientation, homophobia, and sexism are mostly neglected, although they are recurring problems in football as well. Homophobia and sexism may not be separated from each other, since lesbian women repeatedly become victims of both massive homophobic and sexist abuse.

Sport is an integral element in the daily lives of many gays and lesbians as well. They may be athletes themselves or devoted fans. Based on their sexual orientation, however, they are sometimes excluded, discriminated against, or forced to conceal an important part of their identities to avoid discrimination. As a result, homosexuals may not always practice or enjoy sport as much as they would like to.

This paper is divided into four parts. It begins with an explanation of the connections between sex, gender categories of “femininity” and “masculinity,” and homophobia, exploring some of the mechanisms facilitating homophobia in football. The second part aims to demonstrate where homophobia, sexism, and discrimination may be found in football. It will become evident that gay men face different problems and forms of discrimination on the pitch as well as on the terraces than do lesbian women. The third part provides a number of suggestions and examples on what should be done to arrive at a situation in which players, fans, and all others involved in football no longer experience any discrimination based on their sexual orientation. The last chapter gives a short portrait of the European Gay and Lesbian Sports Federation (EGLSF). The EGLSF is an umbrella organisation for gay and lesbian issues in sport. It aims to combat discrimination based on sexual orientation and to support the integration and emancipation of lesbians and gays in sports.

picture out of the 1998 German movie "Run Lola Run"

2. you run like a girl – GENDER and HOMOPHOBIA

Football is a reservation, a refuge, and a protective space for outdated notions of masculinity (see MARSCHICK, 2003 [1]). Football is the last place where “true masculinity” may be lived and expressed both on and off the field. Female players, fans, board members, and journalists, in contrast, are rare exceptions. The common division of the game into football and women’s football illustrates the idea that it is the men who play “real” or “true” football, very much the way Boris Becker once commented on Steffi Graf in an interview about tennis: “She plays women’s tennis; I play tennis” (quoted in PALZKILL, 1990 [2]).

People’s ideas about femininity and masculinity are profoundly influenced by collective notions established and transmitted in society over centuries. According to traditional gender roles, masculinity still represents attributes such as activity, courage, intellect, assertiveness, etc. Femininity, on the contrary, stands for restraint, weakness, emotions, and empathy, for example. These two categories reduce the diversity of possible human characteristics and forms of behaviour to a restricted, gender-bound repertoire.

In sport, the boundaries of femininity and masculinity are extremely narrow. Women in sports, however, do experience the possibility of expressing aspects of their personalities usually defined as male. They even have to demonstrate supposedly male qualities in order to be successful as athletes. For women, the main problem rather results from having to choose between their identities as women and as athletes. Women may be athletes and thereby transgress the boundaries of femininity and masculinity. For men, transgressing these gender boundaries is not as easy and frequently results in allegations of homosexuality. Men failing to conform to traditional gender roles experience much harsher sanctions from society than women because they break a much more deeply entrenched taboo.

The world of football is a special part of the world of sport. Football is a sphere of male culture, male bonding, and male power. Only “real” men play football, a game in which any display of “female” qualities will be considered a weakness. Female qualities are unwelcome; they are disrespected and excluded. “I consider both violence and sexism to be core characteristics of male-dominated football. The maleness of football is established by excluding women and gays, which results in sexism and homophobia” (SÜLZE 2005, 48 [3]). Bad players are called “girls” or “faggots,” for example. Along the same lines, football-playing women are “viragos” or “lesbians”, with lesbian in this case meaning unattractive and “male.”

In spite of this resistance to change in established gender boundaries, SÜLZE has identified a number of new trends: For the leftist men’s and gay movements, rejecting masculinity is no longer synonymous with rejecting football, for example. According to an Emnid poll, more and more women watch important matches of the national team on television, which suggests that an interest in football is no longer exclusively a male prerogative. For marketing reasons, football is about to be turned into a family event which is supposed to attract a financially potent audience. As a consequence, more and more women are being targeted and become more visible as football spectators.

Despite these developments, however, the world of football continues to be persistently male. Misogyny, sexism, and homophobia remain ingredients of football. They can be found in fan chants, on posters and photos, in calls to female players and cheerleaders to get naked, and, of course, in the oft-repeated and beloved wisdom that women are constitutionally incapable of understanding the offside rule. In addition, a number of football greats have publicly declared that the kitchen is the place where women belong. SELMER [4] explains that women frequently downplay the sexism they encounter in order to justify their presence in the football stadium. Furthermore, sexist slogans sometimes go unnoticed because everybody’s attention is focused on the match.

It is not individual women who are being rejected but female concepts per se: Everything looking female or sexy does not fit into football. Women feeling comfortable in the male world of football do so precisely because they do not encounter any “chicks” there and because they may act openly and straightforwardly. Individual women get accepted into this male world if they are “true” fans and feel enthusiastic about football. They do not have to conform to any gender stereotype and may behave as they like on the terraces. As “true” fans, they are not subject to the constraints of supposedly female social behaviour. “They manage to create a free space for themselves where they are not primarily defined by their sex” (SÜLZE 2005, 48 [5]). However, this gender strategy only works in an overwhelmingly male world whose order cannot be disturbed, let alone destroyed by the presence of a few individual women.

Homosexuality is such a taboo in men’s football that you might think the first gay player would cause the football universe to come tumbling down. This seems strange considering the fact that the game regularly features various manifestations of homoeroticism such as players and fans kissing, embracing, and comforting each other both on the field and on the terraces. These forms of body contact, however, are not perceived as homoeroticism. On the contrary, players and fans may show all sorts of behaviour in the football stadium without being considered un-male. In this context, SÜLZE talks about what she calls the masculinization forces of football which allow men to wear girl’s laces, earrings, and even women’s underwear (David Beckham) and still come across as indisputably male, for example.

People in Western and Central European countries live in societies that supposedly do not care who lives or sleeps with whom. Statistically, 5 to 10 percent of the population are homo- or bisexual. Looking at society at large, a lot has changed for lesbians and gays during the past few decades: Their public visibility has increased; many Western European countries have granted them more rights; they are featured in prime time television shows; many work for the army or the police; there are more and more celebrity coming-outs in politics, culture, and the arts.

It is only in the realm of all-connecting, all-integrating, and never-discriminating sport where homosexuals are neither found nor welcome. Sport in general and football in particular seem absolutely resistant to progress in this respect. With impressive clarity, the world of football thus shows that it is one of the most conservative realms of our society. Working-class sport has been dominated by males and their points of view for so many decades that different life-styles do not have a place. Heterosexual men seem enormously scared of any contact with gay men, which is especially detrimental because football with its tackling, shadowing, and holding techniques is one of the sports involving most body contact. After scoring a goal, all players are fond of hugging and embracing each other, but only as long as no player enjoys touching another man in private as well. Everything unfamiliar provokes fears and anxieties; and everything unfamiliar is met with particular aggressiveness and intolerance.

The amount of ignorance in all of this is quite frightening. Many only know a handful of invectives for gays at best. They know next to nothing about lesbians and entertain only stereotypical notions of homosexual life-styles. Stereotypes are omnipresent and function as mechanisms of exclusion for gays and lesbians. Stereotypical images and homophobia are widespread on all levels of sport, among players, coaches, referees, clubs, associations, and fans.

Traditionally, heterosexuality has been regarded as a biological fact and the natural way of life. Homophobia in its various expressions and forms of social behaviour is intended to stabilize the system of heterosexuality by stigmatizing all other life-styles and forms of sexuality as unnatural or pathological. FASTING [6]defines homophobia as “an irrational fear and intolerance of homosexuality, gays, and lesbians – even of forms of behaviour outside of expected gender roles.”

Homosexuality in sport is seen somewhat differently with regard to different disciplines. Gay figure skaters are tolerated more easily than gay footballers, for example. And whereas female football players are bound to be lesbian by definition, female track and field athletes are not. In spite of these differences, however, homosexual athletes may experience discrimination in all sports. It often begins with feeling uncomfortable in clubs and associations because gays and lesbians are not visible in this milieu either as athletes or as supporters. Most discrimination takes the form of verbal abuse. Rather than insulting gays and lesbians personally, people more frequently make general comments such as “Are you gay or what?” when somebody’s actions fail to succeed.

However, there are more extreme instances of discrimination as well such as physical violence and exclusion from clubs after homosexuals have decided to come out. Many people still think homosexuality is contagious, so they won’t take a shower with a lesbian or gay person and do not want their children to do sports with them.

For all of these reasons, only very few dare to come out and make their sexual orientation public. But they do exist, those lesbian, gay, and bisexual top athletes such as Martina Navratilova, Greg Louganis, Amelie Maurismo, Judith Arndt, or Mark Tewksbury. Lesbians and gays can also be found in amateur sport, but merely 3% of them openly display their sexual preferences, and 64% come out only with their closest friends in their clubs (see CALMBACH 2001 [7]).

Football is the sport of the masses and dominated by heterosexual and monosexual masculinity. It is closely identified with the image of the strong man. Gays and women do not fit into this picture. While there already are numerous anti-racist campaigns and initiatives on many levels, many are unaware of the fact that there are other forms of discrimination besides racism and right-wing extremism, i.e. homophobia and sexism.

“In contrast to other forms of discrimination such as sexism, racism and right-wing extremism are usually noticed by fans and sometimes seen as a problem, but sometimes also belittled as a ‘normal’ part of football culture” (SCHWENZER 2005, 60) [8].

When the opposing team or the referee is called “gay,” most people do not even notice any abuse. Homophobia and sexism are often understood as being part of the cultural logic of football. Racist, sexist, or homophobic forms of behaviour are intended to provoke, insult, or humiliate the opponents and their fans and as such become legitimate strategies for winning the match.

Some slogans, chants, and invectives have become so integral to enjoying football that their meaning is no longer questioned. The microcosm of the football stadium frequently allows and tolerates what would elsewhere constitute a criminal offence, at least in Germany. Calling a player a “fucking Jew” is part of the football spectacle. As an anonymous part of the mass, you may say what you would never say anywhere else because it cannot or must not be said.

As a result of persistent negation, homosexuality becomes a taboo. The scope of this negation becomes apparent when comparing articles from the German press over the past ten years. For example, newspaper articles on the first gay-lesbian world football championships in 1995 in Berlin (Berliner Zeitung, die tageszeitung, Tagesspiegel, Berliner Kurier) or reviews of the gay German football movie “Men Like Us” in the Frankfurter Rundschau and the Express read almost exactly the same. They all agree that football is the people’s sport and above all a male sport, in which gays don’t exist! Gays can’t throw, can’t run, and can’t tackle, except maybe for a bit of gymnastics.

The silence of fans, players, coaches, clubs, and associations or the negation and invisibility of homosexuality in sport are serious expressions of homophobia. The exclusion of homosexuality may save gays and lesbians from direct discrimination, but only as long as they remain silent about their homosexuality. It is the so-called prisoner’s dilemma: Homosexuals are only discriminated against when they come out, but they do not come out for fear of discrimination. According to a 2001 Swiss study by CALMBACH [9], only 3% of the surveyed coaches and officials in amateur sports notice any homophobia in their clubs; 22% believe that there are gays and lesbians in their club; 83% say that homosexuality was never on the club agenda.

In spite of these results, homosexuality and homophobia are almost absent in European sports research. As BAKS and MALECEK [10] had to find out in a study on behalf of the EGLSF, not a single study on homosexuality and homophobia in sports can be traced in Southern and Eastern Europe. Most existing studies focus on regional sports or include only one or very few disciplines. There is some research from Belgium (DE VOS 2000) [11], Germany (PAPAGEOIRGIOU/ BOEGE 1997 [12], PALZKILL 1990 [13], PFISTER 1999 [14]), Great Britain (KING/THOMSON [15]), the Netherlands (HEKMA 1994 [16], SCHUYF/STOEPLER 1997 [17]), Norway (KOLNES 1995 [18], FASTING 2003 [19]), and Switzerland (CALMBACH et al. 2001 [20]).

Because of the public silence on homosexuality and homophobia and its invisibility, the dominance of both heterosexuality and collective ideas on femininity and masculinity remain essentially intact. As a consequence, it is almost impossible for athletes to come out. Young homosexuals suppress their identities and hardly participate in any sport for fear of discovery. This is also true of European countries in which official policies aim to strengthen the rights of gays and lesbians. In these countries, there may be more public attention on homophobia, but problems do exist just the same. It is probably safe to say that the situation in countries with a less supportive political background is similar, if not even more disconcerting.

Tanja Walther

Full original report here on Farenet.Org