Women Do Fandom TheirWay

Tamar Rapoport, Daniel Regev*

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingChapterpeer-review

Abstract

Tamar Rapoport and Daniel Regev employ the concept of “passing” to examine women’s fandom, drawing on the classical sociological and feminist rendering of this notion (Butler 1990; Goffman 1968) that refers to crossing the boundary of social categories (race, class and gender). The analysis reveals several fandom practices which women employ, including, on the one hand, a genuine attempt to pass and perform bodily practices according to the hegemonic masculine model, and on the other hand, a conscious choice to be present in the fandom field yet not to pass. The discussion of the practices suggests that because of their marginal and noninstitutionalized position in the stadium, women do fandom in their own way: As their fandom is not constrained by habitus, their scope in doing fandom within this model is relatively wide-ranging. They perform diverse fandom practices that depart, to a lesser or greater extent, from the standards of authenticity dictated by the masculine model of doing fandom. Women’s deviation from men’s hegemony (Connell and Messerschmidt) in doing fandom challenges conventions in the fandom field and in research regarding gender and fandom, which tend to dwell on women’s marginality and objectification without attending to their different voices. The chapter’s conclusion is that as long as men symbolically and in practice “own” the fandom field, the disassociation of fandom from gender remains a utopian ideal realizable only if society’s gender regime were to transform.

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationDoing Fandom
Subtitle of host publicationLessons from Football in Gender, Emotions, Space
PublisherSpringer International Publishing
Pages135-159
Number of pages25
ISBN (Electronic)9783030468705
ISBN (Print)9783030468699
DOIs
StatePublished - 1 Jan 2020

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020.

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