Women’s Football in Latin America

Book excerpt: The chapters in the Women’s Football in Latin America two volumes will look at the social and historical means of the embodied representation of gender differences that has been deeply embedded in the history of Latin American women and football. The authors identify and analyse how, in a range of ways, Latin American women have found in-between spaces, amid severe macho structures, to establish and play their football. As a result, the book will be of interest to researchers and students of sport sociology, football studies, gender studies, comparative sports studies, sports history, and Latin American sporting culture. The second volume of this edited collection integrates a range of high-quality studies on women’s football across Latin American countries to a global readership. From studies with marginalized communities, football fans but also the media and professional women’s footballers, the chapters show how fútbol has been a key part of oppressive gender structures, and ways that women have fought for gender equity within this key cultural expression in Latin America. The book also suggests a fascinating research and activist agenda for women’s football in the continent for the next decades.