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‘Who Could Name an England Women’s Footballer?’: Female Fans of Men’s Football and Their Views of Women’s Football in England

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Female Football Players and Fans

Part of the book series: Football Research in an Enlarged Europe ((FREE))

Abstract

Pope offers new knowledge into the area of views of women towards women’s sport, an area which has been largely neglected in existing research to date. The chapter focuses upon women’s perceptions of watching women’s football in the UK. Drawing on 51 interviews with female fans of men’s professional football, the chapter provides insights into the long-lasting stereotypes about female players and women’s football. But Pope also discusses the positive attitudes that were found towards women’s sport. The chapter also considers the lack of media coverage of women’s sport and its impact on fans and Pope argues that the negative perceptions towards women’s football and women’s sport more generally have been in part shaped by the poor media coverage of women’s sport.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the Economic and Social Research Council (grant number PTA-030-2005-00310).

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Applied Social Sciences, Durham University, Durham, UK

    Stacey Pope

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  1. Stacey Pope
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark

    Gertrud Pfister

  2. School of Applied Social Sciences, Durham University, Durham, United Kingdom

    Stacey Pope

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Pope, S. (2018). ‘Who Could Name an England Women’s Footballer?’: Female Fans of Men’s Football and Their Views of Women’s Football in England. In: Pfister, G., Pope, S. (eds) Female Football Players and Fans. Football Research in an Enlarged Europe. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-59025-1_7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-59025-1_7

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  • Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London

  • Print ISBN: 978-1-137-59024-4

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-137-59025-1

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