Resumo de ?the Fastest Growing Sport? Women?s Football In England?

This essay consists of a rhetorical analysis of Jean Williams (2003) paper by drawing upon the theories, arguments and key concepts contained in it. This article takes an overview of women?s participation in football during, and after the First World War (FWW). It also outlines the current tensions and historical roots of issues regarding women?s access to competitive football and equality of opportunity. This essay comprises of three sections; First section consists of a political critique that analyses the underlying values evident in Williams? article. Second section is concerned with a theoretical critique of the paradigm that the author is drawing from. Finally, third section addresses methodological issues by systematically investigating the factual evidence used to support the author?s arguments.Williams? (2003) article discusses attitudes towards female participation in football in England by exploring the impact of historical forces on contemporary players. As the title ?The Fastest Growing Sport?? suggests, Williams appears to regard claims that promise a ?bright? future for women?s participation in football with some scepticism. The author illustrate this point by commenting that ?the starting point for this study was to ask how we have arrived at this moment of obvious inequality and how this disparity sits alongside the idea of football as an increasingly chosen female sport? (p. 112). Jean Williams also draws the reader?s attention to the phase of popularity of football among women during the FWW and how the English Football Association (EFA) found this to be a threat to the idea of football as a man?s game. As a result of this, according to her, the EFA imposed a ban on women?s football in 1921. As far as she is concerned, this discriminatory tendency still continues despite the Sex Discrimination Act drafted in 1975, as this exempts professional football and thus, denies women the right to equality of opportunity.This article also draws upon quantifiable data in order to test the hypothesis of a steady rise in women?s participation in football in England. Williams focuses on the data patterns and suggests that women?s participation in football had increased quicker when clubs where affiliated to the WFA comparing to clubs affiliated to the FA. In this respect she commented that ?the most significant pattern of this data is that in one decade, between 1969 and 1979, the number of clubs affiliated to the WFA increased six-fold. Compared to the FA figures? it has taken 20 years for woman?s football to grow a further six times? (p. 122). Therefore she concludes by stating that ?this contentious connection between women and football and their negotiation of the meaning of their play requires a theoretical analysis as well as historical narrative. (p. 126).

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