“The World Cup of Empowerment” and “They Really Missed the Ball”: Gender Discourses at the 2019 Women’s World Cup

Abstract

The FIFA Women's World Cup disseminates ideas about gender, women, and sport to a global audience. I report on a short-term ethnography involving participant observation at the 2019 Women's World Cup and in-depth interviews with fan attendees to examine the gender discourses produced through the tournament and fans’ responses to them. Integrating the concept of neoliberal postfeminism with an affective lens, I illustrate how discourses of empowerment and the progress of women's sport circulate positive affects in order to bring fans into neoliberal postfeminist ideas, ultimately presenting tournament organizers as benevolent supporters of women. While fans sometimes produced these discourses themselves, finding them emotionally resonant, they also championed a discourse of inequality that was skeptical about organizations’ true commitments and circulated an affect of frustration to call public attention to gender inequality. Fans’ simultaneous embrace and rejection of empowerment and progress discourses reveal both their reflexive agency and the powerful emotional pull that these discourses present.