Rethinking Masculinities: Argentine Women in Men’s Soccer, 1914–30

Between 1915 and 1930 Argentina came to be known around the world, together with Uruguay, as an epicenter of soccer culture. Scholars have characterized this historically rich era of Argentine soccer, known as the amateur period, as fundamental in the creation of Argentine masculine identities. In this process women were conspicuous by their absence, scholars have reported, and the result was a quintessentially male-dictated and male-dominated sports scene that proved fecund only in the creation of modern Argentine masculinities.  This paper examines new evidence to highlight the prominence of women in the Argentine soccer world of the amateur period. During this period many Argentine women asserted themselves within the male soccer world rather than carving out their own sphere of women’s soccer parallel to or derivative of male-dominated soccer. A wide array of evidence—from soccer-centered popular poetry to newspaper interviews—indicates the degree to which Argentine women of all classes and regions transgressed carefully policed gender boundaries, making mainstream masculine soccer their own in the face of attempts to exclude them. In fan organizations and popular sports media, Argentine women exhibited mastery over the idioms and symbols of popular soccer. In so doing, they gained access to highly valued, highly visible forms of masculine citizenship that, on an official level, demanded their abstention.