Futbolera: A History of Women and Sports in Latin America by Brenda Elsey and Joshua Nadel (review)

Futbolera: A History of Women and Sports in Latin America, the most recent book by historians Brenda Elsey and Joshua Nadel, addresses issues of women's discrimination, sexism, and objectification, as well as agency, solidarity, and social impact under the spotlight of sports, mainly football (soccer). Elsey and Nadel study how sport is a particularly useful window to understand women's position in Latin American societies, particularly in the realm of the day-to-day, the "mundane." More than documenting the ways in which women have been sidelined, dismissed, and discriminated in the practice of sports, the authors demonstrate that women did practice sports and actively sought ways to engage in sport. Women were not passive victims of patriarchal norms but active negotiators in (oftentimes resisting) the limitations imposed on them by male sport leaders, governing bodies, and state officials, who, in traditional Latin American and Caribbean fashion, sought to emulate European and U.S. cultural trends. In this regard, Futbolera analyzes the ways in which Latin American women have negotiated their participation in sports, which in this case is another, yet consequential, arena of their social and cultural agency.

Overall, the story of women and sport in Latin America is one of persistence against the constant limitations imposed on them by male leaders at schools, local associations, and national federations. Faced with the traditional absence of women from sport narratives that created national sport heroes throughout Latin America, the questions addressed in this book are not whether women played this or that sport (they did!), but how they were silenced in those narratives, how they were dismissed from or discriminated against practicing sports, yet more importantly, how "nevertheless they persisted" in playing the sports they loved. The restraints to women in sports began early in a woman's life in the physical education curriculum where certain games (for example, volleyball, basketball, tennis), though seen as practices of progress, were deemed more appropriate for girls because these sports were more apt to the fragility of the female body or because they would improve fertility. Rough games such as football were more appropriate for boys due to their alleged physical, oftentimes violent, nature. In Brazil, women's football was even banned from 1941 to 1981, although women still played during those decades. The ban was carried out under unscientific and eugenics claims yet has survived the test of time and can still be seen today. This attitude, and men's fear of strong women, was confronted multiple times by girls and women who, inspired or not by feminist currents, still found ways to practice a whole set of sports, mainly football, under the authors' framework. These women managed to organize locally, and even nationally, creating a clear fan base, notably in Mexico and Costa Rica in 1950.

While Elsey and Nadel masterfully traverse the waters of women's discrimination and agency through sport, a few points would have made their argument stronger. First, a deeper discussion into the literature on women and sport in Latin America and the Caribbean could have situated the book better in the scholarship. There is no mention of Rosa López de D'Amico, Tansin Benn, and Gertrud Pfister's edited volume Women and Sport in Latin America (2016). While the recognition of the omission of the Andes and the Caribbean is appreciated, at least the authors could have reviewed some countries in these regions. Football takes center stage, and while this sport reigns on the continent, it does not in the Caribbean, reflecting the geographical limitation. Throughout the book, there is mention of "photographic evidence" to prove either stereotypical representation of women or the popularity of women's sport. Although such pictures are well described, in not few instances those images are not provided or not...