The book, Futbolera,  written by Brenda Elsey and Joshua Nadel, takes a deep dive into the world of women’s football/soccer and women’s sports in general throughout Latin America during the late 19th Century, the 20th Century and beyond. The information detailed by the book is intriguing and unique, as it demonstrates a multifaceted look into how different Latin American countries and regions handled women’s soccer and sports, comparing the various countries and regions, demonstrating similarities and differences between all.  Utilizing historical documents, print media, as well as written observations by persons during the times covered, Futbolera gives an objective look at the evolution of the sports of women throughout the Latin American region, displaying the highs, the lows, and the thoughts of those who witnessed.  Though, one commonplace observation noted with women’s soccer, no matter what the country was, there appeared to be represented a pushback from one group in the country to oppose the growth of women’s soccer/sports in their country. Typically, for most countries that group consisted of conservative males that did not want to empower women for different reasons.

 The first chapter of Futbolera focused on Argentina and Chile’s development of women’s soccer/football as well as female exercise activity. Argentina actually was one of the countries in the region that pushed for women’s physical education as early as the 1800’s. Though this received pushback from people that thought that women should be “soft and delicate;” in their appearance.  Incidentally, The Young Men’s Christian Association (YMCA) was a major force in women’s sports in Latin America through the group’s encouragement of participation of women in the early 1900’s.  And even though the group received backlash for their stance, they continued to promote it.  Instead of football though, the YMCA focused on sports like Swimming and Basketball while ignoring football.

               As for the country Chile on the other hand, though there were some similarities with Argentina’s evolution, the differences involved the  hyper masculinity  that was seemingly much more abrasive in Chile then it was in Argentina.  And as a result women’s football and women’s sports in Chile lagged behind the men’s significantly.

               The authors of the book focused on telling the distinct differences between Chile and Argentina’s stance to women’s football. Argentina, thanks to the influence of European culture and ideals was a bit more open to women’s sport and in more specifically women’s football than Chile. Though, even in Argentina, they pushed more for other sports than for women’s football.  The same is the case in Chile thanks to a strong hint of masculinity depicted in the writings and observations of the times.  The book chronicles those events, reviewing  the challenges that female footballers faced from masculine ideals, put forth by leaders of their respected countries.  Actions such as sabotage by male officials, legal prohibition, opposition from their families that fought against the idea of football for women were noted.

Other focus on the book highlights Brazil who based on the authors’ insights, probably had the most pushback of any country mentioned in the book.  Brazil outright banned women’s football in 1941, which effectively should have closed the door on women’s sports.  Yet even despite the eventual ban, Brazilian women’s football had quite a bit of popularity when it was allowed, that would eventually cause the ban to be lifted with women’s football even celebrated by the country in many ways today.  The largest hurdle for women playing sports in Brazil were due to conservatives in the country who pushed very harshly against it, with the masculinity of identity ruling supreme to what was a patriarchal society.  Brazil struggled with this until the 80’s.  The chapter documents the various aspects of women with sports through documents, articles and a celebration of female “fans” of football over actual play in many publications.   Through perseverance however, the ban would be lifted and today, women’s football in Brazil is even celebrated a source of pride for the country.

In Mexico and Central America, the governments controlled women’s sports way more than in South America.   While much of Argentina and Chile’s focus on women’s sports was mainly individualist and bureaucratic, Mexico modeled itself with more open ideals with the changing times of the 20th Century.  The Mexican government pushed for female education in sports and physical education. Though there still were efforts to discourage female sports in Mexico, there were successes as depicted in historical articles of the time.  Costa Rica as a country was initially slow on their growth of women and sports, but when they began to allow women participate, they allowed women to participate in sports more then arguably any other Latin American country presented in the book.  Costa Rica is a country that recognized women athletes for their skill over their beauty, unlike some others. Though the government often had forces that discouraged women’s sports, a stable platform was established.  And as  for El Salvador, it was noted in the book was similar to Costa Rica’s with noted ideals based often time on Europe’s.

An interesting aspect of the book, depicted the success, and failure of the Mexican Women’s League  that exploded in the late 1960’s and early 1970’s and had a competitive league that was seemingly popular through the active grassroots connections of its participants and supporters, noted in the establishment of regional based teams and well documented news stories.  The Mexico chapter showed that success was achieved. though only a short-lived success due to problems with money and general push back.

In conclusion,  Futbolera written by Brenda Elsey and Joshua Nadel, objectively document women’s sports, and more specifically women’s football/soccer through history to show how despite of problems, growth has been achieved significantly to the present day, having pushed through many of the elements that was thrown against it due to attitudes, preconceived standards, and even government regulation.  Through it all, women’s football is surviving and thriving somewhat, although there still remains many challenges to include less coverage, hyper masculine pushback or lack of investment opportunity.

Appalachian State

Evan Anders