Why in the USA, soccer is one of the most popular sports among girls, but not among boys? Is this due to different perceptions among Europeans and Americans, and, is Quidditch really a coeducational sport? We discuss gender issues in competition with Professor Rachel Allison, a sociologist from Mississippi State University, who visited the Faculty of Social Sciences at the University of Gdańsk as part of the "Visiting Professors” program.

Marcel Jakubowski: – What were you doing during your stay at the University of Gdańsk? 

– I have taught sport and social change classes. It was fantastic to meet the students here and understand how their lives differ from the lives of American students. I've also had a lot of really great meetings with dr Radosław Kossakowski and other Polish sports sociologists. We discussed our field of research, both in the United States and Poland, and found a lot of common areas. There are likely some collaborative projects that will have started because of these encounters. 

– You brought data from the United States about women's soccer, and dr Radosław Kossakowski prepared data about the Polish side of things. Did you have a chance to discuss and compare these stats? 

– We’ve found similarities and differences, and talked a lot about how did the context shape perception of soccer in a particular nation. In Poland, for example, women's football is only semi-professional, so a full career isn’t viable. But in the United States, the sport is currently fully professional. Women are making money from it and are able to pursue it as a full-time job. Our women's football team has been very successful in international competition and has gotten a lot of attention and resources. Unfortunately, Polish team hasn’t made a women's World Cup, yet. So, there are those kinds of differences, but I’ve also talked with dr Kossakowski and dr Natalia Organista from University of Warsaw about a lot about commonalities in women's experiences in both countries. 

– How did women’s soccer in the USA start to get attention?

– The perception of soccer in the United States is not at all similar to that of Poland, where it is  competition shown on TV, radio etc. In Europe, soccer is often associated with men or masculinity. In the United States, soccer started to develop later than more popular sports like American football, basketball, and baseball. It meant that soccer didn’t have the same strong associations with masculinity as in Europe, so it was perceived as an acceptable sport for girls or women to play. After World War Two, a lot of people moved into the suburbs, where there's a lot more space. A lot more football pitches were constructed for people to play. Also in 1972 the United States Congress passed the Education Amendments, which included a law called Title IX that required equality in educational programmes that receive federal funding, including sports programmes.

– This legislation had a huge impact in opening up every sport to girls and women. The rates of participation jumped really high. During those times, soccer was really a perfect sport for girls and women to play because it didn't have a long-standing history among men. Our women's national team programme started in the 80s, so earlier than in many other countries around the world. As a result of this approach, our team had a lot of success, such as winning the last two FIFA Women's World Cup.

– So this law “Title IX” didn't specify that the same sport needed to be funded, only that the general funding had to be disturbed equally?

– Yes, it said that in any educational programme that got money from the government, there couldn’t be any discrimination on the basis of sex. It required from the receiver of the funding to prepare similar levels of opportunity for men and women in sport with the similar levels of resource. So today in schools, including public colleges and universities, if you have women's and men’s programmes, even if they are in different sports, they need to have similar levels of coaching and similar budgets for equipment.

– Is football popular amongst American girls in the school age? 

– If you look at what sports children or young adults play in the United States, soccer is one of the top participation sports amongst girls, but not amongst boys. 

– Is it in some way “prohibited” for boys to play soccer because culturally it’s not as masculine sport as basketball, for example?.

– I think there's a bit of that, but the bigger barrier is that at a certain age, there is no opportunity. My 11-year-old stepson is able to play soccer, but in a year or two, especially by the time he gets to high school, he won't have a chance to play anymore. 

– In Poland, we have this role model for boys, Robert Lewandowski, who is the best Polish football player. Are the players from American women's soccer league also becoming this figures that inspire girls to achieve the same level of success as them? 

– I think that many of the top women's footballers see themselves as important role models and take that part of their job very seriously. They do a lot of outreach through coaching or public appearances. Those actions are meant to encourage younger girls to get involved in the sport, and make them realise that there are a lot of significant skills and values that they can learn through training. It's very common, that at the end of professional soccer matches in the United States, the players will often stay for an hour or longer after the game. They go around the stadium and sign autographs for every one who wants one. A lot of them promote their work as role models on social media. When we talk about women’s soccer in the USA, one of the main points of discussion is its value to the younger generation. 

– You talked about gender issues in sports here at University of Gdańsk. How did our students respond to those ideas? 

– I think they were very receptive. We talked a lot about the sport in general. They’ve a greater knowledge of men's football because that is more prominent and popular in Poland. But they were very open to understanding the case of women's football. I joked with them that starting next month, they're all going to watch the Women's World Cup. They've promised me to do so. Also, thanks to them, I found out more about men’s football in Poland. 

– You wrote the paper about the real-life Quidditch class that was organized at the Mississippi State University. In the Harry Potter books, this broom-based sport is in a way genderless. Women play in the same teams as men, and there is no mention of any discrimination. What happened when MSU tried to organize Quidditch matches in real life?

– It was a small, but fascinating project. In the Harry Potter books or movies, women and men play Quidditch together, but there isn't a lot of attention brought to that. It just happens to be a feature of the sport, and no one sees it as a problem. I started to teach this class at my university, Mississippi State, that asked us to play the muggle version of this sport. We wondered what would happen when men and women would play this sport together. Would this become kind of a genderless activity where we all just integrate together? Unfortunately, we got the answer that we didn't quite want. A lot of the ideas about gender, sport, and athleticism that we see in other contexts were replicated in Quidditch. For instance, we saw lower levels of confidence in athletic skills among women compared to men. Often, we spotted a perception among both genders, that women wouldn't be good at the sport or that they couldn't keep up with men. We also noticed a lot of the interactional dynamics. So men were more willing to pass the ball to their male teammates than their women teammates. On the basis of lower confidence, women chose to play certain positions that they felt would take them away from the centre of the action, but men chose to play positions they felt were active. Unfortunately, the ideas about gender really matter to what happens in Quidditch. 

– Do you see progress in the perception of women's sport over the years?  

– Certainly in the United States, I think we've seen enormous recent progress in terms of participation and opportunities, but also in terms of resources and recognition given to women. I have studied women's sports in the US for 12 years now, and even in that time I've noticed a lot of positive change that a decade ago, I wouldn’t even expect. But there are still areas, in which progress needs to be made. We're not fully equal, but I think we’re on the right path.