Rugby is known to be a relatively rough, fast-paced, and aggressive sport. In the clip I’ve linked below, there are multiple examples of the tackles and aggressive plays that are incredibly common in the sport. The clip starts with a scrum between the USA and Spain Women’s Rugby teams at the World Cup. Another key characteristic of rugby is that (most) tackles, hits, and falls do not slow or pause the game at all. People are expected to get hit but the rest of the teams always keep going to achieve the collective goal. Women’s rugby, on paper, follows the same rules as men’s rugby. However, the sport doesn’t exist in a vacuum, meaning that the rampant sexism in our society often shapes the way women who play rugby are treated differently. Female rugby players may be stereotyped as more masculine or defeminized. While masculinity is not inherently bad, the issue here is that the masculinization of these women is an assumption that other people make without their say. While rugby isn’t nearly as popular in the USA as it is in other places like England, New Zealand, and South Africa, women’s rugby is one of the fastest-growing team sports in the world. I definitely think that is partly because of how the sport is an avenue for women to freely express aggression. There are not a lot of safe spaces where women openly expressing aggression, especially physical aggression, is widely accepted or rewarded. In this case, it seems like “playing the sport” is an opportunity for some folks to temporarily take a break from the pressures of “playing gender”. All people of all genders can feel and express aggression but traditional gender roles dictate that we are not all allowed to do so in the same ways. With the relatively recent inclusion of women in professional sports, we may be slowly pushing back against the element of sexism that insists it is not “natural” for women to be physically strong and actively participate in rough or aggressive activities.
Women’s Rugby clip: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UQsCEujp-eM (Links to an external site.)
– Tsion Teffera
I really enjoyed reading your post about rugby. I thought your take on rugby being a sport that allowed women to show some “wildness” and violence the same way as men was particularly interesting. Rugby, for some reason, reminds me a lot of boxing where the goal is to pin and hit the opponent- otherwise encouraging “wildness.” Great job, I found your post very interesting.