Futbolera

FUTB
A HISTORY of
WOMEN
and S P O R T S in
LATIN AMERICA
OLERA
B R EN DA ELS EY
J O S HU A N ADEL

U N IV E RS I T Y O F T EX AS P RES S AU S T I N

Joe R. and Teresa Lozano Long Series in

Latin American and Latino Art and Culture
Copyright © 2019 by University of Texas Press
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Printed in the United States of America
First edition, 2019

Title page photo: Members of Deportivo Femenino de Costa Rica

FC walking out for the first kick. Courtesy of the Bonilla Family.

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Names: Elsey, Brenda, author. | Nadel, Joshua H., author.

Title: Futbolera : a history of women and sports in Latin
America / Brenda Elsey, Joshua Nadel.
Other titles: Joe R. and Teresa Lozano Long series in Latin
American and Latino art and culture.
Description: First edition. | Austin : University of Texas
Press, 2019. | Series: Joe R. and Teresa Lozano Long series
in Latin American and Latino art and culture | Includes
bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2018037054 | ISBN 978-1-4773-1042-7
(cloth : alk. paper) | ISBN 978-1-4773-1858-4 (library e-book)
| ISBN 978-1-4773-1859-1 (non-library e-book)
Subjects: LCSH: Sports for women—Latin America—History. |
Sports for women—Social aspects—Latin America. | Women
athletes—Latin America—History. | Soccer for women—Latin
America—History. | Soccer—Social aspects—Latin America. |
Soccer—Latin America—History.
Classification: LCC GV709.18.L37 E57 2019 | DDC 796.082098—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018037054

doi:10.7560/310427
JOSHUA:
For Sofia, Rafael, and Evanthia, σας αγαπω πολύ.

BRENDA:
For Maya, with all my love.
THIS PAGE INTENTIONALLY LEFT BLANK
CONTENTS

List of Figures viii

Introduction 1

1Physical Education and Women’s Sports

in Argentina and Chile 17

2 Policing Women’s Sports in Brazil 61

3 Brazilian Sportswomen Defying Prohibition 109

4 Physical Education and Women’s Sports

in Mexico and Central America 147

5 The Boom and Bust of Mexican Women’s Football 192

Epilogue 245

Acknowledgments 268

Notes 272

Bibliography 326

Index 348
FIGURES

0.1. Las futbolistas, 1922 x

0.2. Women’s football team, Pradera, Colombia, 1952 6
1.1. Early women’s football in Argentina 29
1.2. Juan Perón and women’s basketball 30
1.3. Women’s football in Talca 35
1.4. Aurora Porteña 39
1.5. Club Universitario 57
2.1. Queirolo circus 73
3.1. Araguari football club 119
3.2. Press badge of Semíramis Alves Teixeira 126
3.3. Women’s football in Recife 131
3.4. National Women’s Festival 135
3.5. Rose do Rio 138
4.1. Women’s basketball in Nayarit 165
4.2. Track and field in Mexico City 167
4.3. Woman javelin thrower 169
4.4. Deportivo Femenino de Costa Rica FC 175
4.5. Deportivo Femenino de Costa Rica FC 182
5.1. Dirt fields, Liga América 208
5.2. Liga América 211
5.3. Elvira Aracén 218
5.4. Mexico versus Italy 238
5.5. Rough play 240
Futbolera
FIGURE 0.1. Ángel Zárraga, Las futbolistas, 1922 (Paris). Women's football
captured the imagination of Latin Americans well before the sport was officially
acknowledged.
INTRODUCTION

“WHY WOULD YOU KEEP PLAYING? ALL THE HOMOPHOBIA

and humiliation, no financial gain—why? Why not do something
easier?” I asked Marina, a former player for the Argentine national
women’s football, or soccer, team. We were in a café in Queens,
New York, on a frigid winter day. She had immigrated to the United
States in 2010 to pursue opportunities to play professionally. While
her dreams of a salaried career had not come to fruition, Marina
continued to play and referee when she wasn’t at her job cleaning
offices. She answered, “The more difficulties there were, the more I
wanted it. I didn’t have education, money, or other weapons. I was
only armed with talent for soccer. It’s all I wanted to do.”1 Marina’s
reactions echoed those of thousands of women who have played
organized sports in Latin America since the late nineteenth century.
Their exclusion is key to understanding how gender and sexuality
developed in the region. Women’s communities and activities within
sports are also vital to understanding social history. This book fo-
cuses on the relationships of women to civic associations, including
sports clubs, physical education teams, or union leagues, and the
significance that sports have in women’s lives.
There are many powerful female icons in Latin American history:
Mexico’s Adelita, Argentina’s Eva Perón, Brazil’s Escrava Anastácia.
Whether real, imagined, or a composite, they serve as flash points for
understanding women’s lives in the region. Yet these iconic women
were exceptional in one way or another, and the focus tends to
be on their activities that made them so, rather than on the more
mundane common experience. Futbolera is a deceptively straight-
forward way to refer to a girl or a woman who plays football, or
soccer. Futboleras have disappeared and reappeared throughout the
twentieth and twenty-first centuries. They have been, for the most
part, ignored in popular stories of sports and in Latin American

1
2FUTBOLERA

history more generally. They thus serve as metaphors for women’s

appearance in the historical narrative. When raised in public debate,
the futbolera was shorthand for a woman who went “too far,” a
red herring, or a strange monstrosity. Today, from international to
national federations, organizations justify their neglect of women
athletes based on the purported lack of tradition and the portrayal
of women as newcomers to sports. This book discusses the history
of women’s role in sports other than football, but given the impor-
tance of the sport, football occupies a special role in understanding
sportswomen and the ideologies of gender, class, race, and sexuality
in Latin America.
History telling can confer legitimacy on its subjects, just as it
can deny it in the same instance. The neglect of women’s historical
participation in Latin American sports has served to naturalize gen-
der differences in society more broadly and to justify the denial of
resources to women athletes. Focusing on women’s activities within
sports illuminates a site of women’s creativity and community. The
media’s disinterest in women’s sports has given historians a difficult
track to follow. Frequently, the athletes themselves preserve the his-
tory of women’s sports, offering up their memories, photographs,
jerseys, and press clippings to journalists and historians. Much like
the history of samba or of drag shows, these enthusiasts retain the
details of their performances as raw material that historians then
weave into narrative. This is not an attempt to give voice to the
voiceless, nor to put together an exhaustive account of women’s
sporting history, but rather to record and situate the traces available,
and hopefully to open up new paths for research.
To understand futboleras, there is a longer history to comprehend,
one that involves the construction of the state in Latin America.
Physical education programs were part of expanding state agencies
that formed new schools and institutes to train students through-
out the region in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
Physical education regimes differed across countries and also based
on national goals and local adaptations. This book uses Latin
America cautiously and aspires to use comparative cases to highlight
the heterogeneity of the region. Walter Mignolo’s critique of the idea
Introduction 3

of Latin America, which demonstrated the subjugation of indigenous

and African peoples embedded within the term, is central to keep in
mind.2 Indeed, experts throughout the Americas designed programs
to replace any indigenous or African “habits” with European ones.
In the first decades of the twentieth century, they mostly operated
on the assumption that only Europeans had traditions of physical
culture worth adopting as state policy.
It is hard to imagine a more direct exertion on children than
school programs instructing them in how to move their bodies. Even
though physical education was conceived of as voluntary, and even
enjoyable, for students, the state sought still to control the ways
students stretched, jumped, ran, and even stood. Physical education
reinforced gender differences as immutable, and creating proper
heterosexual behaviors was paramount. Although sportswomen
stepped outside the margins of what was socially acceptable, they
nevertheless operated on a spectrum of participation in sports and
physical education. However, girls’ and women’s ideas about phys-
ical education often deviated from the states’ nationalist projects.
The communities that women formed and the intensity of exchanges
across national borders merits attention in any study of sports. In
addition to studying transnational relationships, this book puts for-
ward comparative cases that reflect how distinct histories of gender
created different landscapes for women’s athleticism.
The embrace of gender, which underscored the process and con-
tingency of categorizations of male and female in the United States
and in European academies, reaches at least as far back as the pub-
lication of Joan Wallach Scott’s foundational essay, “Gender: A
Useful Category of Historical Analysis,” in 1986. Gender opened
up a wide range of methodologies and sources to scholars interested
in the history of how societies constructed, naturalized, and repro-
duced difference along the lines of masculinity and femininity. Over
time, these terms have become pluralized—genders, masculinities,
femininities, sexualities—to recognize competing ideas surrounding
them. Gender has enabled historians to account for the importance
of women to labor, property, and politics even when they aren’t
represented “in the flesh.” One can understand how laws that fail to
4FUTBOLERA

mention women, often written without women’s participation, have

been designed both linguistically and in practice to award capital to
men. It is crucial to remember that gender identities do not exist in
a vacuum. They relate to class, race, nation, and sexuality as well.
To the extent possible, we have tried to account for these intersec-
tionalities, as they are known. As research in evolutionary biology
and medical ethics has advanced, the boundaries between sex and
gender have become more nebulous in recognition that the two sexes
lie within a spectrum of characteristics.
The growth in gender history and women’s history resulted in
a number of important studies that have forced us to rethink tra-
ditional historical narratives. Histories of women workers, for ex-
ample, demonstrated not only their workplace experiences but also
their importance to Latin American economies.3 Ideas that men and
women deserved different pay and benefits shaped the politics of
labor unions, especially in terms of restrictions on women’s work
and labor organizing. New understandings of women’s participa-
tion in political movements—across the ideological spectrum—have
demonstrated both their importance to politics and marginalization
from it. As social workers, teachers, and civil servants, women had
responsibility to implement state projects on an everyday basis.4
Social histories of women also gave depth and nuance to the way in
which one can understand the significance of state projects like land
reform.5 Given the overlapping inequalities throughout the region,
feminist scholarship has explored the way in which racism, classism,
and homophobia have intersected with sexism to shape people’s
everyday lives.6
Gender history and women’s history rely on each other for in-
sight, but they are not the same. Despite all of the progress made in
the 1990s and early 2000s, women’s social history in Latin America
remains a neglected area of research. In part this is because of greater
focus on the study of gender, which inevitably sheds more light on
men because they appear with greater frequency in source mate-
rials. In other words, while gender history and women’s history
are certainly not at odds, they cannot be conflated either.7 Gender
histories, many of which are more suggestive than definitive, have
Introduction 5

produced insights of major importance that also contribute to wom-

en’s history, and their contributions to the history of sexuality have
forced us to reevaluate normative legal prescriptions, private lives,
and alternative communities.8 Histories of the family—the social,
religious, and productive foundation for most of Latin American
history—have been revolutionized by new research in the history of
sexuality. Social histories of women are sorely needed to continue to
understand better how people contest, adapt, and uphold ideological
constructs like masculinity and femininity.
The study of women in underground communities and their activ-
ities in a subject like sports, which is seldom considered politically
important, cannot rely on the same type of documentary base as a
history of formal feminist organizations or women’s charities, for
example. Methodologically, this study occasionally reads as media
history, because we frequently rely upon traces of women’s partici-
pation noted in the press. Argentina and Chile have had stable sports
publications, whereas other countries, like Mexico, present a greater
challenge. The uneven attention that women’s sports has received
in the press makes the search for women’s sporting history—and
the creation of cohesive narratives about it—akin to searching for
needles in haystacks. In addition to newspapers and magazines, we
have utilized government documents—particularly from physical
education departments—oral histories, informal memoirs, fan web-
sites, photographs, and club documents. The chapters on Brazil must
be prefaced with a huge acknowledgment to the Museu do Futebol
in São Paulo and its director, Daniela Alfonsi, and enthusiastic col-
lector, Aira Bonfim. The scarcity of source material is, of course,
exaggerated by the social constraints placed on women’s sports and
its dismissal by most collectors. These social histories of football,
and sports more broadly, although rarely focused on women, have
provided important analyses of the role of sports in national identity
and political, ethnic, and social class formation.9
While this book attempts to cover considerable territory, geo-
graphically and thematically, much remains to be investigated.
The most glaring geographical ommissions are the Andes and the
Caribbean. This reflects our prior research experiences, as well as
6FUTBOLERA

FIGURE 0.2. Women's football team, Pradera, Colombia, 1952. Photo property
of Archivo del Patrimonio Fotografico y Filmico del Valle del Cauca (AFFVC).

our interest in understanding the handful of well-known histories

of women’s sports. The decision to focus on Mexico, for example,
emerged from our previous investigations of the women’s world
football championship of 1971. In the course of our research, we
have found ample sources to suggest that vibrant women’s sports,
including football, developed in places not covered in this volume—
such as Colombia and Peru. We look forward to future research
on these areas. Thematically, this project is consciously focused on
women’s history. Much remains to be researched on the multiple
ways in which class, race, ethnicity, and sexuality shaped the mean-
ing and experience of women. The history of sexuality within sports
also deserves much greater attention, both regionally and globally.
In oral histories, queer sportswomen explained that they found a
supportive community among their fellow athletes. Questions re-
main about how vigilance of women’s sexuality and violence against
Introduction 7

lesbians affected women athletes. Authorities and media spent less

time studying lesbians than gay men. New work in this area will
undoubtedly deepen our understanding of gender in Latin America.10
A more local frame could also account for how indigenous commu-
nities adapted, rejected, or embraced European sports.
Historians traffic in time. However, the basic chronologies and
events of Latin American women’s sports have not been sketched
out. Cognizant of the pitfalls and problems involved in such an
endeavor, we have constructed a rough chronology of the field, and
this book is loosely structured around this time line. Throughout
the region, girls’ education began in earnest in the 1880s. This was
particularly the case in the Southern Cone, but in Mexico, Costa
Rica, and elsewhere the importance of schooling for girls was also
recognized. Soon thereafter, educators began creating physical ed-
ucation programs, as they saw a link between a healthy body and
a healthy mind. These programs opened previously unavailable op-
portunities for sports and exercise, particularly for working-class
girls. Liberal reformers, military officers, and, to a lesser extent,
conservative Catholics negotiated the outlines of physical education
curricula. Across the political spectrum, the idea that sports could
improve the eugenic health of the nation was incredibly powerful
and inherently involved both girls and boys. As with many other
ideological currents at the time, Latin American statesmen looked to
Europe to guide the creation of agencies, policies, and curricula that
would bring “modern” and scientific ideas to their programs. Racial
hierarchies shaped the way bureaucrats, teachers, and reformers un-
derstood the goals of physical education. The assumption that peo-
ple of African, indigenous, Asian, or mixed descent needed to model
their movements and habits on Europeans in order to improve their
racial makeup was presented as “common sense.” Influenced by
European practices, women dominated teaching positions for girls’
physical education in this era. They frequently expanded their teach-
ing beyond the classroom and organized clubs and tournaments.
By the end of the 1920s, Latin American feminism emerged as
a diverse set of movements and ideologies. This coincided with the
increasing participation of women in the workforce and in suffrage
8FUTBOLERA

campaigns around the region. At the same time, leisure activities

expanded rapidly, delivered by new technologies to urban crowds.
The international image of the flapper, with short hair and athletic
clothing, was closely tied to women’s sports. Women’s commentary,
fandom, and participation in sports increased markedly. Celebrity
culture, especially around film stars, strengthened the conflation of
beauty and health. Entrepreneurs capitalized on these trends, creat-
ing products to help women stay attractive and youthful. Radio pro-
grams and magazines encouraged women to follow exercise routines
in the home rather than in sports clubs, sending the message that
women’s sweat, exertion, and competition were a shameful pub-
lic spectacle. Furthermore, they underscored that women needed
to prioritize their domestic obligations rather than their personal
fulfillment.
Sports associated with upper-class European women, such as ten-
nis and swimming, gained widespread acceptance. Although some
celebrated the new trends, others ridiculed the flapper as vain and
sexually promiscuous. Elite writers worried that these new trends
blurred the lines between genders and social classes and threatened
the purity of “respectable” women who could be mistaken for any
streetwalker if they appeared at a stadium or with a bob. These
arguments moved beyond the pages of elite magazines and spilled
into the streets. In Mexico in the 1920s, for example, men attacked
women (and one another) over women’s embrace of flapper style.11
As much as Latin American educators might have wanted to adopt
European norms, they reacted with suspicion to the global flapper
trend, as well as to the new feminine model: the athletic body. As
sports, particularly football, became strongly associated with proper
masculinity and nationalism, journalists and experts found women’s
presence increasingly abhorrent. Club leaders, journalists, and ed-
ucators questioned the sexuality of women who chose to practice
sports, particularly team sports.
In the 1940s and 1950s, greater state investment in culture and
leisure meant an expansion in subsidized facility construction, phys-
ical education, and elite amateurism, such as Olympic teams. It also
meant increased state intervention in the sporting life of citizens.
Introduction 9

This intrusion by the state is most starkly visible, in the case of wom-
en’s sports, with the legal prohibition of women’s football, rugby,
and wrestling (among other sports) in Brazil in 1941. There and
elsewhere in the region, the professionalization of sports medicine,
physical education, and sports clubs further restricted women’s ath-
leticism. And, as women’s sports organizations strengthened, they
faced greater resistance from those opposed to female athletic activ-
ities—from both men and women. Many states in Latin America ex-
panded significantly in the midcentury and in the process came with
a renewed patriarchy. A minority could capitalize on this expansion,
such as women’s basketball teams in the Southern Cone. The growth
of basketball and volleyball in the 1940s and 1950s had created
international opportunities for players. Women traveled together,
organized fund-raisers, and spent quite a bit of time “hanging out.”
Although male coaches acted as chaperones, there were freedoms
not normally afforded to women involved in these clubs. However,
attacks from experts and restrictions by state agencies drove many
communities of women’s sports underground, as well as into conflict
with local police. Nevertheless, they persisted. Without access to
media, state subsidies, or cultural capital, some women athletes con-
tinued to play the sports they loved with one another. If the women
viewed their persistence as feminist, we have almost no way to know,
because of the scarcity of sources. However, their fight for leisure
time, appeal for access to public space, and defiance of restrictions
on sports challenged central pillars of modern patriarchy.
In the 1960s and 1970s, young women who rejected the model
of domesticity found themselves in a difficult position. The historian
Valeria Manzano has demonstrated that young women “practically
contested prevalent ideas of ‘home’ by remaining longer in the edu-
cation system, fully participating in the labor market, helping shape
youthful leisure activities, daring to experiment with new courtship
conventions and to acknowledge publicly that they engaged in pre-
marital sex, and marrying later in life.”12 In this way they challenged
the equation of women with wifehood and motherhood. Perpetual
moral panics generated discussion, recriminations, and in extreme
cases (though not as extreme as it may seem) violence against
10FUTBOLERA

women. As women entered universities and labor unions in greater

numbers in the 1960s, they took a keen interest in participating in
sports. However, as national women’s teams solidified and gained
prestige, male coaches displaced their women counterparts. Male
coaches frequently viewed their players with hostility and saw their
positions as merely a stepping-stone to working with male athletes.
The military dictatorships of the 1970s and 1980s in Argentina,
Brazil, Chile, and Uruguay, which curtailed civic associations and
promised a return to traditional gender roles, hurt the progress made
in women’s sports in the late 1960s. In that era, international bodies,
notably the International Olympic Committee and the Fédération
Internationale de Football Association (International Federation of
Association Football, FIFA), received increasing pressure to create
more opportunities for women athletes. While the former found
ways to include more women, although never as equals, the latter
created stronger structural barriers to women’s participation. As
athletes regrouped in the 1990s and early 2000s, they continued to
face discrimination with a new justification: the market.
This loose chronology of women’s sports and gender history over
the course of the twentieth century identifies changes in the broadest
of terms. At once promoted as healthful and necessary and feared as
transgressive by state actors and elites, women’s athletic endeavors
occupied an in-between—and dangerous—space. Although the state
at times supported girls’ physical activity, parents and conservative
activists took a much more negative view. For them, the increase
in girls’ activities outside the home and the church would lead to
perdition. The effects of girls’ physical fitness on their fertility and
future motherhood was the focus of public and expert debates.
Fatherhood, on the other hand, was not the primary concern when
it came to boys’ physical education. Even when there was debate
about the benefits of one type of exercise over another for girls, a
consensus existed in the physical education community in regard to
girls’ primary role as mothers.
Our study begins with outlining the emergence of physical edu-
cation and sports in the Southern Cone, where we find the earliest
attempts to create programs for girls and women. While the state
Introduction 11

had a vested interest in the development of girls’ physical educa-

tion, it was wary of female sporting practices as well. At the same
time that girls’ physical education was promoted, female athletes
were kept under the watchful eyes of teachers and so-called public
health experts. These experts, as we show, had little knowledge of
women’s physiology and tended to worry more about appearance
as a measure of sports’ value. Appearance mattered not only for
the purported experts in the health field but also in the sporting
magazines of the day. There was little consensus on how to treat the
sportswoman, but we suggest that two tropes appeared: the woman
athlete as athlete and the woman athlete as object of male ridicule.
The treatment of sportswomen varied due not only to differences
of opinion on the health benefits of women’s athletics but also to
different prescriptions across class. This reflected the intersection of
class prejudice and eugenics. If the countries of Latin America were
to create healthier populations, then the femininity and health of its
“better” citizens were paramount. As a result, discussions of wom-
en’s sports often dovetailed with discussions of social class and race.
Certain sports, such as tennis and swimming, were deemed healthful
and appropriate, based on their supposed harmony with women’s
capacities, level of exertion, and lack of physical contact. Others,
such as football and basketball, became the focus of intense debate,
occasional support, and near constant suspicion. The potential of
women’s empowerment through team sports frightened sporting and
state institutions.
The development of women’s sports, and women’s participation
in the sporting environment, takes center stage as we move to early
twentieth-century Brazil in the second chapter. As men’s football
embedded itself so deeply in Brazilian society, women’s football
came to be seen as anathema to the ideals of the country. A healthy
Brazil, and healthy Brazilian women, needed to focus more on
mothering skills than on sporting prowess. The values, skills, and
relationships fostered in football clubs were seen as the exclusive
dominion of men. This chapter traces the development of women’s
football around the country. As a part of the trajectory of women’s
football, state efforts at developing girls’ physical education played
12FUTBOLERA

an important role. In Brazil, as in Argentina and Chile, concern over

women’s sexuality and physical appearance informed debates over
women’s public health. Experts promoted gymnastics, dance, and
light exercises that supported women’s supposed feminine fragility
by encouraging rhythm and harmony. Others, “rough games,” like
football, did not. They threatened the female “aesthetic.” So too
social class worried the Brazilian authorities. For many Brazilians,
the development of women’s football became concerning only after
white elite women began to play the game and men of color inte-
grated into top clubs. At that point, critics pointed to it as a threat
to the nation. They had ample “evidence” to support them. The
Lancet, the world’s premier public health journal, had published
studies on the problems of girls’ and women’s sporting activities in
the 1920s. England cited this evidence in its ban of women’s football,
and, twenty years later, Brazil would follow suit. By the time of the
ban, Brazilian women had been playing football for at least twenty
years in places as varied as circus tents, factory grounds, and school-
yards. They had formed a strong league of teams in Rio de Janeiro
that traveled around the country. Women’s sports, particularly foot-
ball, went from a marginalized spectacle toward the mainstream in
a very short time. As the sport gained popularity, its critics became
increasingly vocal, leading the newly centralized Brazilian state to
ban the women’s sport as a threat to the survival of the nation.
Despite the ban on women’s football, play continued, partic-
ularly outside of the capital city. The continuation of the sport,
combined with women’s involvement in Brazil’s sporting landscape
as members of the media and in ancillary club roles, meant that the
apparent sudden appearance of futboleras in the early 1980s was
no more than a reemergence into the public sphere. In other words,
had anyone bothered to look for women’s football in Brazil from
1941 to 1981, they would have found it. Still, the sport needed an
“appropriate” cover for its technically illegal activity. By calling
women’s football matches charity matches, organizers and players
alike were able to avoid the legal and social stigma of playing. Even
raising money for charitable causes, however, did not fully neutral-
ize the opposition to the game. Editorials in newspapers lobbied
Introduction 13

against the sport. By the 1960s, the sport had grown enough that
the Conselho Nacional de Desportos (National Sports Council) was
forced to reiterate its stance against the game and investigate men’s
clubs, such as Santos, that had decided to support women’s teams.
Official opposition notwithstanding, we show that networks of per-
sonal relationships allowed women’s football to continue. Such was
the case with Clube Atlético Indiano, organized by the sister of José
María Marin, who would go on to head the Confederação Brasileira
de Futebol (Brazilian Football Confederation) and be charged in the
2015 FIFA scandal. Finally, by the end of the 1970s, Brazilian au-
thorities relented and permitted women’s football once more, though
the end of the ban only came fully in 1981. We end the chapter by
exploring the debates about women’s football that continued until
the 1990s. Feminist magazines began covering the sport and lauding
its potential transformative power, but Brazilian women continued
to face challenges throughout the 1980s and 1990s, particularly with
perceptions about the game’s purported effects on their health and
sexuality. Nevertheless, the chapter shows that the political open-
ing in Brazil contributed to a broader social and cultural space for
women’s sports.
From Brazil, we move to Mexico and Central America, where
the role of the state takes center stage as we examine the develop-
ment of girls’ physical education and sports. Here, as elsewhere,
eugenic interest in “improving” the nation led to increased interest
in motherhood as a patriotic function. The Mexican Revolution
(1910–1920) created a state apparatus geared toward engineering
new forms of citizenship from the top down. Accordingly, successive
revolutionary governments sought to extend secular education into
rural Mexico. Both the rural schools, developed by the Secretaría
de Educación Pública (Secretariat of Public Education) in the 1920s,
and the cultural missions, begun in the late 1920s, had an explicit
sporting component to them. Sports in rural areas was seen as a way
to create camaraderie and a sense of local, regional, and national
pride. Girls were encouraged to compete in basketball, volleyball,
and other sports, though only occasionally football. Still, the idea
of physical education and sports for girls rankled many in more
14FUTBOLERA

conservative regions of the country, causing tensions between the

state and the population. In Mexico, the use of physical activity
to create mass spectacle was raised to new heights by the state.
Workers’ sporting parades were common in the 1930s, with tens of
thousands of government workers descending on Mexico City to
show off their physical prowess. Young women played as import-
ant a role in these scenes as men, presenting gymnastic exhibitions,
marching, and dancing. So too in the 1930s the government organ-
ized national championships for amateur sports under the auspices
of the Confederación Deportiva Mexicana (Mexican Confederation
of Sports), including women’s basketball and volleyball champion-
ships. The focus on girl’s physical education, and the training of
women physical education teachers, meant that it was a matter of
time before women began playing football, which slowly emerged
as the national sport. Mexico was joined by Central American re-
publics, including Costa Rica and El Salvador, where the state pro-
moted physical activity in the name of improving the population.
In Costa Rica, early twentieth-century physical education programs
and a vibrant women’s movement led to the development of the first
women’s football teams in Central America, in the late 1940s. From
San José, the sport spread throughout Costa Rica and into much of
Central America and the Caribbean. El Salvador offers a contrasting
case. There, rhetorical interest in women’s physical education did
not translate to increased funding for programs, and thus sporting
opportunities opened more slowly.
Concerns over sexuality were present, though not dominant,
during the brief boom of women’s football in Mexico, which oc-
curred from about 1968 to 1975, and which forms the basis of the
fifth chapter. With the erosion of the power of the Mexican state,
more cultural spaces opened for women in the 1960s, including
sporting spaces. Building on earlier attempts at women’s football
leagues, and the growth of women’s sports fandom as well, a number
of women’s football leagues developed in and around Mexico City.
These were bolstered by Mexico’s entry and success in the first wom-
en’s world championship, hosted by the Federazione Internazionale
Introduction 15

Europea Football Femminile (Federation of International and

European Women’s Football) in 1970 in Turin.13 Mexico hosted
the second tournament a year later. However, the futboleras faced
many struggles to play. Chief among these, as elsewhere, were re-
sistance by the male-dominated football institutions (both national
and international) and resistance from family. The former made it
difficult to find fields on which to practice; the latter made it difficult
for women to get to such fields as were available. Still, allies existed
in the Mexico City government and in the press, which offered the
sport the space it needed to take root. When the official Federación
Mexicana de Fútbol (Mexican Football Federation) took over the
sport in efforts to “protect” women from unscrupulous businessmen
and proceeded to ignore it, the players themselves had developed a
strong enough network to keep the sport alive.
This, ultimately, is one story of women’s sports in Latin America.
Women’s sports were always there, but always existed just below
the surface and remained on the margins of acceptable behavior.
In the case of football, although it began almost simultaneously
with the men’s game, from the outset women who played were seen
as violating the norms of respectable behavior. As football became
increasingly a part of national identities in the region, women faced
greater exclusion. It was not women’s sporting practices per se that
sporting institutions objected to. Indeed, for the length of the twen-
tieth century certain sports and physical activities were promoted by
the state to create healthier mothers as a means to create healthier
citizens—when under the tutelage of state-sponsored girls’ physical
education programs or undertaken as part of a beauty regimen. But
once women began organizing on their own and demanding leisure
time, public space, and community resources, all considered men’s
domain, they encountered resistance in and outside of the home.
Both in the media and through official apparatus, avenues for the
practice of women’s football slowly closed. No longer considered
spectacle, the threat it caused to notions of appropriate woman-
hood, to masculine hegemony, and to perceptions of women’s public
health, were too much to be ignored. Yet, as we show, the sport
16FUTBOLERA

continued, ultimately laying the groundwork for today’s futboleras.

Beyond the realm of sports, women athletes in Latin America have
created new models of ideal body types, challenged men’s monopoly
on resources, and forged important communities.
1
PHYSICAL EDUCATION AND WOMEN’S
SPORTS IN ARGENTINA AND CHILE

IN 1902, JUANA GREMLER PETITIONED THE CHILEAN MINISTRY

of Public Education requesting funds for the girls’ school she di-
rected. Among her requests, she asked for outdoor space and re-
sources for physical education.1 Specifically, Gremler wanted to pro-
mote team sports and ball games among her pupils. She had arrived
in Chile from Germany with a passionate dedication to girls’ edu-
cation. In 1895, she took the helm of the prestigious public school
Liceo de Niñas no. 1.2 Gremler’s curriculum prioritized physical
education because she believed that in addition to physical health, it
built moral fortitude. Her curriculum served as a model for girls’ ed-
ucation in other Chilean schools, as well as in neighboring Argentina
and Peru. In her school, girls spent an average of two hours per week
in physical education—more than in history or natural sciences.3
Physical education became an important site of intervention into the
bodily habits and minds of girls and young women.4 In its earliest
years, physical education offered a radical departure from societal
conventions that emphasized the importance of women’s softness,
calm, and spiritual focus. As state agencies, physical education
experts, and physicians took an interest in it, physical education
became dominated by men who, based on little scientific evidence,
argued for the fundamental differences between males and females
and instructed girls in their inferiority.
Juana Gremler was part of a small but influential circle of teachers
who pioneered girls’ education in late nineteenth- and early twentieth-
century Latin America. The Brazilian teacher Clara Korte, for ex-
ample, created a postsecondary program, the Instituto Femenino
de Educación Física (Women’s Institute of Physical Education), in
Rio de Janeiro in 1916.5 Her curriculum went far beyond physical

17
18FUTBOLERA

instruction and included courses on hygiene, infant health, and home

economics. Like similar programs in Argentina and Chile, its pri-
mary purpose was to produce scientific teachers who would shape
the physical activities of thousands of girls. Typically single, these
women were praised for sacrificing motherhood and marriage to
the teaching profession.6 However, the traces of their lives indicate
they were not cloistered ascetics, but travelers, community orga-
nizers, and capable professionals. They formed civic associations
with colleagues, students, and alumni beyond the classroom. And,
importantly, they pioneered women’s sports around the continent.7
Throughout the Southern Cone at the turn of the twentieth cen-
tury, physical education teachers promoted their students’ exercise
within schools and sought to establish girls’ sports clubs in the wider
community. This chapter examines the growth of girls’ physical ed-
ucation and sports, with a particular emphasis on Argentina and
Chile. These two countries, followed closely by Brazil, integrated
girls into physical education the earliest, and we hypothesize that this
encouraged women’s sports development. State bureaucrats, medical
experts, and educators pinned their hopes on physical education
programs to produce fit soldiers, disciplined citizens, and eugeni-
cally improved populations, primarily with boys in mind. However,
this last goal opened spaces for girls’ and women’s participation in
sports and physical education activities. Their future as childbearing
vessels alternately justified or doomed girls’ participation in the eyes
of physical education experts. Yet, for all of their claims of exper-
tise, the understanding of women’s bodies was shockingly inaccurate
among the wider medical community until the mid-twentieth century
and beyond. Very little scientific research focused on the effects of
exercise on girls’ and women’s health. Therefore, when girls and
women were included in the long treatises on physical education,
experts put forward wildly contradictory recommendations.
The histories of physical education and women’s sports reflect
the importance of transnational relationships among teachers and
athletes. Yet the uneven number and types of sources available on
women’s history in the early twentieth century presents a challenge
to anyone attempting a seamless chronology. In Bolivia, Ecuador,
WOMEN’S SPORTS IN ARGENTINA AND CHILE 19

Mexico, Paraguay, and Peru, for example, much of the source base
comes from physical education manuals and government publica-
tions, whereas in Chile and Argentina, magazines such as Estadio
and El Gráfico provided stable coverage of sports throughout the
early twentieth century. No sooner, in other words, do we make
the argument for looking at the region transnationally than uneven
documentation complicates such a project. Nevertheless, this chap-
ter begins to put forward arguments and categorize themes around
girls’ and women’s physical education, while acknowledging that
our sources often come from sporadic publications and traces of
evidence.
Generally speaking, three ideological camps shaped the politics
of sports in the early twentieth century. The most prominent in the
early 1900s were liberal reformers, working within the state, who
hoped that under European tutelage exercise could help to reform
poor people’s habits. Civic associations, frequently religious or char-
itable in nature, formed another locus of activity. They sought to
promote “moral” behavior, particularly in regard to sexuality and
alcohol. Sports clubs emerged as the largest of these secular volun-
tary organizations. Gender disparity in leisure time, family resources,
and access to public space meant women found themselves excluded
from clubs until the mid-twentieth century. The relationship be-
tween physical education and organized sports, despite involving
many of the same people, was thorny. In light of the fanaticism and
sociability of sports clubs, some educators saw them as antithetical
to proper, scientific, physical education. A third group of leaders
worked in the military. The military created sports clubs, physi-
cal education curricula, and Olympic associations. For example, in
Brazil, the military created its own football league in the 1910s.
Military sports directors tended to favor martial sports, such as
shooting and equestrian events, and to a lesser extent fencing and
swimming. Not surprisingly, military clubs and personnel in charge
of state institutions encouraged vertical structures with clear chains
of command. Military sports directors viewed physical education as
a vehicle for the glorification of the nation-state and the development
of healthy soldiers. As far as women were concerned, whereas liberal
20FUTBOLERA

reformers and conservative associations conceived of a place for

women within physical education curricula—mainly as a way to
shape behavior—military directors ignored women entirely.
Precious little research focused on women’s health, so early
twentieth-century reformers spun fantasies and worked from con-
voluted ideas of women’s anatomy. Women fit within liberals’
education projects as future mothers of a racially engineered and
modern society. In Latin America, the emerging “science” based on
“racial improvement” was intricately tied to immigrant and labor-
movement threats to elite power, as well as to processes of urban-
ization and industrialization. The series of crises that these changes
produced have been termed the “social question.” Policy makers
looked to Europe for solutions to the region’s supposed racial and
social problems but ultimately created local policies that addressed
their specific concerns and unique perceptions of their nations’ eth-
nic makeup. Educational pioneers like Juana Gremler struggled to
convince their colleagues that girls should be educated for their own
development, not only for their roles as future mothers and wives.8
An exemplary case of liberal eugenics driving physical education
took place in Bolivia. Liberal statesmen there considered indige-
nous habits and customs to be primary obstacles to modernization.
Bolivian lawmakers faced two distinct challenges: minimal state
resources and political resistance from an indigenous majority not
easily convinced of the superiority of European programs for their
children’s education. In 1904, the country adopted the Argentine
curricular model, which they viewed as having successfully dealt
with Argentina’s “Indian problem.”9 Educators designed the curric-
ulum in hopes that students would acquire the discipline necessary
for a future industrialized society. Inspired by the Swedish educa-
tor Henrik Ling, Bolivian teachers advocated that students practice
gymnastics above all else. As the Bolivian state devised national cur-
ricula, it contracted advisors from Ling’s Stockholm institute to cre-
ate mixed-sex physical education. Bolivian bureaucrats hoped that
Ling’s methods for women’s fitness would improve the racial health
of their future offspring.10 In the early twentieth century, the Bolivian
WOMEN’S SPORTS IN ARGENTINA AND CHILE 21

government hired Henry Genst, from Belgium, to implement the

Ling method in La Paz, Sucre, Oruro, and Potosí. Genst maintained
his advisory position until returning to Brussels in 1929.11 Genst and
his colleagues integrated folkloric dances and indigenous games into
the curriculum, albeit in a tangential way. Along with Genst’s work
in developing curricula, the Bolivian government created a depart-
ment of physical education in the 1930s. While Genst advocated
different levels of strenuousness for male and female students, girls
were always part of his broader program. After Genst’s departure,
however, the Bolivian military played a larger role and demonstrated
less interest in girls’ physical education.12 The Prussian system of
marching and work on the parallel and horizontal bars appealed to
the developers of these military programs. In Prussian and Swedish
curricula, however, teachers pushed for inclusion of outdoor games,
including football.13 The prevailing opinions among educators that
girls could not handle such competitive stress, as well as aesthetic
arguments that women’s play looked unfeminine and unseemly, shut
off another avenue for their participation in physical education.
Coupled with liberal physical education programs, the Young
Men’s Christian Association (YMCA) encouraged the integration
of girls and women into team sports, particularly basketball, across
Latin America. The YMCA established a branch in Brazil in 1893
and was present in Argentina as early as 1902, where it provided
welcome technical support for physical education teachers.14 By
the 1910s the YMCA established centers throughout the Americas,
frequently running into controversies because of its Protestant
missionary purpose. In 1919 the archbishop of Lima forbade any
Catholic from entering YMCA facilities.15 YMCA personnel, includ-
ing the “fathers” of Argentine basketball, Paul Phillips and Frederick
Dickens, came from a context in which women had already played
basketball, football, tennis, and many other sports for decades.16
At a 1914 YMCA conference of representatives from Argentina,
Brazil, Chile, and Uruguay, delegates discussed how to include
women in basketball. The Uruguayan delegate commented, “the
Latin Girl needs athletics very badly.”17 While it is unclear what
22FUTBOLERA

needing athletics badly might have meant, the differences between

participation of girls and women in the United States versus the
Southern Cone were notable.
YMCA agents went on to shape physical education and sports in
South America in important ways. For example, Frederick Dickens
served as director of physical education at the Buenos Aires YMCA
before being promoted to the South American YMCA as continen-
tal director of physical education. Dickens then led the Argentine
Olympic delegation to Paris (1924) and Amsterdam (1928). He also
served as a professor at Argentina’s National Institute of Physical
Education until 1938. Perhaps because the YMCA stayed clear of
football, which was already institutionalized (and demonized by
some), basketball, swimming, and track and field dominated wom-
en’s sports in Argentina and Chile. In contrast, in the United States
and Europe women’s football thrived in the 1920s. Given the reg-
ular exchanges among physical education experts, one can assume
that in Latin America they were well aware of developments in the
women’s game elsewhere. During their 1922 tour, Dick Kerr’s Ladies,
a football club from England, played throughout the United States.
Interestingly, in New York the club played the women’s club Centro-
Hispano FC, comprised mainly of Latin American immigrants.18

PHYSICAL EDUCATION, MEDIA, AND

SPORTSWOMEN IN ARGENTINA

Argentina has long been characterized, and satirized, as a country

that idealized European culture. Perhaps not surprisingly, Argentine
ideas about the benefits of exercise and sports hewed closely to
European models, particularly Swedish and Prussian gymnastics
methods. At the same time, communication with its neighbors and
the particularities of Argentine institutions fundamentally changed
imported programs. Argentine state crafters promoted physical ed-
ucation for girls quite early. In 1839, when Domingo Sarmiento
took directorship of the Colegio de Niñas Pensionadas de Santa
Rosa, he included dance and gymnastics in the girls’ curriculum.19
In the 1870s, Dr. Francisco Berra wrote a physical education text
WOMEN’S SPORTS IN ARGENTINA AND CHILE 23

that became a standard in both Argentina and Uruguay. In it, Berra

asserted that physical education was just as important for girls as it
was for boys. Meetings such as the 1882 Buenos Aires Pedagogical
Congress brought Berra and his counterparts in Brazil, Chile, and
Uruguay into direct dialogue.20 Berra viewed girls’ physical educa-
tion as a way to prevent women’s nervous conditions, as well as to
avoid deadly diseases such as tuberculosis.21 Enrique Romero Brest,
Berra’s successor, stood out as the most influential physical education
expert of the early twentieth century. Romero Brest not only saw a
need for physical education for girls in schools, but also wanted to
extend physical culture for girls and women outside of school. To
that end, he founded the girls’ and women’s sports club Atalanta
in 1902.22 Romero Brest pointedly declared that the purpose of
women’s physical education was to better the “race” by adopting
Germanic and Anglo-Saxon habits.
The integration of girls into physical education meant that the
Argentine Ministry of Education created a vehicle for the daily and
corporal enactment of gender differences. Medical doctors and teach-
ers placed social qualities onto biology when they claimed that girls
needed harmony and balance of movement while boys needed vigor
and action. Above all, Argentine physical educators repeated ad nau-
seam that girls’ exercise was needed to enhance beauty. Enhancing
beauty meant that girls stayed at a healthy weight but did not build
muscles. As Pablo Scharagrodsky has noted, while improved mater-
nal health was the end goal for girls’ physical education, the same
standard—parenthood—was not a concern for boys.23 The emergent
fields of physical education and sports medicine emphasized girls’
eventual maternal fitness, but not boys’ capacity for fatherhood.
Romero Brest, for one, opposed the military exercises that had been
popular for boys in the nineteenth century. Instead, he advocated
outdoor games that would form boys into moral citizens.
The case of women athletes in Argentina stands out for several
reasons, despite Argentina’s commonalities with and influence over
its neighbors. First, Argentine physical educators and sports com-
mentators prioritized the role of exercise in beauty, perhaps even
more than in motherhood. Second, the national sports magazine El
24FUTBOLERA

Gráfico, which had regional coverage and influence, covered female

athletes with regularity and relative nuance. This is especially true
when compared to Brazil or Chile, which had similar physical edu-
cation programs and women’s sports participation. Finally, the re-
sources channeled to sports organizations by the Peronist government
opened unprecedented sporting opportunities for women. While the
opportunities were hardly equal to those of men, women’s sports
nevertheless received a temporary boost in state support. Perón’s
interest in opening space for the working class within traditionally
elite sports also provided opportunities for women practicing less
popular sports, such as polo.
Beyond monitored physical education classes for girls, experts
disagreed as to whether women should exercise at all. Physical ed-
ucation teachers, doctors, and journalists concurred that women’s
character was simultaneously lazy and high strung.24 These experts
thought that exercise regimens should be designed to help women
relax their nerves and balance their supposedly drastic mood swings.
Women’s magazines and physical education specialists encouraged
women to exercise in the home rather than in the more public sport-
ing clubs. Entertainment magazines focused on fitness routines of
popular cinema actresses who advocated for home workouts. 25
These magazines, such as El Hogar and Caras y Caretas, cautioned
women against exercising in public. Writers assumed that women
had too much domestic work to spend time at the local athletic
club.26 Moreover, these writers assumed women would be ridiculed
and thus cautioned them to keep their activities private. Radio
programs in the 1930s instructed women on exercises they could
perform at home, especially stretches and small resistance move-
ments. Gymnastics was universally promoted because it invigorated
the body without the “disfigurement” of more rigorous exercise.
Experts also recommended rhythmic dance, which would help the
nervous system while beautifying the body. These recommendations
sent the message that women should keep their exertion, sweating,
and straining in private.
Images of sportswomen exploded in the media between the
early 1900s and the 1920s, creating new representations of girls
WOMEN’S SPORTS IN ARGENTINA AND CHILE 25

and women. At the outset of the twentieth century, magazines and

newspapers pictured women exercising with their legs rigidly kept
together and dressed from ankle to neck. Aided in part by changes
in the textile industry, which had developed and popularized lighter
fabrics, heavy uniforms gave way to shorter suits and uncovered legs
by the 1920s. Argentina’s sports magazine of record, El Gráfico,
began publication in 1919 and played a highly important role in the
creation of these new images of women and sports. Surprisingly, the
third edition of the magazine, published on July 12, 1919, featured
women tennis players on the cover.27 Throughout the 1920s the
magazine, known as the “bible of sports,” published many photo-
graphs of women athletes. El Gráfico pictured women with sports
equipment, on the field or in action. Although traditional women’s
publications suggested cloistering women’s exercise, sports media
of the period encouraged women to practice in public. Because they
presented women as active subjects instead of passive objects and
highlighted their physical prowess instead of only their beauty, these
images disrupted the visual culture of Argentina in the 1920s and
1930s. Throughout the 1930s, about 15 percent of El Gráfico’s
front cover pages featured women. Although still a minority, the
frequency with which sportswomen appeared far exceeded that of
any similar publication on the continent, and likely played a role
in normalizing the idea of sportswomen. Not only did El Gráfico
feature women regularly on the covers, it also featured their ac-
complishments throughout the pages of the magazine. Women’s
magazines such as El Hogar, on the other hand, featured society
ladies and starlets. One of its few covers that featured women in
active poses showed a woman on a diving board in ballet shoes.28
In other words, instead of showing active subjects, most magazines
pictured women as passive objects to be admired for their beauty,
grace, or wealth.
Another way that El Gráfico’s coverage highlighted women’s
participation in sports was its frequent identification of women’s
club memberships. By noting which athletic clubs they belonged
to, El Gráfico helped to normalize women’s sporting activity and
included women as part of the larger sporting community. From
26FUTBOLERA

those descriptions, we gather that many elite sportswomen belonged

to exclusive clubs of the British, German, Scandinavian, and French
expatriate communities. Scholarship has generally assumed that the
diffusion of sports began with urban elite women and trickled down
to the working class.29 Certainly, wealthy women had greater access
to leisure time and frequently attended European schools, which
more commonly promoted girls’ physical education. At the same
time, the nature and number of articles that expressed anxiety over
the popularity of sports among women indicate that—as with men’s
sports—women’s physical activity quickly went beyond elite circles.
The growth of women’s sports in Argentina coincided with the
consolidation of sports medicine in universities, clubs, and national
sporting associations. Not surprisingly, leaders in sports medicine
could not reach a consensus in regard to girls’ and women’s partici-
pation in sports. The historian Patricia Anderson has shown the con-
tradictory and uninformed nature of the debates about the effect of
exercise on girls and women in the early twentieth century.30 By the
mid-twentieth century, there emerged distinctions in recommenda-
tions for physical activity based on women’s age. Academic articles
and other scholarly texts recommended sports for girls more con-
sistently, but only until puberty. However, opinions diverged widely
on physical activity after the onset of menstruation. Once women
were potential child bearers, protecting and policing their bodies
became much more important for state and society. For example,
faculty at the University of Buenos Aires thought women should
cease all sports activities with the onset of menstruation. 31 Even
the strongest advocates of physical activity emphasized the need for
restraint and supervision. Notably, Ruth Schwarz de Morgenroth
thought exercise was advisable for pubescent women, but only when
under the supervision of a female expert. If opinion was divided on
menstruation and sports, experts universally rebuked women for
exercising during pregnancy. Part of the intense anxiety surrounding
pregnancy might have stemmed from the decrease in the birth rate
in Argentina, which decreased from 1910 to 1930 by 54 percent.32
Sportswomen became targets of medical scorn, as experts—without
any evidence, scientific or otherwise—blamed athletics and other
WOMEN’S SPORTS IN ARGENTINA AND CHILE 27

modern leisure activities for distracting women from motherhood

and harming fertility.33
Medical experts recommended exercise in the postpartum period,
mostly for beauty enhancement and weight loss rather than any
other benefits. Beginning in the 1920s, doctors in Argentina delin-
eated a very fine line between obesity and lipofobia, or a fear of
fatness. These experts postulated that women had a natural tendency
toward the former, and that those who suffered from the latter had
an overly angular and thin figure. In other words, beauty—the goal
of physical education—was difficult to attain and maintain. Without
enough activity, women would be “obese.” Too much activity, and
they would be too thin. In the magazine Eva’s medical columns
from the 1940s, doctors advised postpartum women to apply more
makeup, wear stronger girdles, and brush their hair with even greater
enthusiasm than normal.34 Once women became menopausal, they
became nonsubjects for sports medicine. This further underscored
the view of sports science that exercise was for an aesthetic ideal or
maternal fitness, rather than for the health of women.
With the professionalization of medicine, education, and sports
management, and an increase in their prestige, women found them-
selves edged out of employment in those fields. Beginning in the
late 1930s, certain physical education leaders sought to reduce the
number of women instructors. Raúl Blanco, a director of institu-
tions in both Argentina and Uruguay and the author of a major
work on the history of physical education, declared the Argentine
physical education program a failure, in part because there were
too many female teachers.35 Blanco accused women of pursuing a
teaching career in physical education for the comfortable schedule
it offered rather than a true passion. He also opined women spent
far too much time in gymnasia and did not inculcate students with
morals and discipline. In response to similar criticisms, in 1939 the
Argentine president Roberto Ortíz divided the Instituto Nacional
de Educación Física (National Institute of Physical Education) into
separate schools to train female and male physical education teach-
ers. Women remained at the national institute, while men moved to
the newly opened Instituto de Aplicación General Belgrano (General
28FUTBOLERA

Belgrano Institute of Practice) in San Fernando. 36 This growing

number of specialists organized the first Pan-American Congress
on Physical Education in Buenos Aires in 1941. Although women
attended, which we know from their writings, they do not appear
in the official records of the congress.37
The increase in resources for Argentine male sports in the Peronist
period dwarfed that of women’s sports. Despite the professional-
ization of men’s football in 1931, the Argentine Football Association
continued to rely on state support in a variety of ways, which only
increased during the 1940s and 1950s. As football emerged as the
unrivaled national sport, futboleras found it more difficult to claim
a space there. However, increased state support to both amateur
and professional clubs, ostensibly for football, trickled down to
other women’s sports. Women participated enthusiastically in the
Pan-American Games, hosted by Argentina in 1951. In fact, Argentine
women achieved important victories in 1951, earning the top three
spots in fencing, as well as medals in track and field and swim-
ming. Throughout the 1950s Argentine women excelled at the Pan-
American Games. Club Atlético San Lorenzo de Almagro became
an important club for sportswomen training in these events. One
of those women was Ingeborg Mello, whose Jewish family fled
Germany in the late 1930s.38 Mello won gold in the shot put and
discus events of the Pan-American Games. While competing for
Argentina in neighboring countries during the 1940s, Mello and her
Jewish teammates confronted Nazi sympathizers within the track-
and-field community.39 Mello’s sporting achievements helped her
obtain naturalization in Argentina. She continued to train at San
Lorenzo and participated on the national team in Olympic competi-
tion. Mello experienced sports as a vehicle for integration into social
life in Buenos Aires.
The role of women in sports clubs remains more elusive than their
participation in Olympic events. A feature in the magazine Fray
Mocho published photographs of three women’s football teams in
Buenos Aires in 1923.40 The photographs’ subjects are identified as
members of the first women’s football club, named Río de la Plata,
which consisted of at least three women’s football teams. Two of the
WOMEN’S SPORTS IN ARGENTINA AND CHILE 29

FIGURE 1.1. Early women’s football in Argentina, 1923. Fray Mocho, October
2, 1923.

teams appear to pit criollas against their British and German coun-
terparts, defined as “Team Argentina” versus “Team Cosmopolita.”
The futboleras appeared experienced, with proper uniforms, and
the images of their play in action indicate that they were well versed
in the game. Moreover, the magazine identified officers of the club,
so it appears that the women adopted a similar structure to men’s
clubs. Futboleras popped up on factory teams in increasing numbers
with industrialization in the 1930s. Yet many of these workplaces,
such as meatpacking plants, cigarette factories, and sugar refineries,
were segregated along gendered lines. Factories were charged with
tension around women’s mobility in the workforce. Even with sepa-
rate work sections, men found themselves working alongside women
with greater frequency.41
The dissemination of basketball, spurred by groups like the YMCA,
helped women carve space in neighborhood and union clubs. Vélez
Sarsfield, a sports club founded in 1910 as a men’s football club in
the Liniers neighborhood of Buenos Aires, started a women’s basket-
ball team in 1954 and became a national powerhouse in the sport.
30FUTBOLERA

FIGURE 1.2. Juan Perón at a women’s basketball game, Argentina, 1952. Cour-
tesy of Biblioteca Nacional de Argentina.

The important textile workers’ union, the Asociación Obrera Textil,

also had a very active women’s basketball program.42 Considering
how basketball is played today, there would seem to be little rhyme
or reason as to why it was more acceptable than football for women.
In the early and mid-twentieth century, however, the game was
much slower, requiring players to shoot from a stationary position.
Physical contact between players was more regulated, and basketball
was played indoors, away from the elements. These factors notwith-
standing, we argue that the greater acceptance of women’s basketball
across the continent stemmed from football’s unparalleled popularity
and power as a symbol of national identity.
As women’s sporting activity increased, so too did concern over
its impact. The public health debates over appropriate physical ac-
tivities for women intertwined sexism with rampant homophobia.
While male footballers were seen as models of virility and hetero-
sexual prowess, journalists, officials, and fans cast doubt on women
athletes’ femininity and heterosexuality. Among psychologists,
lesbianism was usually subordinated to the discussion of male
WOMEN’S SPORTS IN ARGENTINA AND CHILE 31

homosexuality in Argentina. Medical experts characterized lesbi-

anism as an incomprehensible perversion, supposedly caused by
inadequate sexual experiences with men, or as a psychological
maladjustment whereby women acquired male personality traits.43
Thus, experts warned that women’s adaptation to men’s clothing and
behavior could influence their sexual orientation and psychology.
As sports had been defined as essential to building and exhibiting
proper masculinity, it constituted a dangerous terrain in terms of its
potential to masculinize women. Medical experts, state officials, and
journalists, among others, policed spaces where women socialized or
otherwise collaborated. They suspected that places such as women’s
prisons, hospitals, and schools served as underground communities
where lesbianism was rampant.

CHILEAN SPORTSWOMEN, TEACHERS,

AND THE RISE OF “EXPERTISE”

The history of women’s physical education and sports in neighboring

Chile demonstrates interesting overlaps with, and departures from,
Argentina. The dominant ideologies of amateur sports clubs rested
on a shared idea of proper masculinity that excluded women from
the spaces of the clubhouse and the pitch. Amateur sportsmen drew
upon British ideals of sports as a way to cultivate restrained mas-
culinity, emotional control, and “fair play.” Football dominated
the sports scene in Chile, and football clubs were essential to the
integration of working-class men into local politics. They served
as spaces of democratization, and by the 1950s and 1960s, polit-
ical radicalization.44 The extreme marginalization of women from
football created further obstacles to women’s participation in con-
nected social spheres, such as unions and political parties. Although
shut out from organized football, women created spaces for athletic
competition in basketball in particular, but also in volleyball, track
and field, tennis, and swimming. The media occasionally paid at-
tention to women’s sports teams because of their international suc-
cess. They sporadically received support from their male-dominated
parent clubs. Government resources were absent, however, even by
32FUTBOLERA

comparison with Argentina or Brazil. Moreover, despite the strong

contingent of women in the field of education and the success of
these sportswomen, sports clubs and the media created higher in-
formal barriers to women’s football.
At the turn of the twentieth century, Juana Gremler, the teacher
who opened this chapter, traveled across Europe in search of the
proper curriculum for Chilean girls. At this time, the training of
physical education teachers was quite balanced in terms of gender.
Boys and girls were both encouraged to be physically active, and
both men and women received training in normal schools to become
physical education teachers. In Chile, Joaquín Cabezas played the
most important role in shaping the institutions and the direction of
physical education. In 1888 the Chilean government sent Cabezas to
Sweden to study the physical education program based on the Ling
method.45 On his return, he established the Instituto Superior de
Educación Física y Manual (Superior Institute of Physical Education
and Manual Labor) in 1906, which explicitly adopted physical edu-
cation as a way to prepare children for labor and proper citizenship
rather than the military. Perhaps because of the influence of the
Swedish system, the Instituto Superior accepted women immediately.
The institute provided professional training for physical education
teachers, as well as vocational training. The first graduating class
of physical education teachers from the institute included seventeen
female and nineteen male students. Cabezas was also close to liberal
teachers’ associations, supported by politicians including Manuel
Salas and Arturo Alessandri. He would later champion the expan-
sion of public education to girls and poor communities, helping to
create the Pro Popular Sports Committee, endorsed by the Popular
Front in the late 1930s. The female physical education teachers
trained at the institute shaped women’s sports far beyond their class-
rooms. For example, teachers formed independent sports centers, not
only for students but also for themselves and their former students.
In the 1920s, Liceo Paula Jaraquemada, in Santiago’s popular neigh-
borhood Recoleta, began as a sports club where diverse generations
played team sports outside of the school.46
WOMEN’S SPORTS IN ARGENTINA AND CHILE 33

The Chilean sporting press began in fits and starts in the early
twentieth century. In the 1920s, Los Sports dominated the field, to
be replaced by Estadio from the 1940s until the 1980s. However,
hundreds of small newspapers, community bulletins, labor newslet-
ters, and provincial outlets provided sporting coverage at any given
moment. Moreover, radio comprised a major component of sports
media.47 The sports media developed two opposing caricatures of
femininity that dominated popular visual culture for much of the
century. Photographs, advertisements, and comics tended to portray
women either as ethereal beings, such as angels and nymphs, or as
castrating wives. The angelic archetype cast women as virginal and
dispassionate, much like the younger and less maternal images of
Catholicism’s Mary. This image frequently borrowed from a popular
idea of classical Greek beauty, insofar as the positions and dress
echoed Greek figurative poses and outfits. In addition to supposedly
classic aesthetics, Victorian optics of whiteness and fragility also
influenced Chilean visual culture. In contrast, the castrating wife
was depicted as overweight, shouting, and almost always in the pri-
vate sphere of the home or a very local place. These women were
frequently depicted with rolling pins and brooms to reinforce their
supposed place in the home. Cartoonists and humorists frequently
portrayed the angry wife with curlers in her hair or as dowdy. Sports-
women were occasionally featured in visual media, but fit uncom-
fortably with the dichotomous models.
In popular culture, sportswomen ruptured common images and
appeared as exceptional, at best, and monstrous, at worst. Not fit-
ting precisely into either the “angelic” or “castrating” molds, media
and sports club materials exoticized women athletes as Amazons
who existed outside of normal development. For example, the most
popular sports magazine in the 1920s, Los Sports, began to pub-
lish a topless woman “athlete” of the month in 1928, sometimes
with a spear, other times on horseback. The photographs reinforced
sportswomen as exotic, rather than picturing women with standard
equipment, such as a tennis racket or javelin. By having the women
pose topless, they also objectified and sexualized them. Rather than
34FUTBOLERA

thinking of sportswomen as athletic, these images suggested that they

be considered objects of desire or ridicule. International sporting
associations also conjured Amazons when discussing sportswomen;
for example, the International Equestrian Association’s official rules
forbade women, whom it called “Amazons,” from competing in
men’s events.48 The term amazona for a female horseback rider
was widely accepted in international sports associations and press.
Perhaps the fictional, exotic, and anachronistic Amazon provided a
nonthreatening template for horsewomen.
The flapper, a reflection of urbanization and changes for women
in the 1920s, also challenged polarized images of Chilean women in
the sports press. Sportswriters and club directors expressed fright-
ening hostility toward the flapper who ventured into the stadium.
Misogynist cartoons created fantasies of violence against young, sin-
gle female spectators. For example, one cartoon showed a woman
with short hair and makeup entering the stadium. When she sat
down to watch the game, the ball hit her in the face. The joke is that
her makeup has made a replica of her face on the ball, which is now
thrown and kicked around.49 Frequently, the jokes of cartoons or
anecdotes in the sports press and club magazines revolved around
violence against women for trespassing into stadiums and clubs.
This included women being bound and gagged to prevent them from
speaking, suffering black eyes from all sorts of mishaps, and receiv-
ing plenty of head wounds from their husbands. In looking through
media, correspondence, and memoirs of the time, it is apparent that
men viewed sports clubs as an escape from domestic life. Women’s
presence, unless as spectacle, ruined that escape from familial obli-
gations in the eyes of many men.
The more accepted football became as a way to develop proper
masculinity among young men, the further physical education teach-
ers and club directors pushed girls and women away from it. There
is evidence that women played football in Chile by 1900, and likely
before. The earliest evidence comes from photographs at the Museo
Histórico Nacional de Chile (Chilean National Historical Museum).
One such photograph features Team Talca from that town’s nor-
mal school, dated c. 1900. The caption reads: “It would never have
WOMEN’S SPORTS IN ARGENTINA AND CHILE 35

FIGURE 1.3. Women’s football in Talca, Chile, 1900. Courtesy of Museo

Histórico Nacional Chile.

occurred to us that there could exist in Chile a football club formed

by young members of the weak and beautiful sex.”50 It continues,
criticizing the women for “robbing” men of all their spheres. The
typeset text indicates the caption was intended to be published in
a magazine. Another photograph from the museum, eighteen years
later, also pictures futboleras from Team Santiago of Talca.51 The
photograph’s caption reads exactly the same as the photograph from
1900, but the players are entirely different. Both photographs picture
women in ankle-length dress with frills and feminine hairstyles. The
women are seated around a table in the second photograph. The
Team Talca photographs deviated from the standard men’s team
photographs in that although the women have a football front and
center in the image, they are in formal school uniforms and are not
wearing athletic clothing or insignias. Team Talca is not the only
instance of women’s football in turn-of-the-century Chile. In 1905,
Badminton Football Club organized a match with a team of young
women playing against one of men to raise money for a children’s
36FUTBOLERA

hospital.52 Though an impromptu event, it suggests women’s famil-

iarity with the sport.
By 1919, women’s familiarity with the sport was made clear. In
May and June of that year, El Mercurio published a number of short
notices about women’s football, which was apparently experiencing
something of a boom. On May 11, the newspaper announced a
match between Flor del Sport and Delicias del Sport, two women’s
teams, as the first event in a day of football matches. On its own this
article might suggest that women’s football remained something of a
spectacle, with matches organized haphazardly. However, that same
day representatives of nine women’s teams gathered in El Mercurio’s
offices to form a women’s football association.53 The article’s au-
thor had some knowledge of the women’s teams, describing Flor
de Chile as “the founder of women’s football,” Progreso Femenino
as “disciplined and enthusiastic,” and Bélgica Star as having some
“very good” players. That the article described seven of the nine
teams suggests that women had been playing football for some
time, a suspicion reinforced by El Mercurio’s description of the team
Compañía Chilena de Tabacos (Chilean Tobacco Company, likely a
team sponsored by the company). The team, the newspaper wrote,
“had always been at the head of the clubs of its sex.”54 Two weeks
later, the paper noted upcoming matches between four of the teams.
It also informed the public about an exhibition match between Flor
de Chile and Delicias del Sport as part of a sports festival sponsored
by Club Motociclista Nacional (National Motorcycle Club), which
included an aviation show and a motorcycle race. El Mercurio again
implied that women’s football was common, noting that the match
represented “the first time” that the teams would play in front of
“not the usual crowds that attend football games.”55 By late June,
the newspaper was publishing the results of executive board elec-
tions of women’s teams and announcing registration periods for the
clubs. This practice was common with men’s clubs; doing the same
for women suggests a normalizing of the women’s game.56
If playing football was somewhat rare, women’s participation
in sports clubs was not. Sports clubs typically provided auxiliary
WOMEN’S SPORTS IN ARGENTINA AND CHILE 37

membership for women, often grouped in categories with children,

lacking the rights to voice or vote. In many of the larger sports
clubs, especially immigrant ones, such as Unión Española and
Audax Italiano, women formed auxiliary departments by the 1910s.
However, the increasing role of the military in sports during World
War I and during the dictatorship of Carlos Ibáñez shut down wom-
en’s teams, as the Ibáñez government joined with larger clubs to
funnel support toward professionalization. It also buoyed clubs as-
sociated with military and police regiments. Not surprisingly, under
Ibáñez, sporting institutions tied to the military, such as the Student
Shooting Association, received more government support.57 Despite
the lack of state support and the media’s derision, sportswomen
persisted in creating organizations for athletic competition. In 1927,
sportswomen inaugurated the Asociación Deportiva Femenina
(Women’s Sports Association, ADF), in Valparaíso.58 Members of
the ADF competed in basketball, swimming, table tennis, track
and field, and volleyball. In an interview with Los Sports, ADF’s
secretary, Azucena Villanueva, declared that “men have the idea
that we cannot manage without them but we are going to prove
otherwise. We must show evidence that a woman and a man can
enjoy sports together.”59 When asked about other sports, such as
football, Villanueva stated, “Everything has its limits. Just as there
are appropriate sports for women, there are also reasons that assist
women to combat stale ideas.” In the same interview, Villanueva
informed the readers that ADF was created to celebrate the fiftieth
anniversary of the 1877 law that opened access to university educa-
tion for women. In the last paragraphs of the interview, the author
wrote that the conversation with Villanueva “was far from being a
lecture about feminism.”60 Although the ADF decided football was
beyond the scope of their organization, there is evidence that the
sport diffused quickly among women.
In 1928 a journalist from the Chilean magazine Match com-
mented that it was common to have seen women play football and
take “pleasure from the manly sport.”61 The same article mentioned
an unexpected buzz about women’s football in cafés and restaurants
38FUTBOLERA

of Buenos Aires. The sport had grown enough to alarm a Catholic

priest in Argentina who began a campaign against women’s foot-
ball. Despite stern warnings from the pulpit, women continued to
play. Articles and editorials critical of women’s football appeared,
indicating the growth of the sport.
Women athletes and their allies sought space within the thriving
Chilean labor movement, which had some of the most stable sports
organizations in the country.62 Their efforts to build alliances often
used the same language as the Church and conservative politicians,
ultimately falling back on women’s roles as mothers in the “future
prosperity of the nation.”63 Women’s football emerged in the Chilean
workplace, and frequently beyond the main cities. In 1928, a team
named Aurora Porteña, formed in Coquimbo, posed for a team
photograph. The picture showed eleven women who worked in the
laundry service of the Fontz family in the northern port city.64 The
photograph was donated to a Chilean library sometime in the 1930s,
and the typed description, presumably by the local library, is telling.
It reads that the photograph features the first women’s football team
and that “the players are today respectable wives, many of them,
among others, Sra. Anselma de Arriagada, Sra. Araya, Sra. Rojas,
etc.” The librarian clearly wanted to establish the respectability of
the young women, who perhaps would have been judged harshly
for their participation in football, by demonstrating they had suc-
cessfully married. However, the women in the photograph appear
entirely unconcerned with typical feminine aesthetic. All eleven have
bobbed haircuts and wear caps. None smile or pose coquettishly.
Instead, most look straight at the camera, holding their hands either
on their knees, on their hips, or to their sides. Their cleats, socks,
and uniforms matched, and perhaps the only gestures toward their
gender were the ribbons on the front of the uniforms.
The growth of women’s sports prompted fairly predictable and
extreme reactions. Authors rarely signed the more extreme edito-
rials that appeared on women in sports. The antagonism toward
feminism in Chilean mainstream media outlets persistently tried to
isolate sportswomen from larger projects of gender equality by either
WOMEN’S SPORTS IN ARGENTINA AND CHILE 39

FIGURE 1.4. Aurora Porteña, Chile, 1928.

categorizing them as reasonable compared to feminists or ignoring

the larger implications of women’s participation in sports. In 1929,
Match published an article conceding that women’s sports might be
positive for the improvement of Chilean “race,” but that they were
negative for marriages.65 According to the article, in the “pre-ath-
letic era, during which women were docile, soft and obedient,” men
could expect their wives to accept their subordination.66 The muscu-
lar and confident women created by athletics caused serious anxiety
among their male family members. The effect of women’s sports
activities on husbands was a central consideration of the mainstream
press. A woman who practiced gentle and soft calisthenics would
only be more pleasing to her husband, according to Los Sports.67
In this sense, Chilean media mirrored that of much of Argentina,
though Chilean journalism lacked the dynamic coverage of female
athletes that El Gráfico provided and placed greater emphasis on
40FUTBOLERA

family harmony. Beauty was a vehicle to bond a woman’s boyfriend

or husband to her, but not necessarily to be pursued for sexual grat-
ification or for its own sake.
Proponents of girls’ physical education sought allies in the labor
and feminist movements, which made sense given the frequency with
which girls left school for the labor market at young ages.68 These
efforts to build alliances often used the same language as the Church
and conservative politicians, ultimately falling back on women’s
roles as mothers in the “future prosperity of the nation.”69 Feminists
did, in fact, advocate for women’s sports. Unión Feminina de Chile,
the country’s strongest suffrage group, had a sports section in its
newsletter, trying to build connections between women participating
in basketball, swimming, and tennis.70 Sports club directors appear
to have felt threatened by feminist interest in sports, and advocated
women’s sports as a corrective to feminism. For them, women ath-
letes recognized their own inferiority, unlike the feminists fighting
for equality, whom they referred to as “vulgar.”71 Alarm bells in
the provinces indicate that football had gained popularity among
women in the north of Chile as well. An editorial in Antofagasta
urged women’s organizations to carefully select sports that could
enhance elegance, such as tennis, rather than football—which only
detracted from women’s femininity.72
The early and near complete acceptance of women’s tennis
illustrates the importance of class and race in determining which
sports became socially permissible for women. The elite circles of
Valparaíso and Santiago embraced tennis as appropriately paced
for women. It also involved very little, if any, physical contact. Its
association with British Victorian culture, which represented the
pinnacle of white civilization for many Chilean elites, meant tennis
escaped nearly all criticism normally directed at women’s sports.
Magazines commented that while tennis was associated with for-
eigners, Chileans had picked it up too quickly for clubs to accommo-
date all of those hoping to play, proving that Chileans were already
disposed to British habits.73 Women and men began playing tennis
at roughly the same time. The Santiago Lawn Tennis Club, a lux-
urious club in Parque Cousiño replete with a chalet and gardens,
WOMEN’S SPORTS IN ARGENTINA AND CHILE 41

was a center of elite men’s and women’s tennis. Members of the

club referred to its women’s tennis section as “a happy triumph of
feminism.”74 In this context, women’s tennis provided little challenge
to the prevailing gender hierarchies. For women who excelled at
it, however, tennis provided a rare opportunity to practice sports
seriously without social castigation. Despite the near total neglect
of women’s sports in the Chilean press of the 1920s, Los Sports and
other publications accepted mixed doubles tennis without reserva-
tion.75 Mixed doubles was the least popular tennis event, but it was
a regular part of tournaments. It represented a unique instance in
which men and women competed in the same space and on the same
team. The success of Anita Lizana, who became one of the world’s
best tennis players during the late 1930s, further normalized the
sport in Chile; however, it did not spur increased investment by the
Olympic committee or the ministries responsible for sports.
While tennis was the most acceptable sport, the most popular
organized sport among Chilean women across class—like their
Argentine counterparts—was basketball. The first women’s matches
in Chile were played in Santiago and Valparaíso in the early 1920s.76
Chilean physical education teachers promoted basketball enthusiasti-
cally within schools, but also within labor unions and neighborhood
clubs.77 Still, from the outset, some girls faced resistance to their
participation from their families, who worried they would become
“marimachos.”78 The worry that their daughters might become too
masculine connected with fears that they would develop attraction
to other women. Despite some level of discouragement, women
persisted in forming teams within clubs. One of the first clubs to
promote the sport was Club Gath y Chaves. Gath y Chaves was
a high-end department store in Santiago and Buenos Aires in the
early 1900s. Once the store began selling women’s clothing, it hired
young women as salesclerks. These women took advantage of the
impressive sports facilities the department store offered its employ-
ees, including football fields and basketball courts. The second wave
of clubs included Badminton, Escuela de Artes, Universitario Tabú,
and General Baquedano. As intriguing as some of these clubs are, we
know little about the way that women’s basketball teams developed
42FUTBOLERA

within them. We do know, however, that women’s clubs joined the

Santiago Basketball Association at least as early as 1933. Sara López
Ramírez, a physical education teacher, served as the first president
of the Asociación Santiago de Basket-Ball Femenino. The associa-
tion integrated nine clubs: Estrella Polar, Enrique Correa, Comercio
Atlético, Flecha, Manuel Montt, Cabrera Gana, Universitario Tabú,
Badminton, Escuela de Artes, and General Baquedano. Once the
Federación Chilena de Basket-Ball Femenino (Chilean Women’s
Basketball Federation) was established, provincial associations joined,
including Valparaíso, Concepción, Temuco, Osorno, Rancagua,
María Elena, Talcahuano, Tomé, Chuquicamata, Sewell, and San
Fernando. Women enthusiastically took up basketball and soon
began to traverse their cities, provinces, and even the country looking
for competition. Northern clubs dominated Santiago and Valparaíso
in the early years.79 Despite covering the season closely, Estadio was
surprised when the women from the small northern town of María
Elena defeated Santiago at the fifth national tournament, held in
1944 in Concepción. The victory of this regional team indicates that
basketball had likely been established for decades in the provinces,
even if it was not officially integrated into national associations.
The 1940s and 1950s were a “golden age” in Chilean women’s
basketball, in terms of international success and fan attendance. The
sportswear store Casa Olímpico began to advertise its line of basket-
ball clothing for women in popular magazines and newspapers. By
the 1940s, women shed the bulky athletic suits of the past in favor of
satin shorts and short sleeves. Moreover, basketball became a vehicle
for girls to travel. For example, the Liga Escolar de Deportes (School
Sports League) supported girls’ basketball extensively, and provin-
cial students participated in tournaments in Santiago, Concepción,
and Osorno. Consider the case of Cabrera Gana, a small club in
the center of Santiago.80 It began as an excursion club, one of the
many formed to organize trips to the countryside, especially for
mountain climbing. One of its members, Haydée Piñeiro, became a
top basketball player and helped to build the top women’s basketball
team in Chile, among the best in South America. The women took a
WOMEN’S SPORTS IN ARGENTINA AND CHILE 43

minibus and toured the provinces of Argentina, something Estadio

described as dangerous, uncomfortable, and “a crazy thing.”81 Ten
women traveled for forty days; one of them brought her husband
along and he drove. They played in seven cities, losing to River Plate
and Boca Juniors in Buenos Aires. A trip of this extent in the 1940s
of unaccompanied women was unusual, but the sports engagements
they had arranged provided a unique incentive and structure to their
travels.
The boom in women’s basketball occurred within and beyond
schools. Indeed, it coincided with a boom in amateur sports in Chile
more broadly. This effervescence was a result of increased state re-
sources under the center-left government of the Popular Front for
sports projects targeting the working class. Large clubs like Colo
Colo incorporated women’s basketball in the late 1930s, as did
immigrant clubs, small neighborhood clubs, and factory clubs.82 In
fact, the growth of basketball in Argentina, Brazil, and Uruguay
helped the sport in Chile as well, because international rivalries
built interest among audiences and the press. Chile hosted the first
South American women’s tournament in 1946, when it defeated
Argentina in the finals to claim the title.83 The finals were held in
the Teatro Caupolicán, and six thousand people attended. According
to one commentator, “Never had basketball, in any country of
South America, succeeded in bringing so many people to women’s
games. Never.”84 During the tournament, women held the first South
American Congress of Women’s Basketball, which forged a network
of continental leaders in the sport.
The international success of women basketball players thrilled
journalists. Estadio raved about the performance of the Santiago
champions of 1949, Famae (Fábrica y Maestranza del Ejército), a
team of the state-owned arms factory. Famae traveled to Peru that
year for the third South American championships, and the Peruvian
fans marveled at their skill, according to the Chilean press.85 Their
fans felt certain that the women’s basketball team was “without
a doubt” the top talent on the continent, having proven so in
Argentina, Bolivia, and Peru.86
44FUTBOLERA

The popularity of women’s basketball drew athletes from all so-

cial classes, but working-class players dominated the top rosters.
The biography of the star player Natacha Méndez provides a lens
on the women who led Chile’s early national teams. Méndez grew
up in Población Pedro Montt, where she started playing in Club
Deportivo Pedro Montt. Her parents were directors of the club,
which had produced several national players. Once her talent was
recognized, Famae scouted Méndez, who transferred there. Popular
histories of the Pedro Montt neighborhood emphasized her beauty
and skill, noting that she was elected a Spring Queen and also Queen
of the Pacific in the South American championships of 1951.87 The
local press appeared adamant in establishing Méndez’s femininity.
According to the newspaper La Cuarta, Méndez was so attractive
that audiences in Lima went crazy for her. This type of adulation for
a sportswoman was objectifying, but also disruptive of conservative
ideals of appropriate activities for women. Méndez remained active
within the sports community well after her playing career ended, and
she went on to manage a well-known sports facility.
As women’s basketball grew—and as Chilean women excelled
in it at the continental level—it gained acceptance. Increased press
coverage of the sport led to greater knowledge of the players. The
rise of the sport culminated in 1953, when the directors of sports
associations and sports journalists named the women’s basketball
star Hilda Ramos as Chilean athlete of the year, representing the first
time that a woman received the prize.88 Ramos captained the 1953
team that finished second in the world championships, losing in the
finals to the United States. However, this progress proved short-lived.
The following season the women’s basketball team received fewer
resources, and men replaced the female directors of the Chilean
Women’s Basketball Federation. According to Georgina Oyarzún,
a basketball coach from the era, the 1953 world championship
marked the beginning of the decline of Chilean women’s basketball.89
The idea that Chilean women’s basketball declined, in part, be-
cause men took over its administration once it achieved a certain
level of success makes sense, given the attitudes of the men involved.
WOMEN’S SPORTS IN ARGENTINA AND CHILE 45

For example, the coach of the women’s national team in the 1950s,
Osvaldo Retamal, declared that “basketball was not a sport for
women.”90 Retamal was not only a coach, but also a professor at
the Institute of Physical Education. Retamal believed that basketball
was too fast and rough a game for women to play. When asked how
he could sustain these beliefs and still train the women’s team, he
replied that he had firsthand knowledge of their incapacities.
In international basketball governance, Latin American women
participated in the International Basketball Federation (FIBA) to the
extent possible. Of the seven members of FIBA’s women’s commis-
sion, four were men. Among the remaining three seats, the Chilean
Amelia Reyes Pinto held one.91 By 1960 even fewer women served
on the commission; Reyes Pinto was the only remaining woman of
eleven members after 1960. The only other Latin American woman
listed in the international governing bodies was the representative
to the International Federation of Volleyball, “Miss de la Fuente,”
who was secretary-treasurer of the Mexican federation.92
Similar to the case of basketball, the international success of
women track-and-field athletes helped them to garner domestic
support. Track and field was structured in such a way that Chilean
media could use timing, height, and distance to gauge how their
athletes fared compared to others even without traveling to a tour-
nament.93 This was important for a country that struggled to arrange
travel for athletes, both for sending its own athletes abroad and for
organizing international meets at home. So, for example, the mag-
azine Estadio could compare the running times of US women with
those of Chilean and Argentine women and determine that the South
Americans stood a chance against the top North American athletes,
especially those from the United States and Cuba. The Pan-American
Games, first held in 1951, provided the most important opportunity
for women’s track-and-field competition.94 For female athletes, like
Chile’s Eliana Gaete, the Pan-American Games motivated them to
continue training even after starting a family. Gaete won gold in
1951 and 1955, in between which she married and had her first
child.95 The success of Gaete, along with that of Marlene Ahrens
46FUTBOLERA

and Betty Kretschmer, among others, encouraged the organization of

athletics tournaments for girls, as well as the expansion of women’s
track-and-field teams within larger sports clubs.
Despite their success, female athletes were often treated harshly by
Chilean federations, which refused to address—among other things—
the problem of sexual harassment. Marlene Ahrens was suspended
for one year at the height of her career as a result of remarks she
made to a Chilean magazine. In 1959, she had refused the advances
of the head of the rowing federation, Alberto Labra, who went on
to preside over the Chilean Olympic Committee from 1963 to 1965.
Despite an appeal and subsequent investigation that supported
Ahrens, the sports directors refused to relent, upholding her suspen-
sion, which prevented her from competing at the Tokyo Olympics
of 1964.96 She promptly retired. Female athletes were not immune
to holding sexist views themselves, even if they frequently found
themselves championing women’s equality. The press eagerly high-
lighted women’s criticism of fellow women athletes. For example,
the Chilean sprinter Adriana Millard dismissed the performance
of Fanny Blankers-Koen, a star of the London Olympics in 1948,
because “she ran and jumped like a man.”97 Moreover, Millard com-
plained that Blankers-Koen’s muscles were too much for a woman.
Blankers-Koen had shocked the sporting world by returning to the
sport after having two children and then claiming four gold med-
als in the 1948 Olympics. Still, Millard advised that young women
instead emulate Maureen Gardner, who was thinner and more tra-
ditionally feminine in appearance.
As journalists began to publish popular histories of Chilean
sports, especially football, in the 1950s and 1960s, they portrayed
women as obstacles to progress. Pepe Nava’s chronicles portrayed
the first sportsmen as being rebels, and he described them as “crazy
for sports.”98 Nava claimed that young women prevented the growth
of football because of their anachronistic thinking. According to
Nava, sports clubs threatened women’s hopes for marriage propos-
als. For that reason, he claimed, young women formed organizations
that opposed sports.99 In response, a group of upper-class young men
held a match at Club Hípico to convince their girlfriends of football’s
WOMEN’S SPORTS IN ARGENTINA AND CHILE 47

value. The women were so impressed that they threatened to become

“foot-ball girls.”100 The article is accompanied by a stunning photo-
graph of a young women’s football team, neither named nor dated.
The caption reads, “After being disgusted by football at the outset,
the Chilean young ladies took to it with so much enthusiasm they
formed a team.”101 The uniforms appear to be official, perhaps from
a girls’ school in the 1920s. The players are all wearing cleats and
the goalkeeper is identified. “Fortunately, the idea did not spread,”
said Nava.102 Pepe Nava never elaborated on why women’s football
did not catch on. Indeed, the Chilean media’s rejection of women’s
football, like that of the Argentine press, is difficult to analyze, in
part because it was left unexplained and in part because the sport
itself was barely visible.
Oral histories point toward the constant underground presence
of women’s football. For example, the track-and-field trio Eliana
Gaete, Marlene Ahrens, and Betty Kretschmer all began their athletic
endeavors with football. Ahrens recalled that women played quite
a lot of football in the 1940s.103 In a 2013 interview she corrected a
reporter who claimed that women played football “now” by noting
that in her youth she “played so much football.”104 Ahrens explained
that on her father’s ranch she played with the sons of the inquilinos
(tenant farmers) every afternoon, sometimes with shoes and other
times without. For her part, Betty Kretschmer complained that she
wasn’t allowed to compete in football, which was her favorite sport.
She later became a journalist, primarily writing about football.105
The Chilean physical education community asserted its exper-
tise with increased intensity during the 1950s and 1960s. Yet the
intellectual materials of the field had changed little in regard to
gender. In physical education journals, authors asserted immutable
differences between men and women, based on anatomical differ-
ences (such as curvature of the spine) and attributes of the “ner-
vous system.”106 Specifically, physical education experts pointed out
women’s excitability, lack of concentration, and inability to control
their emotions, which began in adolescence.107 Because of the “inal-
terable” natural differences between men and women, particularly
men’s stronger muscles and larger bones, the experts recommended
48FUTBOLERA

segregated education along gender lines. So too pedagogical instruc-

tions differed for teaching boys and girls. The rules for teaching
girls included avoiding all strong and brusque actions, focusing on
movement and harmony, without falling into the category of dance.
Teachers were reminded to be aware of girls’ limited attention span
and strength. Manuals also suggested avoiding competition because
girls’ fragile psychology could not handle the pressure of winning or
losing. In arguing for the differential treatment, experts frequently
drew analogies to differences between animal species. While one
article conceded that there was little research on human subjects, it
noted that one could see from the animal kingdom that the female
was weaker in all species.108
While most of the growth in women’s sports participation oc-
curred in basketball and volleyball, working-class clubs in Chile
began to integrate women’s football by the 1950s.109 The first wom-
en’s football teams to garner attention were Las Atómicas and Las
Dinamítas from San Miguel. As with other pioneering women’s
teams in the region, the two teams toured Chile, playing preliminary
matches before men’s games. Attendees at a women’s match that
took place in Limache raved about the performance.110 As a result,
the sports magazine Gol y Gol, which was more focused on amateur-
ism than Estadio, received dozens of letters in response from women
who hoped to organize matches.111 Despite its popularity among
women, however, women’s football sparked controversy within the
sports pages. Conservative journalists expressed hostility toward
women players and fans. In 1952, Estadio mentioned women’s
football and boxing as an “invasion.”112 Still, the debate provides a
window into a broader subterranean practice: journalists indicated
that women played football throughout the country, not only in the
major cities.113 In defense of women’s football as a tradition, some
readers sent in photographs of teams from the 1920s.114 Readers of
Gol y Gol sent in details of women’s provincial football teams, such
as Colo Colo of Iquique.115 The club wrote to the magazine again on
the occasion of their first anniversary, with photographs of the club’s
directory, which comprised three men and two women.116 Other
teams sprang up rapidly in the provinces throughout the 1960s,
WOMEN’S SPORTS IN ARGENTINA AND CHILE 49

including Las Malulas and Latino from Vallenar. Women’s matches

often served as benefits for traditional feminized charities, such as
maternity wards of hospitals.117
Despite the growth of women’s football, physical education ex-
perts continued to reject its benefits. At the National Institute of
Physical Education at the University of Chile, students could special-
ize in gymnastics, track and field, basketball, swimming, or men’s
football. Only men were allowed to enter classes on football. The
curriculum also required women take two courses on childcare and
dance. Interestingly, between 1945 and 1955 more women than
men attended the institute, probably reflecting broader trends in
women as teachers. This trend began to change in the mid-1950s.
While being pushed out of coaching and governance, female physical
education teachers continued to organize communities and contrib-
ute to academic publications.118 Marta Briceño Vásquez, a teacher
at the Liceo de Niñas no. 3, wrote a short editorial piece in 1951
about the stagnation in Chilean women’s physical education. Briceño
Vásquez considered the Pan-American congresses on physical edu-
cation preliminary steps to connect women in the field. She wrote a
summary of the Congreso Internacional de Mujeres Interesadas en
la Educación Física Femenina (International Congress of Women
Interested in Women’s Physical Education). This congress met for the
second time in Copenhagen in 1949, but Argentina seems to have
been the only South American delegation that participated. Briceño
Vásquez commented that there were no formal declarations of the
congress, simply a vibrant exchange of ideas about everything from
the role of sports and dance in physical education to teacher training
and international exchanges.
Women’s increasing entrance into higher education helped expand
their opportunities for team sports. Universities had facilities, social
spaces, and physical education programs already established. In the
early 1960s, parents would likely have been more willing to allow
daughters to spend their leisure time at university events than bar-
rio clubs.119 In addition to basketball, University of Chile students
organized a women’s volleyball league, with teams representing the
different majors. The coverage of female athletics in the university
50FUTBOLERA

sounded similar to coverage of women’s sports in 1910. One Gol y

Gol’s reporter commented, “The traditional beauty of our women
puts a beautiful mark on the beginning of this tournament.”120 There
was little to no attempt to analyze the tactics or composition of
teams.
The popularity of women’s basketball began to decrease in the
late 1960s and early 1970s. Players attributed the decline to sexism,
particularly the displacement of female coaches and the dispropor-
tionate support for men’s teams.121 In 1966 Chile came fifth out of
six participants in the South American championship, which was the
worst showing of Chilean women’s basketball to that point. The ero-
sion of paternalist factory policies, which included support for sports
clubs, hurt women’s amateur sports. For example, in 1970 Club
Antonio Labán, the most decorated team in history, according to
Estadio, removed its budget for sports altogether. Many hoped that
the return of the Colo Colo club to women’s basketball competition
in 1970 would help make up for this loss.122 It did not. Still, contrary
to the trends in sports clubs, girls’ athletics steadily grew within elite
high schools. By the late 1960s, there was an interschool competition
for girls that included seventeen high schools and nearly five hundred
young sportswomen.123 Many of these schools emerged from immi-
grant communities. Women’s swimming also became popular among
elite European high schools, including Stade Français, Cambridge
School, and Dunalastair.124 Moreover, dominant swimmers emerged
from German and Scandinavian immigrant communities, including
Inge von der Forst and Gisela Nissen.125

FANS, GODMOTHERS, AND AUXILIARY MEMBERS

Athletes are central figures in the history of women and sports in

Latin America. However, the female club member, fan, and madrina
(or godmother) also contributed to sports culture. The figure of the
club madrina was one of an older, matronly woman who cooked
meals, sewed uniforms, and provided advice for the players. For
example, Ida de Cariola, the wife of Carlos Cariola, the well-known
journalist and dramatist, accompanied Colo Colo’s tour of Latin
WOMEN’S SPORTS IN ARGENTINA AND CHILE 51

America and Europe in 1927. One of the players described Ida de

Cariola as “the fairy godmother of the delegation.” The player fur-
ther recalled “her kindness, her cordial and pleasant spirit, filled
with affection, so that everyone loved her. She was a good friend to
all, caring and friendly, she knew how to lift everyone up, her exqui-
site femininity was always a security blanket for the delegation.”126
It is important to note that Colo Colo, which quickly became Chile’s
most popular club after its foundation in 1925 and spearheaded
the move to professionalism in 1933, permitted women members
as early as 1930. In the club’s statutes, the first article stated: “The
corporation will be formed by members belonging to both sexes,
that apply to the practice of sports, that will create all the branches
of sports that the board of Colo-Colo F.C. considers appropriate
to its goals, giving preference to those that cultivate a popular fan
base.”127 Women could still face discrimination, however, because
new member applications required recommendations from current
members. Green Cross was another club with the structure that had
a separate category of membership for women.128 Women were able
to qualify for a voice and a vote in the club so long as they paid the
appropriate dues.
Throughout the twentieth century, football fans organized into
the largest, and sometimes most violent, sports communities in
Latin America. In the early 1900s, clubs offered free admission to
women in the hopes that their presence would discourage men from
violence in the stands. Despite the threatening environment as fan-
dom became more brusque in the middle of the century, die-hard
female fans elbowed their way into organized groups. Photographic
evidence shows that women attended games in large numbers and
with notable frequency in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, and Uruguay.
Only in the 1960s did female fandom became a topic of interest
for journalists and club directors. Most dismissed women’s fandom
because they assumed women lacked experiential knowledge essential
to understanding the game.129 They also accused women of pretend-
ing to enjoy football in order to attract men. Still, in Argentina’s
most prominent rivalry, two women succeeded in leading the barras
(fans). María Esther Duffau, known as “La Raulito,” of Boca Juniors,
52FUTBOLERA

and Haydée Luján, or “La Gorda Matosas,” of River Plate, took the
mantle in the 1960s. They accumulated power within their clubs,
controlling ticket allotments, club “gifts,” and organizing interna-
tional travel. La Raulito and La Gorda opted for masculine cloth-
ing, hairstyles, and language. In media portrayals, they abandoned
their female identities to become “real fans.”130 Both Duffau and
Luján came from difficult circumstances. Duffau, as popularized in
the 1975 film about her entitled La Raulito, had grown up on the
streets and often passed for a boy. Luján, too, was an orphan. Both
women understood the football club as their extended family. Luján
portrayed the club in a way not unlike the way that Eva Perón
portrayed the Argentine nation—as her fictive kin. Luján claimed
that her fiancé could not understand her love for the club. She
described River Plate as her boyfriend, her children, and her hus-
band.131 It is striking to imagine the environment in which these
women led fans in chants that ridiculed rivals by linking them to
femininity and sexual submissiveness. Fan chants of many clubs rid-
iculed the opposing teams for their supposed homosexuality. In this
way, clubs created a hostile environment for women, as well as for
gay spectators.132
The 1980s were marked by an increase in fan violence in the
stadiums, making it even more difficult for women to participate.
Despite the early examples of women fan leaders, researchers in the
1990s found that women fans achieved limited acceptance.133 Male
fans denied that women possessed real knowledge or passion for
the clubs, in part because they expected real passion to be conveyed
through violence, which women were generally excluded from. In
fact, women discussed that male protection was readily available
whenever a fight broke out. While women reported that they did
not feel discrimination, they also said that there were specific lines
they knew better than to cross. For example, female Boca fans knew
precisely which areas of the fan sections they could enter.134 Several
women fans described the violent ways in which they were excluded
from the inner circles of fan groups. In ethnographies with female
fans, social scientists have found that women were acutely aware of
WOMEN’S SPORTS IN ARGENTINA AND CHILE 53

the connection between discounting the knowledge of women fans

and the lack of female representation in sports media. Many female
fans outwardly criticized women’s football, complaining that it was
a poor imitation of the men’s game. The researchers Mariana Conde
and María Graciela Rodríguez found that men claimed to tolerate
women fans, but when asked to elaborate, the male informants also
doubted the femininity and sincerity of female fans.135 Interestingly,
the World Cups of the 1990s ruptured previous tournaments in that
women’s fandom was highlighted, but women were presented as
sexualized objects, and fans of the nation, in a carnivalesque mo-
ment. The ongoing integration of groups based on their potential as
consumers has also driven the inclusion of women as a sector within
football fandom.136
The activities of women fans, godmothers, and club members
have been largely erased in the histories produced by clubs. For ex-
ample, Unión Española commissioned a club history on the occasion
of its fiftieth anniversary. Unión Española was an important profes-
sional club in Chile that emerged in the early twentieth century from
a consolidation of civic associations of Spanish immigrants. In a
short book that recorded the club’s history, the directors constructed
an allegory of the club as a family, more specifically a fraternity.137
“Birth doesn’t happen without pain. The mother and child’s pain,”
wrote the directors on the club’s creation.138 Before professionalism,
the women’s section was very popular, but it remained unimportant
for the directors who wrote the history of the club. While Unión
Española offered some dances for young people in the community,
many photographs depicting grand banquets from the 1920s and
1930s showed hundreds of members, all men.139 According to their
records, in 1936 the football club counted 2,289 socios (members),
including 405 women and children.140 In club records from 1941,
women’s numbers were separated from men, and they made up 201
of the 2,500 socios.141 The Chilean Football Federation’s official
history, written in 1945, contained no mention of women.142
As women joined unions in greater numbers, they also took part in
the sports clubs within their workplaces. Reflecting women’s greater
54FUTBOLERA

participation in sports, Club Deportivo del Sindicato Industrial de

Cristalerías de Chile (Chilean Industrial Glassworkers Sports Club)
elected a sports queen for the spring festivities instead of a beauty
queen.143 Women formed sections of barrio clubs at an increasing
pace in the mid-twentieth century. For example, women members
of Club Pedro Aguirre Cerda, of Conchalí in Santiago, organized
dances, sports tournaments, and other social events.144 The Club
Cultural Población Miguel Dávila, which worked closely with the
Socialist politician Mario Palestro, created a women’s basketball sec-
tion in 1949, directed by Rosa Gomes. Women also joined clubs as
board members in this period.145 For example, in Lanco, a relatively
small town in southern Chile, Club Diablitos was organized in the
municipal offices. Originally founded exclusively by men in 1960, by
1963 enough women joined to form a women’s basketball section.
The coach of women’s basketball joined the board of directors, “in-
augurating a new era in the life of the club.”146
The international social movements of the 1960s, including anti-
colonialism, feminism, and revolutionary movements in the global
South, did little to change the mainstream discourse of women and
sports. New youth publications reiterated the same antagonism that
women supposedly harbored toward sports. In 1965 one young
woman wrote to an advice column fretting that her boyfriend loved
her but clearly loved football more.147 Despite the growth of wom-
en’s sports and the influence of feminism on sectors of the Latin
American left, women athletes were ignored among those trying to
recast sports as tools of popular rebellion. Antonino Vera’s history
El fútbol en Chile contained only two references to women.148 One
came in the very first paragraph of the book in efforts to establish
the popularity of the sport. He wrote, “Children, youths and older
men—and now even women have made ‘the English game’ their
favorite pastime.”149 Changing history meant including the male
working class. The next appearance of women came in Vera’s de-
scription of the entrance of the teams of the University of Chile
and the Catholic University, in 1938 and 1939, respectively, to the
professional league. Vera claimed that the university matches drew
WOMEN’S SPORTS IN ARGENTINA AND CHILE 55

women to stadiums for the first time.150 Yet we know his version is
inaccurate. In the early 1900s there were plenty of women present
at football games, as their photographs were splashed across the
society pages. In fact, in 1912 sportswriters were complaining that
the coarse behavior of players was diminishing women’s attendance
at football matches.151

A RETURN TO FOOTBALL

For all of the suppression of women’s football in South America,

it is remarkable that Argentina sent a team to the second women’s
world championship, held in Mexico in 1971, and that other South
American nations considered attending. Informal communication
networks were crucial, as there was little or no press reporting in
South America prior to the event.152 Chile’s Estadio made one men-
tion of it in February 1971, stating briefly that Mexico was prepar-
ing to host a women’s football tournament.153 But when the cham-
pionship took place, Estadio did not cover it at all. It did, however,
report on the 1971 women’s football championships in the United
States, featuring a photograph of empty stands as evidence that
nobody wanted to see women play football.154 Still, among South
American sports journalists, there seemed to be a general awareness
of Costa Rican, and Central American, women’s success in football.
When discussing a Fédération Internationale de Football Association
(International Federation of Association Football, FIFA) decision
against affiliating women’s organizations, Chilean writers mentioned
that Central Americans, in particular, would be disappointed.155
While both Chilean and Brazilian women were rumored to be
organizing teams for the tournament, Argentina was the only South
American delegation to compete in the 1971 world championship
in Mexico.156 But where did the players come from? With scant
coverage in the Argentine press, the mere existence of women’s foot-
ball might have come as a surprise. But from media reports as far
afield as Spain and Mexico, it would appear that Argentina’s largest
clubs were the engines of a growth in women’s football in the late
56FUTBOLERA

1960s and early 1970s. And there was some diffusion: a tournament
between Universitario, Real Torino, Sporting, and Rosario was aired
on television to very high ratings.
Soon after Mexico announced it would host the 1971 women’s
championship, Argentina’s newly formed Association of Women’s
Football committed to attend. The association listed six affiliated
clubs and planned, according to vice president Raúl Rodríguez,
to organize the first national tournament after participating in the
world championship.157 The Mexican newspaper El Heraldo de
México named Daniel Fabri as the coach for the women’s team,
though Fabri did not travel to Mexico.158 The futboleras who com-
posed this pioneering squad remember neither Fabri nor Rodríguez,
meaning either that the press was mistaken or, more likely, that
it named men who were marginal to the sport in order to pres-
ent the reading public with male authority figures. The Mexican
press indicated that Brazil would also send a delegation, perhaps on
the assumption that Brazil would participate in anything football
related.
The Argentine squad was concentrated around one club, Club
Universitario, which sent thirteen members of its team to represent
the country in Mexico. Two other clubs sent two players each: Real
Italiano and Sporting. As none of the clubs was flush with money,
the Argentine Association of Women’s Football struggled financially
to travel to the Mexican tournament.159 The players, too, had few re-
sources to spend on travel. Most of the players were factory workers
who played football in their free time, though four were university
students. It is unclear if they all lived in Buenos Aires, as newspaper
reports suggest that women played in La Plata and Rosario. The age
of many of the players—some as old as thirty-three—suggested that
they had been playing organized football for a decade.160
The lead-up to the tournament gives a glimpse of the existence of
women’s football in the region. The Mexican national team planned
a trip to Argentina to play a series of friendly matches, scheduled
to be played in Estadio Gimnasia y Esgrima in Buenos Aires.161 But
the trip was extended as a result of requests to play elsewhere in
South America. The Mexican women’s federation received requests
WOMEN’S SPORTS IN ARGENTINA AND CHILE 57

FIGURE 1.5. Club Universitario, Buenos Aires, 1971. Photograph of the

Argentine team that participated in the second women’s world football cham-
pionship in Mexico. El Heraldo de México, July 3, 1971.

from both Peru and Venezuela—which had hosted a four-team tour-

nament in 1960—to play matches there.162 While it did not travel
to Caracas, the Mexican women’s team played representatives of
Peru in the Estadio Municipal de Lima as part of the municipality’s
sesquicentennial independence celebration, led by Mayor Eduardo
Dibós Chappuis.163 The Limeñas, playing in sneakers, lost 2–3.164
The match in Buenos Aires, initially slated for July 16, 1971, was
rained out. In the meantime the organizers sold so many tickets
that they moved the venue to the stadium of Club Atlético Nuevo
Chicago because it had a capacity for fifty thousand spectators. 165
The match was a violent affair. The Mexican national team lost
3–2 and was so upset by the officiating, specifically a penalty they
received for roughing the goalkeeper, that they temporarily with-
drew from the match. Some minutes later they returned to the field,
where they promptly received another penalty. The Mexican player
Irma Mancilla and the Argentine Betty Garcia were expelled for
fighting.166
The Argentine futboleras who traveled to the second world cham-
pionship of women’s football, in Mexico, sacrificed quite a bit to
58FUTBOLERA

be there. As workers and students, they missed work and classes in

order to attend. They had wanted to participate in the first world
championship, in Turin, but could not raise sufficient funds for
travel. Even for the Mexico trip, the team’s financial situation was
so dire that the delegation arrived in waves in order to save money
on accommodations. 167 The Argentine captain, Maria Angélica
Cardoso, explained that the team “suffered quite a bit to get here
and still we have to struggle; we cannot return to our country de-
feated.”168 They were coached by a Mexican stand-in, as their own
trainer could not make the trip. With all the difficulties, Argentina
finished the tournament in fourth place, losing the match for third
place in a rough affair against Italy in front of a crowd of fifty thou-
sand in Guadalajara.169 Today, the veterans of the 1971 Argentine
team call themselves Las Pioneras—the Pioneers. Through social
media, they have reconnected with one another and created their
own history of the experience. In the process, they have begun doc-
umenting the wider history of women’s football in Argentina.170
When Juana Gremler lobbied for more resources for physical
education programs for her school in 1902, perhaps she envisioned
the impact that girls’ sports and physical education would have.
After all, she placed more importance on sports than on other
“traditional” subjects. The first wave of women’s sports advocates
believed in the role that physical education could play in improving
women’s health and the fitness of the nation. At the same time, they
encountered strong resistance to women’s sports. Still, few would
have predicted that generations of women would struggle for their
place in the sporting world. Women like Gremler, throughout the
Southern Cone and beyond, who worked inside the state structure,
were at once arbiters of change and guardians of official policy.
Indeed, physical education and sports for girls and young women re-
mained topics of intense debate within state institutions, the sporting
community, and the public sphere more broadly. Government offi-
cials, private associations, and public health “experts” and educators
believed that they had the answers to how much and what type of
physical activity was helpful for future mothers. As the fields of
medicine and education professionalized, women found themselves
WOMEN’S SPORTS IN ARGENTINA AND CHILE 59

displaced by their male counterparts. However, in reality, most

experts relied on little to no evidence to support their theories of
female sports and physical activity. Rather, these experts based their
knowledge on personal prejudices and political positions. Yet the
decisions they made—from Bolivia to Argentina, Chile to Brazil—
directly shaped the physical education curricula and girls’ ability to
participate in sports, both within school and beyond. Sexist attitudes
notwithstanding, girls and women forced their way onto the court
and the field. Whether in basketball or football, tennis or track and
field, women and girls transgressed the boundaries meant to keep
them in the home.
As the numbers of women participating in sports grew, so too
did their representation in the press. But just as there was no uni-
fied vision as to whether or how women should participate, the
sports media in Latin America had distinct views on the matter. In
Argentina, El Gráfico opted for a relatively inclusive image of the
sportswoman. As noted, the magazine often opted to show women
in action, and in so doing normalized, intentionally or not, the idea
of women playing sports. Though it was the most influential sports
magazine in the region, its message did not necessarily extend to
other countries. In Chile and elsewhere, sportswomen were treated
in the press as anomalies: transgressors of gender norms as athletes,
and interlopers on male-only spaces as fans.
The development of international competitions in women’s sports
further legitimized the presence of women. From Chilean basketball
to Brazilian swimming, success brought more positive media cov-
erage, which helped to place more emphasis on the importance of
physical education and sports for girls. Yet there were limits to the
impact of regional and international events. The support that they
garnered tended to be shallow. Men still dominated the sports media
and sporting institutions, as well as ministries of education and pub-
lic health. As a result, schoolgirls and women athletes remained
dependent on male allies. Women who spoke out found themselves
sidelined. Moreover, hand in hand with that focus came greater ac-
cess to physical education and sports, if only as ways to “beautify”
the nation and to create healthy citizens. In both Argentina and
60FUTBOLERA

Chile, female teachers and students of physical education promoted

sports among girls and women beyond the classroom, sparking the
creation of independent teams and vibrant, if somewhat ephemeral,
communities.
2
POLICING WOMEN’S SPORTS IN BRAZIL

WHEN THE BRAZILIAN MUSEUM OF FOOTBALL, HOUSED IN THE

Estádio Pacaembu, launched the first exhibition dedicated to wom-
en’s football in 2015, curators aptly titled it Visibility of Women’s
Football. Given the international attention to Brazilian football and
its fabled role in everyday life, the silence surrounding the history
of women in the sport is striking. Brazilian women’s football is
framed by perhaps the most prohibitive landscape anywhere in the
Americas. From the 1940s until the 1980s, women’s football was
prohibited by law. In the 1970s, as the ban was called into question,
journalists and popular commentators dismissed its impact as insig-
nificant, claiming that women had never played much football. Yet
historical evidence demonstrates that women’s football established
a successful fan base and a pool of players early in the twentieth
century. At the time that the Getúlio Vargas government banned
women from playing the national game, in 1941, the sport was ex-
panding rapidly. In fact, we argue, the growth in popularity of wom-
en’s football and concern over its impact on young women by public
health experts prompted its prohibition. This chapter seeks to un-
derstand why futboleras posed a danger to Brazilian society, how
they persisted in playing, and what the significance of their struggle
reveals about gender in midcentury Brazil.
That women’s football became a cause of concern for patriarchal
sports organizations across class lines is not surprising consider-
ing the broader historical context. Getúlio Vargas rose to power in
the 1930s on promises of reform that had been percolating since
the late 1800s. Along with the broader expansion of the state, the
Vargas regime also sought to more directly regulate women’s lives
and behavior. Lawmakers, from the 1890 penal code to the early
twentieth-century civil code, defined women’s and men’s rights dif-
ferently.1 Efforts by reformers such as Clóvis Beviláqua to grant

61
62FUTBOLERA

women more equal status in civil cases were rebuffed on the basis
that women were “incapable” under civil law, a category they shared
with children and the “insane.”2 Women’s participation in public
health debates, including those that surrounded the development
of physical education, was limited from the outset. The barriers to
women’s education prevented them from being doctors or being
considered experts. Even though medical programs allowed women
to study in 1879, very few upper-middle-class or elite white women
managed to do so. The paucity of female voices ensured that men
drove the public discussion of women’s sports and physical educa-
tion.3 In turn, the dominance of men in such debates made physical
education one more domain of patriarchal control.4
At the vanguard of women’s football in Brazil were the players,
although we hear from them less frequently in the historical record
than we do pundits, journalists, and state officials. Women foot-
ballers faced restrictive gender prescriptions, hostility from sporting
institutions, and a lack of resources. There were challenges to par-
ticipation in other sports as well, but none as restrictive as football.
As football diffused from elite social clubs to the popular classes, the
sport’s growing association with violence and working-class leisure
made it more difficult for young women to play. Still, beginning in
the 1910s, women entered football as fans and club matrons, as
well as players. More commonly, women participated in rowing
and horseback riding, which were associated with the upper class.5
The Olympic movement offered another avenue for athletes, and
Brazilian women flocked to swimming, tennis, and later basketball,
track and field, and volleyball. In the early part of the twentieth
century, newly minted “experts” recommended women avoid team
sports. In their view, dance and gymnastics were optimal, but at least
tennis and swimming avoided overt physical contact, brusque move-
ments, and excessive muscle development. Women’s sports were
almost exclusively promoted by middle- and upper-class sports clubs,
as well as by educational institutions to which relatively well-off,
mostly white Brazilians had access. However, even though experts
deemed football detrimental to women’s health, women ignored the
official proscriptions of the medical and educational establishment.
Policing Women’s Sports in Brazil 63

Men’s football might have dominated Brazil’s sports landscape in

the 1920s, but many viewed its health benefits and social significance
with skepticism. Those who embraced the nineteenth-century ideal
of amateurism viewed the growth of passionate football fandom as
antithetical to that ideal’s disinterested pursuit of “sports for sports’
sake.” The diffusion of football among the popular classes, particu-
larly the masses of fans without the guidance of elite athletic orga-
nizations, worried politicians and police. Furthermore, as football
became a mass spectator sport, the mission of the sport to civilize
the population and strengthen bodies for citizenship and military
duty became more and more difficult to promote. As a result, the
Brazilian legislature launched an investigation into organized fans as
threats to public order in the early 1920s.6 Race and class played a
factor in these hearings; the degree to which working-class and black
Brazilians participated in a sport bore direct relation to its percep-
tion as violent. And while boxing was understood by its nature to
be violent—and received criticism for it—the focus on aggression in
football was largely absent from reports of games played by early
participants ensconced in the upper class. Despite the claims that
including players of color revolutionized Brazilian football, elite
white men continued to direct the clubs and sporting institutions.
The increasing importance of football in social life and as an eco-
nomic enterprise coincided with extensive stadium construction in
cities and greater government resources in the 1930s. By then, how-
ever, the print media commonly referred to football as the “violent
sport.”7 The exclusion of women took place at the very moment
when the narrative of the sport as a democratizing and unifying
force of national identity, particularly in terms of race, took hold.8

SHAPING GIRLS INTO MOTHERS

Physical education frequently provided the only opportunities for

girls to play sports and to exercise on a routine basis. The growth
of physical education, despite its deeply sexist foundations, in-
troduced sports to a broader cross section of girls. Programs of
girls’ gymnastics emerged in the late nineteenth century, driven by
64FUTBOLERA

European immigrants who integrated these programs into their ath-

letic clubs.9 The Brazilian teacher Clara Korte, for example, created
a postsecondary program called the Instituto de Educação Physica
das Mulheres (Women’s Institute of Physical Education) in Rio de
Janeiro in 1916.10 Her curriculum went far beyond exercise instruc-
tion and included courses on hygiene, infant health, and home eco-
nomics. There is evidence to suggest that these physical education
teachers played an important role in carving spaces within the major
football clubs for women. Korte, for instance, organized events in
Rio’s storied Club Fluminense, where she taught the women’s sec-
tion rhythmic gymnastics and hosted women’s tennis tournaments.11
Physical education for girls often included dancing, which was not
considered rigorous enough for boys. Following World War I, the
military lobbied for an expanded physical education curriculum to
improve the fitness of incoming soldiers.12 The medical community
joined the army’s plea for more physical education and reinforced
the need for genetic improvement through physical regimens. The
military preferred marching, marksmanship, and strength training.
In general, physical education leaders suggested that following the
models of the “Anglo-Saxon” race, Brazilian racial health could
also be improved by prioritizing modern sports, like cricket.13 Early
leaders viewed African, Asian, or indigenous heritage as detrimental
to national racial health. Physical education leaders from the med-
ical and sports communities mounted a significant resistance to the
Ministry of War’s attempts to create obligatory physical education
programs at the end of the 1920s precisely because they lacked the
scientific understanding of eugenics.14
The expansion of sports clubs and physical education coincided
with a broader proliferation of urban leisure activities in the early
twentieth century. As cities across the world experienced the Roaring
Twenties, new technologies motored the rapid dissemination of pop-
ular culture in urban Brazil.15 These technologies enabled physical
and sensory mobility and included mass train travel, aerial views in
film reels, radio programs, and easily accessible photographs. New
respect for youth developed as part of the political and economic
Policing Women’s Sports in Brazil 65

elite’s warm embrace of technology and modernity. The interest in

youth also sprang from their role in a growing consumer culture. In
this context, football clubs, fields, and stadiums emerged as a central
part of social life, not only in Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo, but
also in northern cities like Salvador and Recife. Along with samba
schools, football clubs integrated significant migrant populations
and acted as forces in local politics.
Because sports and athleticism were tied to ideas about the nation,
women’s participation was bound up with the “social question,”
eugenics, and a fractured Brazilian nationalism in the 1920s. As in
neighboring Argentina and Uruguay, Brazilian physical educators
looked to the Swedish gymnastics movement as a model for phys-
ical education. Fernando de Azevedo, a leading figure in Brazil’s
physical education curricula, advised that women should pursue
Swedish gymnastics, including using apparatus like the bars, danc-
ing, and walking, with occasional marching or limited jogging.16
Azevedo promoted physical education that not only reflected, but
also encouraged, different bodily development in men and women.
Whereas men needed strength and vigor, developed in rough sports,
women needed grace and harmony to enhance their feminine nature.
Women thus received instruction, both in educational institutions
and through the media, in dance, rhythmic gymnastics, and “gentle”
sports. The recommended dances did not draw upon African and
indigenous traditions in Brazil, but instead looked to European clas-
sical ballet for inspiration. As a writer, academic, and public official,
Azevedo shaped policy. In a career that spanned from the 1920s to
the 1960s, he wrote for the newspaper O Estado de São Paulo and
served as secretary of education and health and director general of
public education for the state of São Paulo. In these roles he helped
to write the education code in the 1930s that obligated physical
education in high schools. His views disseminated widely beyond
educational circles, to social and sporting clubs and to popular au-
diences, through his features in magazines such as Jornal dos Sports
and his numerous books. New disciplines, such as physical educa-
tion and sports medicine, coalesced and gained traction as science
66FUTBOLERA

itself became more prestigious. This was a transnational movement

that resulted in the creation of new international regulatory bodies,
which demanded a standardization of rules and regulations at the
national level. This process limited women’s participation in club
sports because the governing bodies set out different rules for men
and women and frequently barred women altogether. Essentially,
standardization formalized women’s exclusion or second-class status
within clubs.
Early physical education leaders sought to distinguish scientific
sports practice from what they considered “bawdy” entertainment
and spectacle. Physical education experts worried above all that
women’s sports would harm the female aesthetic. They feared that
changes to women’s physique, such as building muscle, would blur
gender difference.17 In their advocacy, these experts employed fasci-
nating pseudomedical concepts, particularly around nebulous mea-
surements of hormonal balance. Classical dance, inspired by Isadora
Duncan and others, was promoted to stop the development of wom-
en’s muscles. Once again, physical education experts showed the
depth of their ignorance in regard to women’s anatomy and mus-
culature. Frequently, in cautioning women against developing large
muscles, writers used hyperbolic comparisons, such as women
exercising to the point of having muscles like Hercules. 18 In the
1920s, invigorated efforts began to exclude women from football
within physical education programs. In part this was due to the
perceived physicality of the game, in part due to its supposed mascu-
linizing nature. Moreover, the increasing identification of football as
the national sport heightened its representative power. The process
of professionalization of men’s football in the early 1930s and its
perception as violent, as mentioned earlier, created new market ap-
proaches to the sport that increased its penetration into social life.
The state interest in the national team’s success increased steadily
following the Brazilian victories in the South American champion-
ships and the international recognition of neighboring Argentina and
Uruguay. Women’s exclusion from the national sport, particularly as
it became a cornerstone of Brazilian identity writ large, was part and
parcel of marginalizing them as active agents of the nation.
Policing Women’s Sports in Brazil 67

In the early twentieth century, a notable difference existed be-

tween the way in which Brazilian educators and their counterparts
in neighboring countries conceived of physical education. In the case
of Brazil, education leaders and sports directors focused more on the
relationship between physical exercise and beauty, and included a
focus on whiteness. Attitudes that highlighted light skin as beautiful
dovetailed with eugenics in a way that preoccupied Brazilian leaders
in a profound way. While whiteness was a part of the rhetoric in
Chile, for example, the discussion there centered more around the
moral and spiritual values of women. How sports shaped women’s
temperament was a more important question for Chilean educators,
insofar as women carried the responsibility of creating the proper
home environments for their husbands and children. In both cases,
however, physical education professionals advised women they
needed the guidance of scientific experts, assumed to be male. Only
under male tutelage, women were told, could they avoid potential
hazards of overexertion and body modification. The more football
club directors emphasized the sport’s role in developing proper mas-
culinity, the more dangerous women playing it became.
The sports media popularized these ideas about physical educa-
tion and women’s sports. In the 1920s, sports media grew exponen-
tially in Brazil. Not only did sports publications proliferate—going
from fewer than ten in 1912 to over sixty in 1930—but mainstream
newspapers and magazines further elevated the status of physical
activity and education.19 As the mass diffusion of sports occurred,
there were important ways in which it was coded as universally male.
One such way was that many larger features on sports included very
small pieces on women and women’s sports, if at all. This reinforced
for readers that save for exceptional cases, reading the sports pages
meant reading about men. The naming of sports also naturalized
their masculine nature. Reporters covered basketball or women’s
basketball, or wrote about tennis and women’s tennis. Even women
active in sports were called female “sportsmen,” with publications
using the English term to imply they were elite, amateur, and, there-
fore, acceptable. Moreover, sports language and metaphor drew
upon activities already coded as exclusively masculine. This is true
68FUTBOLERA

of metaphors in regard to war, but also “human nature” and articles

that stressed the changes of modernity, such as the rise of office
work.
Proposals to mandate physical education curricula sparked de-
bates in government agencies, among educators, and also in the
popular press. The army played an important supporting role in
the diffusion of the subject by creating early public institutes di-
rected at boys who would be future soldiers. Changes to physical
educational curricula sparked debates and resistance, often about
coeducation. The historian Jeffrey Dávila has shown the circulation
and prominence of eugenicists in implementing physical education
programs.20 Leaders such as Antônio Carneiro Leão believed in
scientifically measuring intelligence and physical fitness in order
to promote proper matches for reproduction. Modern sports, they
argued, were eugenicist; the country would improve its gene pool
through physical education for both men and women. Vargas made
physical education compulsory in high schools in 1932. However,
teachers struggled to find the adequate space and time to implement
the curriculum. The Vargas government’s belief in physical education
for girls as central to fit citizenship forced a rare confrontation with
the Catholic Church.21 In a letter to the administration, the bishops
of São Paulo criticized the indecent clothing and physical examina-
tions performed on girls. The government rebutted with assertions
that the clothing was “modest” and that women nurses handled the
examinations. In the eyes of the bishops, girls in motion and in loose
clothing incited desire among the boys in their classes. The Vargas
regime’s refusal to capitulate in 1940 might have had more to do
with its support of eugenics then with the promotion of new roles
for girls and women. The support of the military, schoolteachers, the
popular press, and the medical community might have meant more
than the support of the Church to the government, which sought
allies and legitimacy, particularly in the absence of elections.
Women playing football rarely appeared in the press during the
1910s and 1920s, and when they did, they were frequently pic-
tured as carnivalesque, or sometimes literally as part of the carnival
itself. Serious efforts of women athletes to organize competition
Policing Women’s Sports in Brazil 69

coexisted with theatrical representations of them. For example, the

elite literary magazine A Cigarra’s review of the carnival season in
1926 included a suggestive photograph of “women footballers,”
who may have actually been men dressed in drag.22 Alongside the
more traditional fare of the magazine—social news, engagements,
and birth announcements, as well as reports on elite leisure activ-
ities, such as rowing and automobile and horse racing—appeared
many photographs of men dressed as women in carnival processions.
Photographs of men dressed as women football players fit with
other transgressive celebrations featured in the issue, including men
dressed as Cleopatra or wearing the costume of indigenous women.
When elite urban men adopted the costume of native Brazilians, they
reinforced their status as white. The photo in this chapter of women
football players of the Queirolo circus was apparently taken during
a game with Club Palestra Italia. Given that there are eight players
in the picture, four in each color jersey, one could assume it was a
four-on-four match, which would not have been routine in 1920s
Brazil. While it is difficult to say with absolute certainty what the
photograph is supposed to portray, it was not an isolated image.
Photographic evidence indicates that women participated in signif-
icant numbers in sports clubs of the period. In the very same issue,
A Cigarra published a photograph, of a serious nature, of Rio’s elite
mingling in the club Saldanha da Gama. Women comprised about
half of the pictured members of Club Saldanha, which had teams
for rowing and football. This was not out of the ordinary; a 1920
photograph of Club Mangueiras, which fielded a major Carioca
football team, showed half of its members to be women.23
The first match of women’s football was once thought to have
been played in 1913 as a Red Cross benefit, until the historian
Eriberto José Lessa de Moura debunked the story. That match, he
argued convincingly, was actually played by men in drag.24 What
can we make of the repeated appearance of men dressed as women
playing football? The desire to adopt women’s dress and movement,
as these men understood them, must have held a certain allure, either
to break from the strict social mores or to capture some of what
they perceived to be a pleasurable identity or one with freedoms of
70FUTBOLERA

expression, perhaps allowing physical affection toward male friends.

While there was likely a degree of derision involved, we cannot
assume that as the only motivation. Just as studies of the history
of carnival, gender, and sexuality caution against assuming that
cross-dressing indicated any widespread tolerance of homosexual-
ity in urban Brazil, mimicking women’s supposed mannerisms and
dress perhaps only underscored the derision of feminine qualities.25
While early reports of women’s soccer tended to emphasize the
carnivalesque, models existed for elite Brazilian women to think
about the game as a viable possibility. Pioneering sportswomen from
abroad appeared more frequently in the early twentieth-century
Brazilian press. For example, the elite magazine Sport Ilustrado
published a report, including a photograph, of a women’s football
match between France and England, noting that an unnamed French
team defeated the English club Dick Kerr in a brilliant match.26 It is
apparent from glancing at the women pictured in the magazines that
European and North American women’s sports began to influence
fashion trends. While Brazilian women might not have been as quick
to adopt loose clothing and short haircuts, they weren’t far behind
either. Of course, doing so challenged not only gender norms, but
also those of sexuality and class. However, European trends were
not embraced wholesale, nor were they always held up as bastions
of feminism. In another article that appeared in Sport Ilustrado, the
writer discussed a controversy that erupted in London because of
the supposed growth in women’s hands as a result of their sporting
activities, which alarmed British men.27 The columnist, identified as
Doutora Lanteri, claimed that this should not discourage women
from sports, because “no reasoned person could prefer the fragile
hand of an unfit doll, unable to hold a cup of tea, to a strong,
healthy, and lively woman who knows how to lead a horse and wield
an oar with dexterity.”28 In the end, Doutora Lanteri asked, what were
a few millimeters of hand growth? These pieces on foreign sports-
women opened avenues for Brazilian journalists to safely discuss their
views on controversial issues close to home. The author, Doutora
Lanteri, was most likely the Italian Argentine Julieta Lanteri, one
Policing Women’s Sports in Brazil 71

of the first women physicians in Latin America and a prominent

advocate of women’s rights.
While women athletes caused some consternation in elite circles,
the female sports fan did not arouse such hostility. She was an ac-
cepted figure in elite Paulista and Carioca society in the 1920s.
The sports press, still in the process of gaining a foothold in the
publishing world, merged sports with the society pages. One way
they tried to broaden their audience was to feature notable people—
often young, single women—related to sports. For example, Sport
Ilustrado featured a photograph of the “well-known” sportswoman
Herminia Carneiro.29 Despite the description, Carneiro was pictured
with her daughter, holding a parasol, and there was no further com-
ment on her relationship to sports. In these pieces, women appear
as decorative. The coverage differs markedly from the respectable
coverage of Argentina’s El Gráfico or the nudes in the Chilean Los
Sports. The magazine also held beauty contests for the best-looking
sports fan in Rio.30 Contests such as these sent strong messages to
young women about the terms that made their presence at sporting
events acceptable. Essentially, women fans held value for beautifying
the audience and increased the stakes for male players. They also
ensured that there was a heteronormative element to the homoeroti-
cism of men’s team sports. Women viewed their role as far more than
ornamental. In the 1920s, women choreographed halftime dances
and chants to inspire their teams. Women of Fluminense not only
danced on the “rinks” or velodrome surrounding the field but also
competed with dancers of Rio’s other big football clubs, Flamengo,
Botafogo, and América.31
The beauty contests organized by sports clubs and newspapers
provide a window on widely disseminated views about what made
women beautiful. The description of contestants revealed that fragil-
ity and vulnerability were considered important qualities of beauty,
though these features were presented in abstract terms. Take for in-
stance the feature on Dina Coelho Netto, one of Fluminense’s female
fans. Although Coelho Netto’s photograph headlined the article,
the writer, identified as Rezende, spent an entire page expounding
72FUTBOLERA

upon his views of beauty without referencing Coelho Netto, pu-

tatively the subject of the article.32 When focus finally turned to
Coelho Netto, the author waxed poetic on her small feet and ivory
arms (thereby assuring readers of her whiteness), and described her
beauty as soft and fearful. The reader was never told why Coelho
Netto liked football or why she supported the club. Early sports
sections demonstrated the extent to which organized fan clubs
connected members across the cities, often through the press, and
included women. When the “beautiful” Nila Castex, a die-hard fan
of América FC stopped attending games, an article in Sport Ilustrado
publicly beckoned her back. The author lamented that Castex stayed
cloistered at home to the great sadness of her fellow fans.33 The
magazine seemed unable to feature a woman without describing her
beauty. Apparently, Nila Castex was “brunette like the daughters of
Amazonia,” with “black eyes, black hair, [and] an angelic face.”34
The increasing visibility of women in public roles and spaces,
like stadiums, met with broad resistance. The historian Barbara
Weinstein’s work has demonstrated that limitations to women’s
work outside the home increased in the 1920s and 1930s, through
reforms that included restricting women’s vocational education to
the domestic arts.35 Industrialists, state agencies, and reformers cre-
ated obstacles to women’s employment in textiles or other industries.
Because of their supposed weakness and lower intelligence, women
were deemed unsuitable for additional activities outside the home.36
While Getúlio Vargas, as president, supported the extension of suf-
frage to women in 1932, much of his populist dictatorship, from
1937 to 1945, promised a return to social conservativism, particu-
larly in terms of gender. Even followers of the Marxist movements of
the time were unprepared to step outside of the patriarchal bounds,
criticizing the author Patricia Galvão for the “feminist perspective”
in her novel Parque Industrial.37 Nevertheless, in the face of this
resistance women began carving out larger spaces for themselves
in Brazilian society. In the early 1920s public high schools finally
accepted women, allowing a path for greater numbers of women
to study at the university.38 Still, in 1930, only eighty-three women
graduated from university.39 Nevertheless, the desire to embrace
Policing Women’s Sports in Brazil 73

FIGURE 2.1. Queirolo circus, 1930. Courtesy of Museu do Futebol, São Paulo.

modernity, which elite Brazilians still assumed to be European,

meant that the restructuring of patriarchy was in order. Women’s
integration into work and education was not only circumscribed but
also heavily supervised. While most working-class women worked
outside of the home, and economic conditions forced even reticent
women into the workforce, increasingly women’s ideal place was in
the private sphere.

CIRCUSES AND WOMEN’S FOOTBALL

In the early twentieth century, the line between respectable and dis-
reputable leisure activities was not so sharply drawn as one might
think. Circuses were one of the main places where “high” and “low”
pastimes converged. A circus might feature a Shakespeare perfor-
mance one night and “exotic” human talents the next. As a space
that often allowed for social transgression, it is perhaps unsurprising
that it became one of the few places where women regularly played
football. The circus featured novelty acts, to be sure, but women’s
74FUTBOLERA

football was not the only sport to use the relatively safe space as
an incubator. Jujitsu and other emergent sports diffused through
the circus, which could be as much a local festival as a spectacle of
the bizarre. More established sports, such as men’s football and par-
ticularly gymnastics, campaigned throughout Latin America to dis-
tinguish themselves from the circus. Members of physical education
societies and authors of the somber guides to scientific exercise went
to great lengths to demonstrate the difference between their tech-
niques and those of circus performers. Women’s football, on the
other hand, because of its rareness in the early twentieth century,
found a home of sorts within circuses.
The earliest appearances of women’s football in the circus oc-
curred in the 1920s. One of the most popular circuses, the Circo
Irmãos Queirolo (Queirolo Brothers Circus), featured the sport on a
regular basis. The Queirolo circus showcased animals, clown shows,
and oddities, but also had serious theatre on its playbill. Begun
by an Argentine-Uruguayan couple, the circus traveled across the
Americas, including to New York City. In this particular iteration
of the circus, the show was divided into three parts; the first was
clowns, the second a comedy act, and the third a women’s football
“tournament.” In the earliest years, the games appear to have been
five-on-five affairs, described as contested between “pretty and grace-
ful ladies.”40 In Rio de Janeiro in 1930, the women’s football tour-
nament played as the rival Brazilian and Argentine national teams.41
By mimicking rivalries of men’s teams, the women added a theatrical
element to their play. In Curitiba, the capital of the southern state
of Paraná, the women in the circus played as two rival clubs of the
region, Curitiba and Paranaense.42 In other performances in that
same tour, women players represented the Britannia and Palestra
Italia football clubs, another local rivalry.43 It is possible that the
circus teams comprised the same women, and adapted the local
names as a way to increase the novelty of the spectacle, but it is
likely that they sought women outside of the circus to join them. The
Queirolo circus was not the only one to feature women’s football in
this period. Their competitor, Circo Nerino, also featured women
Policing Women’s Sports in Brazil 75

footballers.44 After one show, a local paper estimated a crowd of

2,500 spectators gathered to watch the troupe, a number that would
have been a respectable audience for an amateur men’s football
match. Reporters gave the circus rave reviews and complimented
its organization and quality. The inclusion of women’s football in
circus performance continued through the 1940s, even after legal
prohibition of the sport.
It is difficult to assess how spectators or players perceived these
tournaments. In a positive review of the Circo Irmãos Garcia (Garcia
Brothers Circus) that traveled through the Southern province of
Santa Catarina in 1940, the newspaper O Dia featured women’s
football. In this report, at least, it is clear that the women’s match
was not perceived primarily as a joke.45 As with other circuses and
prior stops for the Garcia circus, the women adopted the team names
and uniforms of the local rivalry. In this case women represented
Recreativo Brasil and Blumenauense. The teams were tied at the half
in a match that the reporter described as “sensacional.” Sensacional
is one of the most common words used in match reports and could
be interpreted to mean “spectacle,” which may indicate the audience
considered women’s football an oddity. However, it is also a word
that means “amazing” or “fantastic” when used to describe intense
matches between men. Other details in the article make it clear that
the reporters found the match interesting for the competition itself
and that the fans took it seriously. According to observers, the circus
offered a trophy, and the fans for each squad came out in “colossal”
numbers. Circuses continued to organize women’s football games
after the prohibition in 1941. In 1943, for example, the Queirolo
circus held a women’s tournament, once again in Santa Catarina.46 In
fact, one of the places where women’s football had the opportunity
to survive the initial years of the ban might have been the circus.
As sites of regular, staged transgressions of social norms, circuses
provided women the cover that they needed to continue to play.
Unintentionally, the farce of the circus might also have helped local
officials who preferred not to enforce the ban to avoid having to
pursue futboleras.
76FUTBOLERA

WOMEN FANS AND THE MARIA-CHUTEIRAS

Brazilian women were ardent fans of football. Although there might

have been significant overlap between players and fans, they were
not interchangeable groups. One of the earliest celebrity female
football fans, who occupied both the field and stands, was the poet
Anna Amélia de Queiróz. According to popular legend, Queiróz
translated the football rule book from English to Portuguese. She
played football in the 1910s in Usina Esperança, a steel mill run by
her father in Itabirito, Minas Gerais.47 There, she introduced the
game to workers and used her influence to claim space on the pitch.
While attending a match of América FC, she met her future husband,
Marcos Carneiro de Mendonça, the first-choice goalkeeper of the
Brazilian national team and the eventual president of the power-
ful club Fluminense. Supposedly inspired by Mendonça, in 1922
Queiróz wrote the poem “O salto” (The jump), which some call the
first poem dedicated to Brazilian football. In recent media coverage
of Queiróz’s life, her love of football has been subsumed as part of
her love for Marcos Carneiro de Mendonça. Her granddaughter
referred to her as Brazil’s first maria-chuteira, or a woman who
pursues romantic relationships with famous football players.48 In
fact, Queiróz’s football poetry has never been taken seriously. Rather
than being perceived as the work of a serious poet who sought to
capture movement, “O salto” and other poems about football have
been interpreted as part of her effort to capture Mendonça’s affec-
tions. They are, in other words, seen as part of her singular desire
to “land” her husband. Yet Queiróz was an important feminist,
scholar, and football player. “O salto” appeared in her popular and
prizewinning book Alma (Soul), published in 1924.49 Queiróz ded-
icated different parts of her book to different people, correspond-
ing to the stages of the soul and the history that she writes about.
The sections were dedicated, in order, to her mother and her father.
Queiróz opened the book with a poem called “Dúvida” (Doubt), in
which she lamented that impossible hope and ambition caused great
suffering. Queiróz explored a number of transgressive themes in the
Policing Women’s Sports in Brazil 77

book, including experiencing religious doubt and envying the faith

of women who had seen their children die.
“O salto” is one of the best-known poems in Queiróz’s book, but it
is not the only one that explores athleticism. The poem beforehand,
“Poean,” discussed the beauty of the male athletic body. Steeped in
Greek mythology, the poem was explicitly sexual and positioned
Queiróz, the narrator, as the initiator of the relationship. In the
poem she compared the athlete to the warriors of ancient Greece
who inspired lust. “O salto” continued the same theme, comparing
the male athlete to an Olympic hero, “glorious, passionate, intrepid,
beautiful, Greek perfection.”50 Queiróz’s discussion of her trembling
body at the sight of athletes, not explicitly football players, must
have shocked conservative Brazilians. It is not surprising, then, that
journalists would try to tame the sexuality of these poems by analyz-
ing them as mating calls to her future husband. In the final section of
the book Queiróz continued her exploration of ancient characters,
placing women in central, active, and heroic roles. The women in-
clude Sophonisba, Andromeda, and Cleopatra, among others. As she
began the book, Queiróz ended by lamenting failed ambitions and
restricted aspirations that deadened the soul. Curiously, women do
not appear as athletes themselves, despite Queiróz’s own activities in
football and other sports. Queiróz did not stop her sporting activities
after marriage and motherhood, even serving as president of the
Women’s Automobile Club through the 1940s.51 Though her reliance
on themes and forms of classical antiquity might have bound her to
a masculinist tradition, she also placed women’s gaze, emotions, and
reflections at the center of her work.52
Throughout the region, magazines portrayed upper-class young
women in the 1920s as interested in sports as a fashionable trend.
Just as they depicted Anna Amélia de Queiróz, the mainstream
media focused on sports as a device to discuss women’s devotion
to men. A short story published in 1920 in O Paiz, called “Amor e
futebol” (Love and football), is an example of how popular writers
understood women as decorative accents to discussions of sports.53
The protagonist, Murilo, is an aspiring footballer who becomes
78FUTBOLERA

smitten with Alba, a wealthy fourteen-year-old girl. When Murilo

first approaches Alba, she is reading the sports section of a local
magazine. He asks if Alba is a “sportsman,” but she explains that
she is reading about a very handsome athlete, João Jório. Jório
would have been a topic of interest in 1920 as he represented Brazil
in the Olympics in water polo and rowing. Her choice of leisure ac-
tivity, leafing through magazines and working on her musings, sent
a clear message about her class status. Yet Alba’s role in the story
is solely as a plot device. The joke is built into Alba’s admiration
of Jório’s charms rather than a serious engagement with his athletic
achievement. The display of the male body in sports competitions
could transgress conservative codes of sexuality when gazed upon
by men or by women. This dangerous quality was aggravated when
black players integrated into sports clubs, particularly football clubs.
Alba is not the only character placed as an auxiliary to the protago-
nist. The elderly gardener, a black man who is close to Alba, insults
Murilo by insinuating that the young man approves of professional
football. Ultimately, the story serves as a platform for an editorial
on amateurism. Women and black people appear as decorative char-
acters for the monologues of the young, presumably white Murilo.
Popular fiction that included women as sports fans emphasized their
feminine and heterosexual qualities. Any association with sports
called into question women’s normal sexual development, but the
medical community and journalists typically reserved their fears of
lesbianism for women athletes.
Photographs from the 1910s onward show that women attended
football matches regularly, often unaccompanied by men. In a ret-
rospective piece on women football fans written at the end of the
1930s, journalists recalled fervent female fan groups made up of
elite women.54 However, these fan groups expanded beyond elite
circles. The piece features a photograph from the 1920s of a group
of women beaming into the camera as they arrive at the Campeonato
Sudamericana de Fútbol (South American Football Championship),
likely the iteration held in Rio in 1922. Sports journalists connected
sports spectatorship with the birth of the modern woman. The
Policing Women’s Sports in Brazil 79

football stadium acted as a runway to display the newest fashions

and a space to socialize with friends. In a feature from 1939, one
journalist lamented that female fans of his time lacked the enthu-
siasm of those in the 1920s. This editorial, and similar ones, fit
uncomfortably alongside evidence that by the 1930s women were at
the forefront of organized fan clubs, or torcidas.55 Women led chants
and hymns, and choreographed dances for their teams. Although
most evident in urban centers, women’s fandom caught on outside of
cities as well. Take, for example, a grainy photograph from a game
played in Campo do Bomsucesso in August 1935.56 Just outside of
Rio, the Bomsucesso club was a pillar of the Carioca league since its
founding around 1913. The photograph is an image of a dirt field
and a wooden stadium with about twelve rows and 1,500 spectators.
A feeble gate separates the crowd and the players, to the extent
that the players could touch, talk to, and otherwise communicate
easily with fans. The fans were dressed formally and engrossed in
the match. Women’s heels stick out in the front row as they leisurely
cross their legs at the ankles. And while the majority of the crowd
comprises men, women are interspersed, and appear in the back
with small children as well. The stands are surprisingly integrated,
demonstrating plenty of fans of color, including a black woman in
a white dress in the back row, who nervously watches the game.
There is evidence from elsewhere in Latin America that women
football fans not only attended matches but also frequently played
matches as fan groups. In December 1933, for example, female sup-
porters of the two most powerful Uruguayan men’s football clubs,
Nacional and Peñarol, played a match at Estadio Centenario, a sta-
dium whose continental importance would be hard to overstate.
The stadium was built for the finals of the first men’s World Cup
in 1930 and represented the global prominence of South American
football. The women’s game on December 20, played over the op-
position of public health experts, was well attended. Thousands of
people, both men and women, witnessed the match.57 For months
prior to the match, the two women’s teams practiced in prepara-
tion, highlighting two important points: women played the sport,
80FUTBOLERA

and sufficient numbers of women were fans as well. That there is

no other available information on the match highlights a third: the
almost complete lack of press coverage of women’s team sports in
Uruguay.58

EFFERVESCENCE IN WOMEN’S FOOTBALL

At the same time that women’s football gained popularity in circuses,

it began to appear in less spectacular locales. In 1921, the first “offi-
cial” women’s match, in the sense that it was recorded in a main-
stream newspaper, was played between squads from Cantareira and
Tremembé, which were sequential train stops on the northeastern
peripheries of São Paulo. The match, played on the grounds of
Tremembé FC, reportedly occurred at 3:00 p.m.59 While information
about the match appeared prior to the game in newspapers, we have
been unable to find a report of the match itself. It is difficult to ascer-
tain with any certainty how many spectators attended and what their
reactions might have been. One can speculate, based on the way
that A Gazeta predicted it would be a “very interesting” match, that
there was an element of novelty and spectacle involved. So too in
September 1923, Revista da Semana featured a page of photographs
and commentary on SC Feminino Vasco da Gama, the women’s
team of Club de Regatas Vasco da Gama, one of Rio’s oldest teams.
That year, the Vasco da Gama men’s team won the Carioca league,
fielding the first mixed-race team in a major Brazilian league. That
a club of this level would include women’s football suggests that
the sport was more widespread. According to the magazine piece—
which included the names of the sportswomen—the women’s team
practiced on the same field as the men.60
Women’s football thrived in social and club life in 1930s Brazil.
Developments in neighboring countries, such as the match in Uruguay
mentioned before, encouraged its acceptance. During a trip abroad,
one writer came across a women’s sports club in Montevideo, and
he felt inspired to urge Brazilian women to foray into sports, par-
ticularly football.61 In typical fashion, however, the writer seemed
entirely ignorant of women’s efforts to start such clubs in his own
Policing Women’s Sports in Brazil 81

city, or in the rival city of Rio de Janeiro, more than ten years earlier.
The case of the club in Montevideo, which evidently caught the
journalist’s attention, is a fascinating one. Not only did the female
athletes organize a football tournament, but they also founded a
women’s section of the club Dublin oriented toward competing in
basketball, volleyball, track and field, and tennis. The football tour-
nament they organized in 1935 was held in Estadio Parque Central.62
The response of journalists to these high-profile women’s football
matches exposed the power of a male normative sports culture even
as they claimed to support women’s football. The writer assumed
that his readers would find women’s efforts to play football comical.
He urged them instead to consider these women as brave pioneers.
So, on the one hand the author expressed admiration for women’s
football, while on the other he conveyed the message that people
would laugh at it. At the same time, he showed his complete igno-
rance that women’s football was already a regular activity in Brazil.
Still, that Brazilians should look to Uruguay for football guidance
in the 1930s should not be surprising given Uruguay’s gold medals
in the 1924 and 1928 Olympics and its victory in the 1930 men’s
World Cup. Dublin Sports Club was undoubtedly at the vanguard of
women’s sports on the continent, in procuring Parque Central, field-
ing a women’s football team, and creating a sports club for women.
As Brazilian women’s football became more visible, newspaper
coverage grew. Jornal dos Sports began to have semiregular articles
about women’s football in 1931, though the articles were hardly flat-
tering. In one of the first pieces about the women’s sport, the anon-
ymous author noted that the days when “our female compatriots
had no interest in sports” were gone. With slight alarm the author
commented that most sporting clubs were developing women’s sec-
tions in “volleyball, tennis, [and] fencing,” but that once “football
grabbed the attention of the women of Rio,” they began playing with
relish.63 According to the article, the teams Lina Alves and Manoel
Pereira, the latter affiliated with Brasil Suburbano FC, were to play
a match later in the week. Both teams had already given impressive
displays of their skill. Still, the author focused on something other
than football as the draw for the match: men, “barbados,” flocked
82FUTBOLERA

to the field “to see what the lovely players could do for them.” The
interpretation of women’s football as a sexualized spectacle laid
the groundwork for later persecution of the sport.64 Women play-
ing football was seen as inherently immoral, as it—among other
things—required that they show off their bodies without the proper
modesty. Policing women’s femininity was connected to ensuring
their proper sexual development. Studies of sexuality had become
medicalized in the 1920s and 1930s, although women’s homosex-
uality was either ignored or almost always subsumed by literature
on sodomy and male homosexuality. The medical community, phys-
ical education experts, and journalists overlapped in their beliefs
that proper femininity rested on the opposite side of the spectrum
from masculinity. Therefore, if men needed to hone their aggression,
ideal women exhibited subservience, sacrifice, and humility. The
self-control so often touted as a characteristic of good athletes meant
controlling the excess of these behaviors or the expression of the
other gender’s supposed innate traits. These were prescriptive rather
than descriptive recipes, but influential in making policy nonetheless.
The trend away from conservative attire and toward women’s
greater visibility in the public sphere began in the early twentieth cen-
tury, culminating in the 1920s with the arrival of the “modern girl.”
Attacks on the fashionable flapper raged throughout the Americas,
including Brazil, where criticism of modern mores extended into
the 1930s and 1940s—the precise moment that women’s football
grew in popularity. Conservative forces pushed back on efforts for
reproductive rights and sought to limit suffrage; however, changes
in fashion toward looser and more comfortable clothing for women
seemed impossible to stop. Media and politicians refused to recog-
nize that these trends had been around for quite some time. A Sport
Ilustrado article in 1938 explained that the “club woman” was a
fashionable type. A woman of privilege, she passed her days in lei-
sure at the sports club, brightening club fields and grounds with
her elegance and beauty. For activity, she played tennis, swam, or
practiced gymnastics.65 The language in the article is nearly identical
to that published in the same magazine seventeen years earlier: the
ideal sportswoman remained a new icon. The magazine reinforced
Policing Women’s Sports in Brazil 83

the elite and white nature of the sportswoman, with photographs of

women captaining yachts and playing tennis in luxurious clubs. De-
spite the anxieties expressed about the proper clothing for women,
manufacturers and sports goods stores saw an opportunity to sell
women sateen basketball outfits and other versions of short pants
made of lighter fabric and allowing for freer movement of their
legs.66
By the latter 1930s, prominent magazines, such as Sport Ilustrado,
developed editorial lines that advocated for the mass adoption of
women’s sports.67 The magazine hoped to convince the skeptical
public of the need for women’s physical education and of Brazil’s
potential as a continental leader in this area. Yet even the most
passionate advocates typically premised their arguments by “conced-
ing” that women had neither the strength nor the energy of men.
These declarations appeared consistently as facts that needed no
evidence to support them. Based on these spurious facts, the editors
suggested women’s prohibition from violent or stressful sports, such
as football. Ranking sports appropriate to women, the magazine
gave top billing to swimming and tennis. Journalists pointed to the
swimmers Piedade Coutinho and Maria Lenk as evidence that swim-
ming was the premier sport of Brazilian women. Water, according to
the public health experts, provided a female environment, one that
cushioned blows, protected fertility, and connected women to the
natural world. An issue of Correio Sportivo credited the popularity
of tennis with its opportunities for women, and mentioned that it
was invented for women, specifically the bored wives of colonial
officials in India.68 The colonial and elite history of tennis aside,
women’s competitions increased in intensity. In 1930 Rio hosted
an international tennis tournament for women that included the
Spanish champion and feminist Lili Álvarez. Álvarez shocked au-
diences in Europe and the Americas by wearing a “divided” tennis
skirt, akin to short pants. Throughout the 1930s, leagues in Rio and
São Paulo thrived and sent women players around the country. The
next group of acceptable, but not ideal, sports included track and
field, basketball, and volleyball. Not content merely to advocate
for women’s sports, the sportswriters from Sport Ilustrado credited
84FUTBOLERA

themselves with the development of women’s sports. Despite the hy-

perbole of the editors at Sport Ilustrado, there were instances where
women’s inclusion in the sports pages disrupted popular images of
women’s roles. For example, the illustrations that accompanied the
article, by Alberto Lima, were at odds with the patronizing tone
of the journalists.69 Lima depicted three different women, a javelin
thrower, a high jumper, and a tennis player. None of the athletes
were objectified, sexualized, or parodied.70 Instead, they were treated
as serious athletes, deep in the concentration of competition.
In the late 1930s, volleyball and basketball were growing in in-
ternational popularity among women. These sports were created in
Massachusetts at the turn of the twentieth century and championed
by the Young Men’s Christian Association (YMCA) and Young
Women’s Christian Association (YWCA). From the beginning, both
organizations conceived of volleyball and basketball as appropriate
for women. Brazilian women seemed particularly taken with vol-
leyball. Physical education instructors promoted the sport among
female students in schools like Escola Wenceslau Braz and Colégio
Sylvio Leite in Rio, and soon sports clubs began to organize events
for women.71 The club Icarahy de Regatas organized important tour-
naments among clubs, including Praia das Flexas, Canto do Rio,
and Celeste, among others.72 All teams came from Nitheroy (now
Niterói), an affluent suburb of Rio. Photographs of the Icarahy club
team underscore the nexus of class, race, and women’s sports: all
participants were very young white women. Even if volleyball was
less threatening than sports like football, sportswomen represented
a sharp departure from the dominant image of women splashed
on movie posters and newspapers of the static debutante. Articles
contrasted the “calm” required to play volleyball with the physical
nature of football. Assuming its readers were men, Sport Ilustrado
explained that men’s psychology responded better to games with
physical confrontation.73 It seems nonsensical to posit that volleyball
required calm and gentle coordination, and was therefore appro-
priate to women, yet this logic ruled the day.74 In the coverage of
women’s sports, the absence of football is conspicuous, especially
given its growth in popularity.
Policing Women’s Sports in Brazil 85

Women’s football flourished in Brazil in the decade before its

legal prohibition in 1941, as had been the case in England prior to
the ban on women’s football by its national association in 1921.
Because of the intense activity of a new generation of sportswomen
in the 1930s, a Rio newspaper called women’s football “the order of
the day” in 1940. Women’s teams in the nation’s capital organized
a greater number of tournaments, as well as played preliminaries
to men’s matches and at cultural festivals. It appears that many
women’s clubs in Rio had some affiliation with larger and more
established sports clubs. The first women’s football match reported
on by Jornal dos Sports took place on May 18, 1931, in Piedade
on the fields of Brasil FC. The match saw the team Madame Lessa
Alves defeat Madame Macedo 1–0. Given the intentional emphasis
on “Madame” these teams were perhaps named after well-known
Carioca women. Reporters were skeptical of the women’s game.
The women played enthusiastically and occasionally excited the
crowd. However, the game quickly “deteriorated toward brutal-
ity,” as the players Odette and Clelia began fighting after a hard
foul.75 Later that year the team Manoel Pereira, affiliated with the
men’s club Brasil Suburbano, traveled to Ypiranga FC to play in a
night festival.76 The link between the women’s team and the men’s
club highlights the support that women’s football received from
some established quarters during the 1930s. Another early match
occurred at the Oriente Atlético Clube of Santa Cruz, which was
on the west side of Rio. During a sporting festival on club grounds
in September of 1931, one of the three football matches featured
women of Madame Lessa Alves and Manoel Pereira.77 The Oriente
men’s team competed in the same league as Brasil Suburbano, Liga
Metropolitana de Desportos Terrestres (Metropolitan League of
Field Sports). These types of relationships indicate that women’s
teams emerged from connections between women who were already
members of clubs, who gained access to fields, and who likely met
one another at routine club functions.
Women’s football expanded throughout the 1930s, and appeared
to be on solid ground by 1940. Women’s teams most actively thrived
in Minas Gerais, especially Belo Horizonte, and in Rio de Janeiro.
86FUTBOLERA

Sports festivals in both cities included women’s football with greater

frequency.78 Further supporting that women’s clubs emerged from
the fabric of larger sports clubs, the 1940 festival in Rio featured a
woman’s team from Cruzeiro FC.79 The newspaper coverage of the
match also noted the first names of the Cruzeiro team members,
which remained a common practice for Jornal dos Sports in 1940.
Thus, coverage of women’s matches in the paper provided a rare
moment of notoriety for players. Jornal dos Sports quickly became
a major source of encouragement and information on women’s foot-
ball. Its reporters followed the clubs around Rio fairly closely—
for example, the Brasileiro sports club and Frei Miguel FC. The
teams frequently played on the fields of the Casino de Realengo,
in Realengo—an established working-class neighborhood on the
periphery of the city.80 For its ninth anniversary celebration, Jornal
dos Sports held a series of celebratory events on March 13, 1940,
in conjunction with the cigarette manufacturer Fábrica Sudan. A
central part of the celebration was a women’s football match, where
teams competed for the Mario Rodriques Filho Cup at the fields
of SC Tavares, using lights for the first time.81 A group of students
founded SC Tavares in 1931 in northern Rio and for a time had a
stable field. The newspaper either truly supported women’s football
or saw it as a way to draw a large crowd to watch a spectacle, or
both. The former seems possible, as two other articles in the same
issue note the skill with which women played. One item reported on
the “sensational match” between the “disciplined teams” of Casino
de Realengo and SC Brasileiro.82 The other, accompanying a picture
of Brasileiro, suggested that the teams could show “the strong sex
how to play football with technique and discipline.”83 The direc-
tors of SC Tavares also organized a match under the lights between
Eva FC and Brasileiro.84 The teams played once again the following
month in a preliminary to the match between SC Anchieta and SC
Royal.85 Unfortunately, the press only listed the first names of play-
ers, and information about these women has proven elusive.
By the end of 1940, Jornal dos Sports was not only reporting on
women’s matches, but also actively promoting the sport. It pub-
lished notices that invited futboleras to its offices for meetings to
Policing Women’s Sports in Brazil 87

discuss important matters with local teams.86 In much the same way
that a symbiotic relationship, with overlapping interests, developed
between the media and men’s football, Jornal dos Sports actively
sought to help women’s football, not only by reporting on it with
increasing frequency but also by sponsoring tournaments and ar-
ranging meetings of the women’s football community. The sport was
not limited to preliminaries, and by all indications women players
capitalized on the momentum gathered from their festival appear-
ances and newspaper support. According to a magazine report,
“four of the big [women’s football] clubs in the city,” Brasileiro,
Eva, Casino de Realengo, and Valqueiro, gathered to play on the
fields of Bomsucesso to celebrate the May 1 holiday. The fields of
Bomsucesso were located in the northern industrial neighborhood
of the same name in Rio. The sport, according to the article, “al-
ways raised great interest, and was becoming more interesting than
men’s games” because of the dedication of the players.87 The notion
of women’s teams competing for the attention of fans would have
rattled the metropolitan league. At that point, many of the women’s
matches lasted only thirty minutes, with fifteen-minute halves. The
final was typically a sixty-minute affair.88
Throughout 1940 the presence of women’s football increased
exponentially. On May 19, 1940, Del Castillo FC hosted its first
women’s football match, which pitted Valqueiro FC against AC
Independente for the unofficial title of champions of the suburban
zone. Both teams were considered to be strong, with Independente
having beaten the powerful SC Brasileiro in a memorable match
and Valqueiro “imposing itself” on other teams.89 Such a synopsis
demonstrates a familiarity with the teams’ records. That August, SC
Brasileiro played another night match against the women’s team of
SC Unidos, on the grounds of SC Abolição.90 Brasileiro dominated
that crucial season, at least in Rio de Janeiro. In September, the team
defeated Mavillis FC by a score of 5–0, even after lending Mavillis
three of its best players. As with many matches, this served as a
preliminary to a match between professional teams—Nitchroyense
and SC Bemfica.91 Women’s clubs did emerge from major clubs, but
like men’s football, most players represented small or ephemeral
88FUTBOLERA

organizations. Mavillis FC and SC Bemfica are the only two that

belonged to the men’s league, and both were amateur. After a full
day of football, with a schedule of five men’s matches starting at
10:30 a.m., a women’s match between Verissimo Machado FC and
Independente was to kick off at 5:00 p.m.92 Coverage in Rio was not
entirely positive, however. One Carioca sportswriter lamented that
women athletes invited criticism because of how badly they played.
His concern pretended to protect women from a scornful public
while actually attacking their performance.93 The author called for
the authorities to stop women’s football for their own good. This
echoed the language of reformers seeking to curtail women’s partici-
pation in politics and the workforce, while claiming to have women’s
interests at heart.
While Rio was an epicenter of women’s football, it was not the
only site of activity. The women in Rio may have acted as mission-
aries for the women’s sport in other states. A brief but provocative
announcement appeared in a local paper in 1940 that announced
the formation of a women’s football club in Belo Horizonte, called
Mineiras FC.94 Club football offered women the opportunity to
travel and gain public accolades for their athleticism. Neither of these
should be underestimated. For example, in April 1940 Flamengo—
one of Rio’s most important clubs—traveled to São Paulo FC to
play at the inaugural festivities at the municipal stadium Estádio
Pacaembu. The stadium could hold over thirty-seven thousand spec-
tators, and Getúlio Vargas and other high-ranking officials frequently
made appearances there. One wonders if Vargas watched one of the
women’s matches, given his draconian actions against the sport less
than a year later. Two women’s teams, Casino de Realengo and SC
Brasileiro, took the 420 kilometer trip to São Paulo with Flamengo.95
According to Jornal dos Sports, this would be the first opportunity
for residents of São Paulo to see a women’s football match, which
they were waiting for with “much curiosity.”96 Although women
played football matches throughout São Paulo and the suburbs, ap-
parently women’s football there had not organized to the degree of
that it had been in Rio. The trip also highlights the importance of
Policing Women’s Sports in Brazil 89

media’s role in the active promotion and proselytizing for women’s

football. Travel was arranged (“a difficult task when it comes to
women’s teams”) by Carlos Gonçalves, a representative of the São
Paulo league, and sponsored by Jornal dos Sports, which called a
meeting of the clubs’ directors to finalize plans.97 The women foot-
ballers joined women tennis players, swimmers, and track-and-field
stars at the inaugural festivities of the stadium. The most celebrated
athletes were Brazil’s two Olympic swimmers, Maria Lenk and
Cecilia Heilborn.98 The prominence of futboleras, demonstrated by
their inclusion in these festivals, has been erased in popular memory.
According to journalists, the match between women’s football
teams at the stadium’s inauguration was unprecedented for São
Paulo. Carioca women’s teams had gained enough popularity to
negotiate their stipends. Newspapers in Rio criticized futboleras
for demanding too much spending money.99 The writer Salathiel
Campos defended the women, noting that most amateurs required
some subsidies to play the sport.100 Campos explained as well that
as a novelty act, the women drew a large crowd and so deserved a
portion of the gate receipts. This reveals the extent to which football
organizers and writers conformed to market logic since the advent
of professionalism in men’s football in the early 1930s. Campos’s
characterization of the women, however, differs drastically from
the way in which the women’s teams and their trainers presented
the delegation. Upon their arrival, the Rio delegation of women’s
football, represented by SC Brasileiro and Casino de Realengo, gave
an informal press conference at the train station.101 Oscar Leal, the
trainer of SC Brasileiro, spoke at length regarding technical differ-
ences between the two teams. He emphasized that the Carioca teams
would not only interest spectators as a novelty, but would impress
them with their technical skills.
In fact, women’s teams traveled frequently, both in search of
opponents and to play exhibition matches in places where wom-
en’s football was less common. AC Independente’s match against
Valqueiro FC took them seventy-five kilometers by train from the
northern Rio suburb of Bento Ribeiro to the town of Magé.102 In the
90FUTBOLERA

description of their trip, all eleven women’s names and those of the
reserve players were listed in the newspaper. This was a rare honor
for even a national female athlete.103 That year a women’s foot-
ball league, of at least ten teams, formed in Rio.104 Certain players
began to receive attention, including one woman identified as “Miss
Targina” whose brothers played for América and Vasco da Gama.
Scores between teams were increasingly less lopsided, which signaled
regular play.105
Beyond Rio and São Paulo, a vibrant women’s football scene
emerged in Minas Gerais, although it is not entirely clear why the re-
gion tended to be a hotbed of the sport. Two Carioca clubs, Primavera
FC and SC Oposição, traveled to Juiz de Fora, in Minas Gerais, to
play an exhibition match at Tupy FC. Jornal dos Sports claimed that
residents looked forward to the match with curiosity. The clubs were
dubbed the “most prominent women’s teams in the capital,” with
players who possessed both great skill and passion. Still, coverage
appears contradictory, with one article on the match using the lan-
guage of spectacle and sensationalism, remarking that town residents
would “witness a rich spectacle of novelties.”106 The delegation for
the match was impressive, including forty-five people. Along with the
players and coaches, three journalists (Julio Gammarro, Octacilio
Rezende, and Edyr Guimarães), a secretary, an assistant, and a nurse
made the trip.107 The goal of the organizer, Ernesto Costa, was to
support women’s football in whatever way possible and to introduce
Mineiros to the sport.108 Likely, Ernesto Costa was the trainer who
went on to work with CR Vasco da Gama in the fabled period of
the 1940s. One month later, another delegation of women’s football
players traveled to Petrópolis, about seventy kilometers north of Rio
de Janeiro. The clubs Independente and Brasil Novo brought players
who had “perfect control of the leather ball.” Again, Ernesto Costa
organized the events, which the media dubbed the first women’s
match in Petrópolis.109
At the same moment that women’s football began to gain mo-
mentum, the men’s game underwent intense scrutiny by pundits,
politicians, and club leaders. Next to the brief notices of women’s ac-
tivities appear lengthy editorials on the corruption of men’s football,
Policing Women’s Sports in Brazil 91

supposedly ruined by too many foreigners and too much violence

and immorality, as a result of professionalization.110 The integra-
tion and success of working-class players brought a wave of Afro-
Brazilian (both black and mixed-race) talent.111 The association of
the game with men of color fundamentally changed its social signif-
icance, challenging racial hierarchies and increasing its potential as
a national symbol, but also increasing the transgression of women
on the pitch. It is telling that promoting mixed-gender events was
absolutely outside of the realm of possibility for these journalists,
as it was with all sports with the exception of tennis. While mixed-
gender contests were not a tradition in any part of Latin America, it
is worth pausing to consider why gender integration was unthink-
able. In politics or the household, women’s supposed natural selfless-
ness, at least some argued, would be helpful in the face of corrup-
tion. In football governance, it was not seriously considered. This
both reflected the lack of appreciation for women’s talents but also
highlighted how important football had become in developing
Brazilian masculinity. It also indicates that the social capital, leisure,
and pleasure that players took away from football were privileged
commodities that men were entitled to. Although journalists and
club leaders did not go so far as to suggest women could play with
men, they occasionally mentioned the possibility that women’s am-
ateurism could provide a model for men, whose game had been
corrupted by money.112
Professionalism opened sports clubs to more black Brazilians in
the late 1930s, and while by and large this meant more men of
color joined, it also opened the doors to a select number of women
players from beyond the sphere of the white elite.113 Sports directors
and journalists were influenced by the broader discussions of race
sparked by intellectuals, especially Gilberto Freyre, that recast racial
mixing of African, European, and indigenous people in a positive
light. Indeed, the Vargas regime began to implement policies and
adopt rhetoric that incorporated Freyre’s idea of Brazil as a “racial
democracy.” Having suspended elections and political parties, Vargas
positioned himself as the paternalist protector of the poor, and con-
sequently of black and mixed-race Brazilians. The owner of Jornal
92FUTBOLERA

dos Sports, Mário Filho, published the highly influential O negro

no futebol brasileiro in 1947. In it, he celebrated pioneering black
Brazilian players, such as Leônidas da Silva. This was not a coinci-
dence; Filho and Freyre shared the same social circle and exchanged
manuscripts.114 Freyre wrote the preface to the first edition of Filho’s
book. Photographs of the Rio women’s league demonstrate a ra-
cial diversity rarely found in tennis or swimming. Unfortunately,
the brief notices on women players rarely provided details on their
background.
The creation of the Rio women’s football league in 1940 led
one observer to declare that Brazil was at the vanguard of wom-
en’s sports on the continent.115 The sport began to seep into other
parts of Brazilian cultural life. In one political cartoon, the potential
growth of women’s football was put in context of the war raging in
Europe.116 The woman in the cartoon is asked why she does not put
together a team to play international matches, to which she responds
that if the war continues as it was in 1940, “there would only be one
team on the other side of the Atlantic.”117 While the cartoon was
ostensibly about the war, it nevertheless highlighted the development
of women’s football: that a man would ask his female companion
about an international squad suggests that the sport was entering
the mainstream. According to journalists, in Rio there was strong
enthusiasm for women’s football; one editorial estimated that there
were 1,001 women’s games played each day.118
There is ample evidence that women began to play football in
their workplaces and on union teams as well as in sports clubs.
As mentioned earlier, the first recorded women’s game took place
under the auspices of the Tremembé Tramway Company in 1921.
Companies, unions, and workplace friends developed teams at
and around the job. For example, women players organized games
during the company celebrations of the Cidade Light, a complex
that included metal foundries and maintenance shops. The Cidade
Light employed over two thousand workers. 119 Its exercise “fun
day” featured boxing matches between amateurs and professionals,
as well as women’s and men’s football tournaments.120 Companies
Policing Women’s Sports in Brazil 93

often sponsored athletic festivals and sports teams as a way to pro-

vide healthy leisure activities to their workers. These events could
function as a form of capitalist paternalism, with management con-
trolling workers’ free time and building their loyalty to the company.
In this regard, the goals of capitalists and the hygienic goals of the
republic intertwined, each reinforcing the other. The inclusion of
football in workplace festivals shows how deeply—and quickly—
women’s football integrated into Brazilian social life. The diffusion
of women’s football suggests that though it faced scorn, far from
encountering universal ridicule, women’s football briefly became a
much more regular part of Brazilian life than has been thought.
The rapid expansion of women’s football in the 1940 season con-
cerned some politicians and journalists. However, it was not just
how women’s football was expanding that concerned them, but to
whom it was expanding, namely to working-class women. At the
very same moment, union and high school sports clubs promoted
their women’s volleyball and basketball teams. These sports did not
occupy the central place in the construction of proper masculinity
and national identity; therefore, they posed less of a challenge than
football. By the end of May, the suburban football federation had
three important standout women’s teams—Casino de Realengo, Del
Castillo, and Manufactura “Porcellana.” Expectations were that the
suburban league would hold a women’s championship shortly, as
the team “with the black stripes [Manufactura Porcellana]” raised
its skill level.121 Along with the exhibition match played in São Paulo
as a preliminary to the Flamengo versus São Paulo match, the clubs
Casino de Realengo and Brasileiro traveled to Belo Horizonte in
June 1940. There, they played in the stadium of Club América, gar-
nering twelve thousand reis in gate receipts.122 In July 1940, SC
Oposição faced off against Primavera FC in a night match at the SC
Oposição grounds for the Santa Cruz cup. According to Jornal dos
Sports, the second of three matches that night offered the chance for
fans of the players Nicea, Sali, Morena, and Dirza to see the best
examples of women’s football.123 Fans of Oposição, for their part,
could see their stars, identified as Filinha, Neuza, and Tina, in action.
94FUTBOLERA

Tickets for the event were 2$000 for men and 1$000 for women.
Women’s football no longer appeared as a novelty. Rather, women’s
matches increasingly became marquee events.
As football, basketball, and volleyball gained popularity and of-
fered women the opportunity to travel, women’s participation in
sports further pushed gender boundaries. If the notion of women
traveling within the country broke with traditional confinements of
gender, one should not be surprised that women traveling abroad
caused significant controversy.124 In December 1940, the police, and
subsequently the second district court, prohibited women players
of Primavera FC from traveling to Buenos Aires and Montevideo.
Journalists assured readers who might have thought this unfair that
the match was ridiculous and merely designed to make fun of women
athletes. The writers thought the match would give the Argentine
press fodder to mock Brazilian sports. Sportswriters urged the police
to inspect all women’s delegations going abroad in order to ver-
ify their true sporting intention. Writers suggested that Primavera
FC belonged to one of Rio’s “dens of perdition,” or brothels.125
Primavera’s planned travel turned into a prolonged saga that re-
vealed the surveillance of women athletes and the degree to which
authorities suspected them of prostitution. In a rare instance of a
signed newspaper article on women’s football, the writer Ricardo
Pinto criticized the proposed trip of the futboleras.126 Pinto admitted
that the team were the well-known champions of women’s football.
However, he doubted the players’ legitimacy. According to Pinto,
Rio police accused the team of activities unrelated to sports, includ-
ing traveling with underage players. Police had, supposedly, received
complaints early in 1940 that women football players gave “dances”
in the red-light district of Rio. Yet Pinto’s description left room for
interpretation; was he insinuating the players were prostitutes, strip-
pers, or generally involved in illicit activities? Suspicions of women
players relied on the inaccurate assumption that Brazilian women’s
football was “unheard of.” Pinto expressed anxiety over the racial
identity of Brazilian players.127 He assumed the Brazilian “morenas”
would be ridiculed in Argentina and Uruguay. These types of anxi-
eties reveal the worries about not only the players but the potential
Policing Women’s Sports in Brazil 95

audience and the organizers of women’s football. Articles portrayed

organizers as sharks and charlatans. Some sportswriters could not
imagine spectators who went to see the sport for its sake, but only
as men hoping to ridicule or sexualize women players.

BACKLASH

The development of early feminist organizations, the passage of

women’s suffrage rights in 1932, and their enshrinement in Vargas’s
Constitution of 1934 exacerbated fears among socially conservative
reformers who saw immorality increasing in lockstep with women’s
progress.128 While Vargas positioned himself as a champion of these
rights, he also sought approval from sectors quite opposed to them.
Many feared that factory and office work—women’s increasing
participation in the public sphere—threatened women’s “natural”
virtue.129 The number of women in the workforce increased rapidly.
One estimate suggests that women accounted for more than half of
the cotton spinners in São Paulo.130 By the 1930s and 1940s, the
number of women working in factories diminished, but the number
of women—both proportionally and in total—working outside the
home increased. Still, women only gained the right to work outside
the home without their husband’s consent in 1943.131 The penal
code of 1940 addressed concerns over women’s increasing activities
outside the home by redefining acceptable behaviors and policing
women’s behavior. One major concern was the impact that “mod-
ern women” would have on Brazil’s morality, which revolved in
large part around female chastity. As women’s football was linked
to women’s modernity, solidarity, and freedom of movement, it was
implicated as part of these threats. According to the historian Sueann
Caulfield, thinkers of the 1920s and 1930s thought that the “sensual
stimuli” of modern society threatened Brazil’s social order.132 For
critics, the exhibition of female bodies on the football pitch qualified
precisely as a form of these new sensual stimuli, which threatened to
erode the moral fabric of society.
In the 1930s and 1940s, the Brazilian state became more involved
in the administration and institutionalization of daily life through
96FUTBOLERA

the heavy-handed policies of the Estado Novo.133 This tendency

shaped the expansion of physical education activities. Laws had been
on the books regarding physical education since the late nineteenth
century, with the educational reform of Rui Barbosa mandating
girls’ inclusion in 1882, but few reforms had been enforced or put
into practice.134 In the 1930s, however, the Brazilian government
began to take physical education more seriously. Exercise became
obligatory in secondary schools, for both boys and girls. In addition,
the Ministry of Health created a section for physical education.135
The goal of these new initiatives was “to train the new urban and
industrial nation” with “sophistication and specialization.”136 A part
of this effort, too, was the publication of the professional journal
Revista Brasileira de Educação Física (Brazilian Journal of Physical
Education). Being that it was concerned with the creation of the new
Brazil, it should come as no surprise that the magazine focused on
women’s physical training. It was, after all, “strong mothers who
created a strong nation.”137 One way that women could highlight
their health was through beauty, and physical education experts
described beauty as an outward sign of eugenic health and feminine
strength.138 Since physical health was so important for healthy moth-
ers, women were expected, at least by state authorities, to be willing
to submit to their patriotic duty to have their physical activity regu-
lated in order to “protect the characteristics of their femininity, [and]
preserve their fertility.”139 Too many muscles, too much strength,
could impede women’s path toward beauty and would “call into
doubt . . . her sex and sexuality.”140 As in neighboring Argentina and
Chile, heterosexuality was commonly believed to rely upon the most
extreme expression of gender identification. Treatises written by
psychologists and religious leaders usually focused on male homo-
sexuality and assumed women’s sexual development followed a simi-
lar path. The more one embodied the stereotypical attributes of gen-
der, the more likely one escaped the “perversion” of homosexuality.
The increased scrutiny of women’s sexuality, morality, and fertil-
ity led to more intense interest in their leisure activities. And those
who saw women’s football as detrimental to the well-being of the
state found ready allies in the medical community to support their
Policing Women’s Sports in Brazil 97

position. In 1940, one of the prominent experts who opposed wom-

en’s football was Dr. Leite de Castro.141 Castro wore many hats. Not
only was he the chief doctor of the football league of Rio de Janeiro
and of the clinic Beneficencia Portuguesa, but he also worked as a
doctor in the civil police and was considered an expert on physical
education, authoring over one hundred articles on the topic. He ad-
vocated reducing what he called the Brazilian obsession with football
in favor of a diverse course of physical education that focused less on
competition and more on the development of the individual body.
In 1940, as the question of the effects of women’s football became
an important topic, numbers of men began to protest the sport, an
act that some sportswriters characterized as “brave.” When asked
about women’s football, Castro emphasized that he did not consider
football to be an ideal sport when exclusively practiced by anyone,
man or woman. Along with many of his peers, Castro emphasized
the vital role of medical supervision of athletes.142 This supervision
ranged from strict nutritional regimens to sleep recommendations.
While he suspected harm from playing too much football generally,
he opposed the sport for women on public health grounds.
While the intense involvement of sports medicine in football has
been cited as crucial to the rise of the Brazilian men’s team to world
prominence, the medical community hurt chances of broad-based
support for women’s football in the 1940s.143 In particular, doctors—
Castro among them—worried that football would cause harm to
women’s genital area, subsequently harming their fertility. Moreover,
Castro and others claimed that football could alter women’s en-
docrine balance and potentially cause uterine cancer. Beyond the
pseudoscience, Castro showed contempt for female athletes, stating
that futboleras could “be applauded as a grotesque display or theatre
at the whim of popular curiosity.”144 He declared that men bene-
fitted from struggle, but that violent sports diverted women from
their biological destiny. What women gained as athletes, in other
words, they lost as women. Their ovaries and uteri were simply too
endangered by football. For health and beauty, he suggested, women
could jog slowly or swim. Based on Castro’s advice, one sportswriter
begged women to flee football fields in favor of the swimming pool
98FUTBOLERA

for the happiness of the nation, as well as for their own health and
beauty.145 Moreover, Castro’s warnings disseminated from Rio to
São Paulo, and beyond, causing distress among leaders in women’s
football.146 His statements circulated in the midst of organizing the
inaugural events at Estádio Pacaembu, as women football players
prepared to play their biggest match.

PROHIBITION!

Dr. Leite de Castro’s concerns found support beyond the medical

community. On April 25, 1940, a concerned citizen named José
Fuzeira wrote an open letter to the Brazilian minister of education
criticizing women’s football. Minister Campanema passed the letter
on to President Getúlio Vargas.147 In it, Fuzeira decried a “calamity”
threatening the nation: girls and young women playing football. The
danger in women playing football, according to Fuzeira, stemmed
from the inherent violence in the game, which could “seriously dam-
age the physiological equilibrium” of women’s “organ functions.”
Perhaps influenced by Castro he suggested that football endangered
girls’ and women’s reproductive capabilities. The game also had
negative psychological effects, according to the letter. Players risked
depression, which could lead to “rude and extravagant exhibition-
ism.” Fuzeira worried that unless the government intervened to stop
women’s football, it could be ruinous to the country. If the game
continued to expand from its base in the middle-class suburbs of
Rio, São Paulo, and Belo Horizonte, he predicted that within the
year over two hundred teams would form, destroying future moth-
ers by jeopardizing their desire for and capacity to bear children.148
Contradictory reports appeared in the press regarding the opposi-
tion to women’s football. According to the Rio de Janeiro newspaper
A Batalha, for example, the impetus to stop the growth of women’s
football came from women themselves. The editorial argued that
women showed their disdain for the game when they took up sports
such as swimming, basketball, and golf. The newspaper outlined
the moral failings of women football players and blamed them for
the negative perception of the sport. The article claimed that the
Policing Women’s Sports in Brazil 99

Primavera FC team director, Carlota Alves Resende, was under in-

vestigation for walking young women, purportedly team members,
to dance halls. The police considered prosecuting Resende for pimp-
ing, or lenocínio.149 Some journalists applauded the announcement
that the government was considering prohibiting women’s football.
In a small article, one Carioca sportswriter described the proposed
ban as “magnificent” because the sport was a true danger, especially
in its encouragement of lesbian relationships among players.150 Other
writers cast women’s football as a public health threat, even link-
ing the upsurge in the sport to an outbreak of whooping cough.151
Regardless of the level of anxiety about women’s football, the sport
received surprisingly little press, considering its dynamism. Perhaps
sports editors felt that the best way to stem the growth of women’s
football was to ignore it: the article implying lesbianism was little
more than an announcement, taking as much space as a wire item on
a polo match between Argentina and Chile. News of Brazilian wom-
en’s football and the social conflict it sparked reached journalists
abroad, even as far as Sweden. The reporters claimed that Brazilian
women’s football was well known and drew huge crowds. According
to the country’s largest sports newspaper, Idrottsbladet, the women
were good-looking but violent, and the head of the association was
under investigation for public disorder.152
The early 1940s brought significant changes to the relationship
of government and sports, with major implications for women. The
forces arrayed against women’s football were tied closely to the state
and thus possessed power, both in terms of access to the media and
in terms of policy decisions. While women played with more vigor
and had more support by 1940, so too they faced more criticism.
In April 1941, Getúlio Vargas created the Conselho Nacional de
Desportos (National Sports Council, or CND) with Decree Law
3199. According to the law, the CND fell under the auspices of the
Ministry of Education and Health, directed at the time by Gustavo
Capanema. The first secretary of the CND was João Barbosa Leite,
director of the Division of Physical Education at the Ministry of
Education and Health, which further underscored the links between
the state and sporting practices. Vargas placed regulatory powers
100FUTBOLERA

of sports in the hands of the council, and one of its roles was to
determine which sports were “incompatible” with women’s nature
and to establish rules regarding their legality.153 In the CND’s first
session, Capanema charged a military officer, Newton Cavalcanti,
with creating the plan for regulating women’s sports.154 Cavalcanti
identified with integralismo, a conservative doctrine that took moral
direction from Catholicism. He had worked in the Ministry of War
and had been sent by Vargas to extend the government’s influence
in Mato Grosso, Rio de Janeiro, and Minas Gerais. It is likely that
Vargas sought to appease some of the integralistas who had re-
mained loyal to him through measures such as giving them power
over the CND. By August, Cavalcanti distributed a draft of the reg-
ulations for women’s sports (and amateur sports) to his fellow CND
members.155 According to the new provisions, women were strictly
forbidden from playing a variety of team sports, including “football,
rugby, polo, and water polo, because they are violent sports and
not adaptable to the female body.” The law also prohibited women
from participating in certain individual sports, including boxing,
decathlon, and pentathlon.156 The recommendations were unani-
mously approved by the CND and decreed by presidential order
with immediate effect.157 The decree also placed power with the pres-
ident to abolish, maintain, or otherwise decide governance of sports
confederations. Given the club directors’ reticence to accept govern-
ment interference, except in the case of financial support, Vargas’s
intrusion into the sports club world likely reflected his desire to
control popular culture sectors, as well as to appease constituencies
within the military and the Ministry of Education at once.
Jornal dos Sports published a part of the new regulations the
following day, under the headline “A mulher não pode jogar o foot-
ball nem o box!” (Women cannot play football nor box!).158 The
paper described Cavalcanti as an “illustrious soldier” in a seemingly
derisive way. It pointed out that the decision came after very little
deliberation and supposedly after the CND had reviewed studies
on women’s sports, though these were never named.159 Track-and-
field events (two-hundred-meter dash, four-by-one-hundred-meter
relay, hurdles [with the hurdle height lowered and the length of the
Policing Women’s Sports in Brazil 101

race shortened], long jump and high jump, discus and javelin [using
lighter weights]), fencing, rowing, swimming, diving, field hockey,
golf, skating, horseback riding, and pistol shooting were acceptable
for women.160 However, many of these sports came with restrictions.
Along with the limits on the distance of footraces or the reduced
weight of the discus, Cavalcanti and the CND circumscribed other
activities. For example, women were banned from rowing regattas.
Rather, rowing was to be used to “correct certain bodily deficien-
cies.”161 Team sports deemed acceptable for women included tennis,
badminton, volleyball, and basketball (with court size and length of
game diminished).162 The CND’s clarification might have been the
result of efforts by some in Brazil to limit women’s opportunity to
swim as well. Some pools began to ban girls from swimming and
from competition, even though the CND regulations clearly permit-
ted women’s swimming. This was likely harder to accomplish given
the success of Brazil’s female swimmers, such as Maria Lenk, who
represented Brazil in the 1932 Olympics. At the same time that he
worked to limit women’s access to football, the CND and Cavalcanti
supported an expansion of physical education practices among sports
clubs in Brazil. The CND passed a resolution supporting the develop-
ment of sports for both men and women, recommending to the mem-
ber sports associations within professional sports that some money
be spent on developing amateur and grassroots practices. Among the
suggestions that the CND made was to develop sporting centers
and a cadre of professional coaches, physical therapists, and others
to train and control youth athletes.163 The following year, in March
1942, Cavalcanti was promoted to General of Division.164

RESISTANCE

The idea of women’s football as corruptive of national morals was

far from universally supported. Instead of looking at the game as a
site of perdition, many in the sporting world criticized those who
attacked the virtue of the game. In an article celebrating the foun-
dation of Primavera FC, Jornal dos Sports remarked that the team’s
inaugural event included the esteemed journalist Joaquím Inojosa.
102FUTBOLERA

Inojosa was the owner of the short-lived Rio newspaper Meio-Dia,

and his presence, according to the article, was “an indication that
women’s football is gaining prestige in spite of the isolated elements
seeking to distort it with insensitive propaganda.”165 Even more
important, sportswomen defended themselves immediately. When
José Fuzeira’s 1940 letter criticizing women’s football became public,
women football players, and some in the press, lambasted his atti-
tudes as outdated and sexist. For its part, Jornal dos Sports criticized
Fuzeira in two ways: it published a rebuttal by the captain of one
of Rio’s most well-known teams, and it lampooned Fuzeira in its
columns. On May 10, 1940, the newspaper ran an article entitled
“Women’s Football Players Defend Themselves.” It reprinted, word
for word with some commentary, a letter written by “Adyragram”
in response to Fuzeira. The newspaper’s prefatory remarks to the
letter made it clear which side the publication was on. In describing
Fuzeira, the paper noted that he was unknown in the sports commu-
nity, thereby questioning his legitimacy and his expertise to comment
on the topic.166
Jornal dos Sports presented Adyragram as a personal acquain-
tance of the writers, explaining that she stopped by their offices to
provide a response to Fuzeira. In the weeks leading up to the contro-
versy, the magazine had called meetings of the leaders of the wom-
en’s clubs, while they were organizing tournaments, and created a
grêmio, a loose social network of clubs. Adyragram saw the value in
the social network that women’s clubs were creating. She began her
response by suggesting that Fuzeira come and see for himself if the
players were worse off for playing football.167 Adyragram not only
questioned Fuzeira’s knowledge on the topic, but broadly defended
women’s right to physical activity—football or otherwise. She
agreed with Fuzeira that football should not be practiced by every-
one, including those who couldn’t participate in physical education.
Throughout her article, Adyragram positioned herself and women’s
football as crucial to the construction of the nation: as physical
education was a subject of national importance, and women’s foot-
ball was growing in popularity, it represented the healthy future
of Brazil. She inverted Fuzeira’s argument that women’s football
Policing Women’s Sports in Brazil 103

would destroy the moral center of the nation. Adyragram ended

her piece sarcastically, saying Fuzeira “should concern himself with
people playing ball games in the middle of the street . . . breaking
windows.”168 Further, she questioned whether eventually Fuzeira
would decide that women’s swimming should be banned, since the
“short clothes stuck to the competitors” might offend his ideal of
future mothers.169 Not only did Adyragram see Fuzeira’s attack on
women’s football as arbitrary and threatening to the sport she loved,
but she recognized that it could be part of a larger moralizing project
based on efforts to enforce conservative gender norms. If women and
their male supporters did not call Fuzeira out and stand up to him,
women’s ability to play any sport might someday be taken away.
Little did she know that, as noted earlier, some clubs would indeed
attempt to ban women’s swimming less than a year later.
Writers for Jornal dos Sports depicted the ban as anachronis-
tic and moralistic. Four days after the publication of Adyragram’s
letter, a sarcastic ode to Fuzeira appeared in “Off-Side,” a regular
commentary (often in poem form) in Jornal dos Sports. The poem
mocked Fuzeira’s rejection of women’s football as a threat to wom-
en’s decency as an antiquated view. The poem skewered him for
believing the sport a novelty that would lead to “infertile ovaries,”
“sluts,” and “sick women.” The diatribe against Fuzeira described
his campaign as a “holy and complete obsession,” and, the author
continued, “Fuzeira surely sees in his dreams the 11,000 virgins in
an enormous stadium practicing bicycle kicks.” While not explicit,
the journalists placed Fuzeira’s objections within a religious frame-
work. The column then pointed out that women were doing all
manner of tasks once perceived to be masculine. The piece referred
to the British aviator Amy Johnson, the first woman to fly solo from
England to Australia, and who would die transporting planes for
the British Royal Air Force in World War II. Times, the poet noted,
had changed. Attitudes about women’s role in society had evolved,
yet Fuzeira still expected a woman to be “a goddess, smelling of
onions and salsa, and at night, a goddess of lace and perfume.”
Women, the commentary concluded, were becoming athletes who
could play and dominate the sporting field. Not only did the author
104FUTBOLERA

ridicule Fuzeira’s argument, then, but the poet argued in favor of an

evolution toward strong, athletic women. While critical of Fuzeira,
however, one norm remained unchallenged in the pages of Jornal
dos Sports: that of beauty and musculature. On the issue of foot-
ball damaging the male-gaze feminine aesthetic, the poet noted that
perhaps Fuzeira made a point. However, the author recommended
these conversations should be kept private.170
While the ban no doubt curtailed women’s football in Brazil,
the action of women belied press reports of the sport’s demise.
Women’s teams publicly resisted the ban on the sport that they
loved. Primavera FC, pilloried in the press as a team of iniquity,
as well as the teams Brasileiro, River, Independentes, Eva FC, and
Oposição FC continued to play.171 But with dwindling resources
and no support from the media or clubs, the ban permanently dam-
aged the women’s game. As chapter 3 explores in depth, Brazilian
women resisted the prohibition across the country by ignoring it and
refusing to acknowledge its legitimacy. The state only intermittently
sought to enforce the ban. Periodically, for the next forty years, this
brought futboleras into conflict with the local police, government
officials, teachers, and their own families.
The sport’s effervescence was quickly forgotten. In 1948, a woman
named Hayde Medeiros wrote a letter to a Jornal dos Sports column
penned by the poet and journalist Manoel do Nascimento Vargas
Neto. 172 Interestingly, Vargas Neto was the nephew of Getúlio
Vargas, and one wonders about his access to the very administra-
tors who imposed the ban. In her letter, Medeiros asked why sports
clubs throughout Brazil had women’s teams for volleyball, basket-
ball, and fencing, but not women’s football teams, which existed
in other countries. Medeiros apparently had no knowledge of the
sport’s dynamism just seven years earlier. Vargas Neto’s response
placed the blame at the feet of the right person, General Newton
Cavalcanti. However, Vargas Neto also indicated that he believed
the accusations that women’s football was a “dirty affair.” Vargas
Neto explained in his letter that the teams from a few years earlier
were not clean and had provoked police intervention. Charges of
“exploitation of minors, swindling, and malandragem,” which could
Policing Women’s Sports in Brazil 105

mean any number of things in this context, had led to a general out-
cry and occasioned the banning of the women’s game, according to
Vargas Neto.173 He described Newton Cavalcanti as a sworn enemy
of women’s football who had attempted to prohibit all women’s
sports. Cavalcanti had “found medical opinions opposed to women’s
participation,” based on morphology and biology, and had opined
as well that football would make women ugly.174 Vargas Neto made
clear—as another poet had done eight years earlier in mocking José
Fuzeira—that women were fighting in wars, working in factories,
and performing an array of male tasks, and thus should be allowed
to play any sport.175
Fans were not the only ones who seemed to have forgotten that
women’s football had existed. In 1950, O Dia published an article
on women’s football teams visiting Curitiba. The newspaper referred
to the women from Vila Hilda and Corinthians as curiosities, de-
scribing women’s football as something never before seen. Only eight
years earlier, however, in December 1942, O Dia had rejoiced at the
government prohibition of the game.176 In eight short years, the same
publication went from seeing women’s football as a dangerous phe-
nomenon spreading quickly to a new and curious experiment. The
article explained that the women’s game at Estádio Joaquim Américo
Guimarães had drawn one of the stadium’s largest audiences in re-
cent memory. Perhaps this perpetual amnesia helped illicit women
players from attracting too much scrutiny from the authorities. Or
perhaps the local authorities turned a blind eye because of women
players’ supposed triviality. A different paper, also from Curitiba,
also seemed surprised at the large audience for women’s football.
However, rather than expressing delight, the paper published a
writer who seemed scandalized by women’s football.177 This brief
editorial appeared in the “Catholic Column.” The writer referred
to the players as “masculinized women” who were degraded by the
sport. Whereas one could find immorality in brothels or cabarets at
night, women’s football provided ample opportunities for spectators
to indulge in the irresistible temptation of watching women running
on the field. The potential sexualization of players by spectators
troubled the Catholic columnist. In this regard, the moral basis to
106FUTBOLERA

criticize women’s football echoed that of critics twenty years ear-

lier.178 Journalists and experts put forward a different version of the
prohibition in the 1950s. In 1953, the writer M. Mattoso recalled
that the police had banned women’s football in 1939 after it had
already developed and disseminated.179 Mattoso recalled both the
ban and the popular perception of it as being at the behest of a
medical doctor in Rio rather than because of police interest in the
matter and suspect morals.
If the media and the public seemed to have forgotten the brief
popularity of women’s football, the state did not. The Brazilian ed-
ucator Waldemar Areno confirmed the state’s interest in restricting
women’s access to certain activities when he attended the Second Pan-
American Conference on Physical Education, in 1945 in Mexico.180
Areno argued that individual sports such as badminton, tennis,
gymnastics, and track and field (with reduced distances and weights)
were fine for women’s participation. However, women should not
attempt gymnastics with apparatus, such as the parallel bars and the
pommel horse.181 Areno was concerned with women’s stamina, and
along with shorter running races he advocated short bicycle races
with well-planned routes to prevent accidents. As with Dr. Leite de
Castro, team sports were less acceptable in Areno’s eyes. Volleyball
and basketball were fine if they implemented new rules that pre-
vented contact and collisions between players. Women’s sports,
Areno concluded, should be rhythmic and fluid, since this type of
movement “has generally beneficial effects” on the female body.182
Yet he provided no studies to support this assertion. Areno hoped
for expanded physical education training for women in order to
oversee these activities. Like others who attacked women’s football,
his rationale moved from pseudoscience to outright cultural bias.
He called women’s football “absurd and harmful” without giving
any medical reason as to why. Then Areno switched to perhaps
the real reason—it was ostensibly offensive to the (male) observer.
“The spectacle it offers,” he wrote, “besides being unsporting and
anti-physiological, degrades the good sense of the observers.”183
Erasing the long history of women’s football in the country, Areno
Policing Women’s Sports in Brazil 107

closed his remarks on women’s football by saying that in Brazil

women’s football had never gained acceptance.
Despite the obstacles, women were ready to take to the field again
by the 1950s. Brazilian women began organizing teams, coming into
conflict with authorities who sought once again to repress women’s
football clubs. These struggles occurred on the pitch and in local
courts. As discussed in the following chapter, in June 1959, the
CND decided unanimously to renew the ban on women’s football
in response to efforts in the state of Minas Gerais to reinvigorate
teams.184 Even as the CND and the football establishment perse-
cuted women’s football, the national sporting council promoted
more acceptable sports for women, especially tennis. Women’s
tennis grabbed the international spotlight in 1959. That year, the
Brazilian Maria Esther Bueno won Wimbledon, a feat accentuated,
in the international sports press at least, by Bueno’s whiteness. When
Bueno won the Associated Press Female Athlete of the Year award
in 1959, Jet magazine pointed out that Althea Gibson deserved the
prize but had been snubbed because of racism. The contrast between
public acceptance of women’s tennis and suppression of women’s
football was stark. The same year, one of the first women’s teams
to escape the ephemerality imposed by the illegality of women’s
football emerged in Belo Horizonte. There, after eighteen years, the
sport reemerged into the open in the provincial city of Araguari.
Women athletes formed a team within the Araguari Athletic Club,
traveled with the men’s team, and drew national attention when they
played matches in a mini tour of the country. A small notice ap-
peared in a newspaper in Curitiba announcing that despite the ban
on women’s football, the writer had seen interesting matches every
Sunday.185 The notice was so vague and small as to give pause. It is
difficult to ascertain if the writer was warning women that they had
been spotted or encouraging them without alerting the authorities.
The fact that women’s football resurfaced after nearly a generation
suggests that perhaps it had never disappeared at all. Instead, while
the CND ban restricted the growth of the sport, women continued
to play under the radar until the late 1970s. The ban highlights the
108FUTBOLERA

growing complicity between public health professionals and the state

in regulating women’s behavior outside the home. Through physical
education curricula, sports regulations, and media focus on certain
women’s sports, the powers of Brazilian patriarchy successfully—on
the surface, at least—outlined acceptable space for women in the
mid-twentieth century. Defined by men, at the intersection of gender,
race, and class, this sporting space included individual sports and
those practiced primarily by the elite. Nevertheless, the diffusion of
women’s sports in the country remained largely outside of govern-
ment control. If official sporting practice failed women, grassroots
and subaltern organizations fostered women’s continued play. This
play, however, would be curtailed by autocratic regimes throughout
the region before truly blossoming in the 1980s and 1990s.
3
BRAZILIAN SPORTSWOMEN
DEFYING PROHIBITION

THE SUDDEN ERUPTION OF WOMEN’S FOOTBALL IN BRAZIL

in the early 1980s would have taken the casual observer by surprise.
Officially banned for forty years, women theoretically had very little
opportunity to learn and play the sport. Though the state had long
promoted physical education programs, the gender-differentiated
curriculum only included football for boys. While women and girls
around Brazil had continued to play in spite of the ban, government
sanction had effectively stunted the sport’s growth among women.
Still, regardless of national efforts to regulate women’s activities,
regional and local federations supported women players. In other
words, national goals collided with local realities. Among the latter
was the continued desire of women to play football and other sports
deemed too rough for them. Throughout the entire forty-year ban
on women’s football, women flouted both convention and legality
and played anyway. In so doing they challenged the institutionalized
sexism not only of Brazilian football but of Brazilian society as a
whole. Their passion for football brought them into conflict with the
justice system, their families, and sports organizations. Basketball,
swimming, tennis, and volleyball escaped some of the scrutiny of
football, and certainly the legal prohibition. Still, women’s partic-
ipation in these sports contributed to changing the long-standing
prejudices about women’s capacities.
Women’s football had flourished before the ban, and women’s
participation in the sport was never limited to playing. After the
ban was enacted, women appeared in sports media as foils to ad-
dress a host of other issues in the national sporting scene. Sports
magazines portrayed women as insufferable nags who stood in the
way of male entertainment in the stadiums and at the clubhouse.

109
110FUTBOLERA

These caricatures reinforced gendered stereotypes about women

and sports. “Femininity” was used to critique male football, further
disconnecting women’s football from acceptable sporting practices.
If men who played poorly were considered “feminine,” women’s
sports, by definition, lacked quality. Sports magazines and sports
sections in newspapers also used women as vehicles to discuss male
sports, particularly through the lens of class and race. At almost
every turn, with perhaps the exception of elite sports such as tennis
and swimming, discussions after the 1940s of women and sports
cast aspersions on female athletes and placed women involved in
sports in auxiliary roles. This shift altered perceptions of women in
Brazilian sports in important ways. In earlier eras, female involve-
ment as spectators and members in athletic clubs was commonplace
and accepted. Now women began to be written out of Brazil’s main-
stream sporting scene.
No sooner was the ban on football printed than it was disobeyed.
Brazilian women immediately came into conflict with authorities
that sought to repress the growing organization of women’s football
clubs, both on the pitch and in local courts. At the same time that the
Conselho Nacional de Desportos (National Sports Council, CND)
and the Confederação Brasileira de Futebol (Brazilian Football
Confederation) persecuted women’s football, the CND promoted
what it deemed more acceptable sports for women, especially ten-
nis, gymnastics, and swimming. Moreover, the administrations of
Getúlio Vargas (1930–1945) and Eurico Gaspar Dutra (1945–1951)
expanded physical education, for both boys and girls, as part of
their broader embrace of eugenics. Thus, physical education became
part of a state vision of women as racial pioneers and vessels of
future Brazilian racial improvement. Authors and physical education
experts such as Fernando de Azevedo and Renato Kehl had ties to
the eugenics movement in Brazil and published regularly in the well-
respected journal Educação Physica.1
The state’s increasing interest in physical education included mak-
ing physical exercise mandatory in secondary school, creating a new
division of physical education in the Ministry of Education, and
Brazilian Sportswomen Defying Prohibition  111

founding the National School of Physical Education and Sport in Rio

to educate future teachers.2 Military personnel frequently led these
new institutions and initiatives, underscoring the importance that the
state placed on physical education for the defensive and reproductive
capabilities of the nation. For example, as discussed in chapter 2,
the military officer João Barbosa Leite was appointed the first head
of the Division of Physical Education and Sport; at the same time
he was secretary of the CND. Thus, it should not be surprising that
military forms of discipline and strict gender segregation shaped the
nation’s programs in physical education. Physical education was also
intimately tied to the projects of urbanization and industrialization.
That physical education not only produced soldiers, but also trained
industrial workers and protected citizens from the (racial) degrada-
tion of city life, was a central tenet of the government’s interest.3
Women’s increased participation in physical education was not in-
herently a feminist achievement. In physical education, women were
taught that they were biologically inferior to men, more delicate
and weak. Curricular materials sent the message that participation
would increase their beauty and fitness for motherhood. At the same
time, physical education experts issued dire warnings that too much
athletic participation could result in “masculinization”. As the profess-
sionalization of physical education evolved in the 1940s and 1950s,
experts reinforced the immutable biological differences between men
and women. To refute those who believed women could play any
sport, Waldemar Areno, a professor of applied hygiene at the School
of Physical Education and Sport at the University of Brazil and the
chair of Human Anatomy, Physiology, and Applied Hygiene at the
National School of Physical Education and Sport, explained that
“women are profoundly different from men. All of their body is
impregnated with chemical substances secreted by the ovaries.”4 This
type of pseudoscientific statement, offered by credentialed “experts,”
appeared consistently in academic and popular literature of physical
education and shaped both scientific and lay attitudes toward wom-
en’s physical activities. Despite physical education’s overtly sexist
message, some scholars have found that it encouraged young women
112FUTBOLERA

to occupy public spaces and helped to break down strict public and
private gender separation.5
Physical education was not only a realm of government inter-
est, but of academic debate as well. Beginning in the 1930s, the
Revista Brasileira de Educação Física (Brazilian Journal of Physical
Education) published articles related to women’s physical activity,
chiefly concerned with maternity and feminine “harmony.” In the
views of most physical education experts, beauty reflected a woman’s
good health just as strength expressed good health for men. The
goals of women’s exercise, according to these theorists, included
building harmony, flexibility, and grace. Women, wrote one expert,
were motivated by “the improvement of the race, of beauty, and of
femininity.”6 Physical education experts correlated the physiological
differences between women and men with acute psychological differ-
ences as well. Thus, they posited that women’s lack of emotional con-
trol needed to be taken into account when designing class activities.
Given their belief that sports helped men’s virility and strength-
ened their character, many experts worried that women would be-
come more “masculine” through the practice of sports. As the
scholar Silvana Goellner has shown, the persistent fears that tied
women’s exercise to masculinization, which in turn threatened
their heterosexuality, surfaced and resurfaced in the academic litera-
ture on physical education from as early as the 1920s.7 By the 1940s
and 1950s, very little had changed. Whatever challenge to traditional
womanhood had been posed by the nova mulher, or new woman,
faded as the model of the nuclear family became reembedded as
a middle-class Brazilian ideal of the Cold War. Physical education
experts fully embraced the prohibition on women’s football and
attempted to erase the sport’s previous popularity. For example,
one article in the Revista Brasileira de Educação Física claimed that
“football cannot be part of women’s sport.” According to the author,
it was not only “antisporting” but “antiphysiological.” Women’s
football was “absurd, harmful,” and a “spectacle” that “offends the
common sense of spectators.”8 The author concluded that “happily”
women’s football did “not have acceptance among us.”9 Even the
Brazilian Sportswomen Defying Prohibition  113

most supportive physical education experts had a limited view of

which females should participate in athletics. Given their interest in
eugenics and belief in the importance of maternal health to the fu-
ture of the race, physical education teachers nearly always assumed
the profile of students to be white middle- or upper-class girls, who
would otherwise be indolent and cloistered.

PLAY DURING PROHIBITION

The ban on women’s football in Brazil, though incomplete, nev-

ertheless affected the sport. While women never stopped play-
ing football, certainly the press covered the sport much less than
it had in the 1930s. Near the end of the 1940s, however, reports
of women’s football became more commonplace again. A 1950
article in the Curitiba newspaper O Dia highlighted the fact
that women had likely been playing in the 1940s. It reported on
Southern Brazil two famous women’s teams from Rio Grande do
Sul, Corinthians and Rio Grande, claiming that every Paranaense
knew of them, which indicates the teams had likely been around
for years. Moreover, the sports journalists’ association Cronistas
Esportivos do Paraná (Sportswriters of Paraná) sought permission
from the regional Federação Paranaense de Futebol (Paranaense
Football Federation) to host a game between the two teams of fe-
male “cracks,” or top players. While O Dia promoted the match as
a novelty and suggested that the match, to be played in Curitiba’s
main Joaquim Américo Guimarães stadium, provided the op-
portunity to gawk at attractive women, the journalists demon-
strated a clear familiarity with the teams. Promotional articles
assumed the audience would be “thrilled” to watch a game be-
tween twenty-two beauties, noting that the women players would
be “parading in front of the curious eyes of thousands of [male]
futebolistas.”10 That female athletes existed for the sexual fantasies
of male onlookers could not have been stated much more obviously.
At the same time, articles in advance of the match invited young
women interested in playing to attend and learn the game.
114FUTBOLERA

It is not fully clear why Curitiba emerged as a center of women’s

football throughout the twentieth century. As with all sports, male
or female, journalists played a key role in spreading news of and
reporting on games, although in the case of women’s football they
often remained anonymous. Diário da Tarde, a daily paper in
Curitiba, argued that women’s football was “revolutionizing the
sport of the masses: football.”11 It warned that the city of Curitiba
would be shaken by the spectacle.12 One can imagine some measure
of journalistic embellishment coming from a desire to promote the
event and generate paper sales. A few months later, another match
was declared “unprecedented,” though clearly precedent existed.13
Even as they promoted the games in advance, Curitiba’s journal-
ists provided few details about the matches themselves, and offered
even less information about the players. Perhaps this afforded the
athletes some protection, and journalists might have wanted to keep
details to a minimum, given that these activities were patently ille-
gal. Clearly, however, the Paranaense Football Federation supported
women’s football, as it continued to approve matches in the face of
the ban.14
Because of the ongoing interest in, and illicit support for, women’s
football, the CND was forced to reiterate the ban again and again. It
sent representatives to the provinces regularly to ensure that its reg-
ulations regarding women’s sports were being adhered to. In 1956,
for example, O Globo published a very small notice announcing
that the CND had reaffirmed its ban on women’s football.15 That
same year, the CND sent a representative to reprimand the regional
sports council of Bahia for allowing a game between two wom-
en’s teams from SC Vitoria and SC Bahia.16 The teams played in
the Estádio Otávio Mangabeira, the largest stadium in Salvador da
Bahia. The match was of such interest to the public that it headlined
the night, superseding the men’s regional championship game, and
turned a profit of 350,000 cruzeiros, or roughly $12,000. Journalists
remarked that the fans were highly enthusiastic. The photograph
published of the Vitoria team shows a racially mixed team with
proper football kits, including shorts rather than tennis skirts.17
Brazilian Sportswomen Defying Prohibition  115

In 1957, the CND acted once again to enforce the ban on wom-
en’s football when the São Paulo businessman José da Gama Correia
da Silva presented a petition to Brazil’s governing body of sports to
allow him to bring women’s football teams to Europe.18 Da Gama’s
plan was to give a portion of the tour’s profits to the Pioneiras
Sociais (Social Pioneers), a social welfare organization established
in 1956 by the first lady, Sarah Kubitschek. Though no games were
to be played in Brazil, the CND denied da Gama’s request, citing
Decree Law 3199 as its rationale. O Estado de São Paulo reminded
readers that in addition to football, the law banned women and
girls from participating in the triple jump, the high jump, rugby,
polo, water polo, pentathlon, hammer throw, decathlon, wrestling,
and boxing. Even outside the country, the CND sought to police
Brazilian women and restrict their sporting activities.
Throughout the 1950s, futboleras persisted. Small announcements
buried in newspapers attest to the ongoing vibrancy of women’s
football, particularly in Bahia, Minas Gerais, and Paraná. In May of
1959 one such note appeared announcing women’s football in Belo
Horizonte. O Estado de São Paulo’s note informed readers that two
women’s teams would be playing over the weekend in the Estádio
Independência in the state capital. Enticing as the article is, the only
information in the newspaper about the match notes that one of
the teams, Araguari AC, comprised twenty-six women.19 Similarly,
in June of 1959 a very small notice explained that in Salvador, the
women’s football section of the Bahia Sports Club sent an invitation
to Atlético Mineiro to play in “our capital.”20 The match, played
between Baiana and Araguari in the Estádio Fonte Nova, had gate
receipts of more than 300,000 cruzeiros.21 Fans watched as Bahia
defeated Araguari 4–2 in a “technically good” match, which was
“interrupted constantly by the crowd applauding.” So successful was
the match that plans were made for additional games.22
In response to this match, the governor of Minas Gerais, José
Francisco Bias Fortes, received a visit from Manuel Faria de Paula
Ramos, the vice president of the CND, who ordered that the gover-
nor put a stop to women’s football in the state.23 According to the
116FUTBOLERA

notice, Ramos was specifically charged with making sure the ban on
women’s football was adhered to.24 At the same time, perhaps sens-
ing a shift in public attitudes toward the women’s game, the CND
legal advisor Samuel Sabat suggested a study to consider revising the
law.25 However, the council decided against such a move. Instead,
local officials issued their own ordinances that reinforced the law. In
response to continuous rebellion of futboleras and the supposed per-
missiveness of the Paranaense football federation, a judge in Curitiba
issued a new ordinance that specifically prohibited minor girls from
joining football clubs.26 So, while reporting on women’s football had
markedly diminished, the sport was clearly still being played. The
ongoing legal actions testify to both the commitment and inability
of the national government to stop women and girls from playing.
Likely, the government’s limited success stemmed from the sport’s
peripheral position. Officials’ presence was relatively rare at the local
level, and even more so when it came to girls’ and women’s athletics.
The fact that most activity in the 1950s came from outside of Rio
and São Paulo may also indicate that the ban had greater significance
in preventing play in urban centers.
In 1959, the CND decided unanimously to renew the ban on
women’s football in response to efforts in Minas Gerais to reinvig-
orate teams.27 But promoters continued to seek ways around the
ban. By organizing women’s football matches as charity events, they
sought to take advantage of both loopholes in the prohibition and
gendered norms in society: if women footballers were performing
caregiving roles by playing for charity, then their activities would be
more acceptable. The Brazilian state did not see it the same way. In
August 1959, the CND took the promoter Lover Ibaixe to court in
an attempt to stop a charity football match between women cabaret
workers of Rio and São Paulo. In his defense, Ibaixe argued for an
exception to the ban since all proceeds of the match would support
the construction of a new retirement home for actors in São Paulo.28
It was not an easy permission to obtain. Judge Julio Leal Fagundes
of the Second Court of the Treasury allowed the match to take place,
given its charity nature. Perhaps more important, Fagundes ruled
that the CND had not adequately explained why it refused to allow
Brazilian Sportswomen Defying Prohibition  117

the event.29 After a series of appeals that dragged on for months, the
court ruled that the game could go on.30 However, Minister Afrânio
Costa of the Federal Appeals Court briefly delayed the match again.
A former Olympian in shooting, Costa agreed with the CND that the
event was “circus-like” in nature and degraded sports’ educational
functions.31 Strangely, in an evening meeting, the CND decided to
allow the match to take place the following day.32
Defining women’s games as charity partially undermined the pro-
hibition against women’s football. The logic of charity drew upon
and reiterated the notion that women’s activities were legitimate
so long as they were for the benefit of others rather than their own
enjoyment. Still, charity matches were untenable as a way to main-
tain a vibrant women’s football league. At first glance, these games
sound like they were more spectacle than anything else. However,
photographs from the events indicate that the musical actresses
who played took the endeavor seriously. While there were plenty of
“pinup” photographs published of the women players, they played
the game with intention. Moreover, the participation of the men’s
World Cup champions Pelé and Gilmar as “trainers” to help the
young women lent an air of legitimacy to the proceedings.33 Though
these “novelty” matches continued to happen, efforts to close them
down signaled that the patriarchal Brazilian sporting establishment
continued to see women’s football as a threat. As professional foot-
ball played a larger and larger role in the national sporting organi-
zations, the directors supported the ban, at least tacitly.
One of the chief opponents of women’s football was José Augusto
Cavalcânti Cisneiros, president and academic director of the School
of Physical Education and Sport at the University of Brazil. He
couched his opposition as concern for the futboleras, suggesting
that the women were “like an instrument in the hands of unscrupu-
lous exploiters making a clumsy business and infesting the national
sport.”34 Cisneiros claimed to have consulted scholars who uni-
formly condemned the practice on “biological, physiological, and
aesthetic principles.”35 He further explained: “We understand sports
as a cult of the beautiful, for physical improvement, strengthening of
a race, sociability of the individual, the seed of order, and the food
118FUTBOLERA

of liberty.”36 The discourse surrounding women’s football empha-

sized that their play offended men. According to O Globo, the po-
lice stormed a celebrity match after it came to slaps and kicks. The
confusion was such that the spectators thought that the police were
part of the show.37 The reports claimed that the Paulista Maria
Helena started the fight with a late kick, and it escalated into a brawl
from there. The article recommended that the women stop playing
and focus on their stage careers.38 Yet the women remained unde-
terred, traveling after São Paulo to play in Rio at the Maracanã and
in Salvador.39
Following the celebrity match, O Globo declared that the CND
had lost its battle against women’s football. Women’s clubs began
to appear again in working-class neighborhoods, high schools, and
factories. Among the clubs that gathered strength was Ponta Preta
FC, from Jacareí, which had already organized a match against EC
Fazenda de São João de Meriti in the Estádio do Rio. The game was
part of the celebrations to honor Governor Roberto Silveira.40 Just
a month later, a match in Conselheiro Lafaiete in Minas Gerais was
held between women of Meridional and Guarani, ending in a tie.
The notice claimed that the game had brought in a record profit of
Cr$160.500,00 in gate receipts.41
The following year, starlets from São Paulo challenged their
Uruguayan counterparts to two football matches in the Estádio
Pacaembu, São Paulo’s municipal stadium. According to Folha de
São Paulo, the actresses demanded 50 percent of the gross in order
to play.42 On the way to the stadium, the players for Uruguay and
Brazil paraded through the main streets of São Paulo. Despite the
excitement over the match, sportswriters did not take it seriously.
An anonymous author in Caretas, for example, mocked the celebrity
players, noting that their play “left everything to be desired,” and
that any pay they received would be for “aesthetic compensation.”43
The writer also noted that the juxtaposition of “playthings [cria-
turas] like that,” on a football field, kicking at “the shins . . . of
their adversary,” was “extremely bizarre.”44 Still, photographs of
the events in many ways normalized the idea of women footballers.
They showed the teams in uniforms with only slightly shorter shorts
Brazilian Sportswomen Defying Prohibition  119

FIGURE 3.1. Araguari football club, Minas Gerais, 1958. Courtesy of Museu do
Futebol, Acervo Tereza Cristina.

than those worn by men, and also featured the women in action
during a game.
One of the most stable women’s football clubs during prohibition
formed in the state of Minas Gerais. In 1959, the law banning wom-
en’s football had been in place for nearly twenty years, when athletes
formed a women’s section in the Araguari Athletic Club in order
to raise money for a local school. Comprising mostly middle-class
students, the women’s team occasionally traveled with the men’s
team from the same club. The women’s team of Araguari drew na-
tional attention in May 1959 when they played a mini tour of Minas
Gerais. The team also received an invitation to play in Mexico, but
players recalled that the ban prevented them from pursuing the
trip.45 O Globo reported in 1959 that despite the prohibition, wom-
en’s football was openly diffused throughout the city of Araguari.46
Perhaps due to the distance from the state capital (more than 600
kilometers), Araguari AC had more leeway to support women’s
football. Throughout Minas Gerais, not only could teams be found
120FUTBOLERA

in all of the “principal cities,” but state institutions began to evade

the ban. In Dores do Indaiá, a town located 255 kilometers from
Belo Horizonte, two local schools—the Francisco Campos Normal
School and the San Luis Business and Technical School—both began
women’s football teams in 1959. The coach of one of the teams ex-
plicitly recognized the ban and said that the school would ignore it.47
In Paraná as well, in spite of the prohibition, one could find women’s
matches every Sunday in Curitiba, the state capital.48
Amazingly, despite the official ban on the sport, in February 1959
O Cruzeiro featured a five-page spread on the women’s team of
Araguari.49 From the photographs, one can see that the matches were
very well attended. In the stands the gender division was fairly equal
and there was a significant representation of people of color. Still, the
presentation of the sport was less than ideal. One photo showed two
women, apparently players, posing on the field, with one holding a
mirror and the other combing her hair. The caption stated that when
the ball was not in play, the women could fix their hair and makeup,
emphasizing the femininity of the players. The article claimed that
Araguari AC began featuring women’s football because it lost money
on men’s football and needed an attraction to bring people to the
games. The article, which referred to players as the “bitter daughters
of Eve,” was partially humorous and partially ominous in tone.50
According to the author, José Franco, it was only a matter of time
before women would master the men’s game. Still, the magazine
focused part of its attention on the players’ appearance. A caption
that accompanied a photo of the goalkeeper read, “The goalie is
in a poor technical position, but her hair looks pretty.”51 Even so,
the article disrupted the visual repertoire of typical gender norms.
Women wore standard kits, and the photographs showed women in
positions of exertion and competition.
In reaction to the flagrant resistance to the women’s football ban
in Araguari, Válter Ferreira de Sousa led a group of sportsmen to
protest their matches. Sousa and his fellow protestors reached out
to O Globo for support against the futboleras.52 The protestors ac-
cused the Mineiro football federation, the municipal league, and the
regional sports council of neglecting to enforce the national decree.
Brazilian Sportswomen Defying Prohibition  121

Since Araguari AC was affiliated with the Federação Mineira de

Futebol (Minas Gerais Football Federation), the club risked expul-
sion for violating the ban. But women had a long-term involvement
in such clubs, and likely convinced directors that they would not
face real sanctions. Sousa complained that the interest in women’s
matches stemmed from their novelty. At least, then, he recognized
the financial value of women’s football. A women’s game, he noted,
could have 200,000 cruzeiros in gate receipts, which benefited
the club and its male players. Sousa also noted that although the
Federação Goiana de Futebol (Goiás Football Federation) had pro-
hibited all women’s games in the state, a match had been planned
for Palm Sunday in Tupaciguara. Though Tupaciguara is in Minas
Gerais, it is close to the border with Goiana. It is possible that the
match in Tupaciguara was supposed to include a team from nearby
Itumbiara, in Goiás state. Sousa claimed that the population was
incensed and had succeeded, with the help of the vicar, in getting
the match canceled. Sousa enlisted the local newspaper in Araguari,
Gazeta do Triângulo, as an ally in his campaign against women’s
football.53
Despite frequent editorials against women’s football, newspapers
continued to print notices of matches in the late 1950s and early
1960s, which clearly gave succor to the sport. The level of play in
the interior led the newspaper A Luta Democrática to suggest that
football clubs were “making a joke of the law” that banned the
women’s game.54 New teams seemed to emerge and disintegrate on
a weekly basis.55 For example, O Globo reported a match between
Fazenda FC and Iguaçu AA in the stadium of Volantes Sports Club,
in the Rio de Janeiro suburb of Nova Iguaçu. The match fell within
the allowable parameters for women’s football: the charity match
raised money for the Matriz de Nossa Senhora de Fátima in Rio. The
women of Fazenda won 3–0. A photograph from the match showed
the masseuse of Fazenda, notably Afro-Brazilian, treating the goal-
keeper, Maria Augusta.56 As other media outlets had done, O Globo
again reported that despite the ban by the CND, women’s football
was growing each day during the 1959–1960 season. It pointed out
that after matches between Belo Horizonte and the actresses from
122FUTBOLERA

São Paulo, Santos, and Salvador, enthusiasm for the sport spread
like a wildfire.57 Local students from Campinas also began to play
and performed as the local rivals Guarani and Ponte Prêta, as a
benefit for the Instituto Dom Nery, a nonprofit educational center.
According to O Globo, the match, held at the twenty-thousand ca-
pacity Estádio Moisés Lucarelli, grossed 200,000 cruzeiros.58
Often, notices of women’s matches listed a charitable cause as
the recipient of the gate receipt, but at other times notices simply
mentioned the teams and venue. Women’s teams occupied stadiums
throughout the country, which lent them a good deal of legitimacy.
Stadiums had come to serve as centers of civic life, and fans regarded
them as sacred spaces. However, by midcentury, Brazilian stadiums
had also become a source of anxiety for social commentators be-
cause of increasing violence at football games. Organized fan groups
attempted to keep the violence under control, but matches frequently
descended into chaos.59 For women to take to the pitch was a rad-
ical act in the late 1950s. The women who attended these matches
would have had a fairly unique opportunity to see other women
at the center of a spectacle, beyond film and theatre.
Evidence suggests that it was easier for women to organize in
the provinces and suburbs than in major cities. And the fact that
newspaper articles on women’s football matches in the 1960s pre-
sent them as somewhat normal suggests that the sport had contin-
ued more or less unabated. For example, in Paraná in April 1960,
a festival to celebrate the anniversary of Fanático FC included a
women’s match between two neighborhood clubs, Vila Hauer and
Vila Inah. The local newspaper commented that the public would
excitedly wait to see the players’ beautiful legs. While there can be
little doubt that this story objectified women, it also provided a tiny
space for women to read about the women’s game.60 While not the
most far-flung location in Brazil, it is fair to say that Campo Largo,
a suburb of Curitiba in Paraná, was quite distant from the Carioca
and Paulista club scenes that dominated Brazilian football. The two
clubs that presented the women’s teams were from relatively middle-
class organizations with a stable tradition and ties to European
immigrants, which were prevalent in the region. Vila Hauer was
Brazilian Sportswomen Defying Prohibition  123

organized in 1950 as a large sports club with a football division,

while Vila Inah was a stable third-division team.61
In 1960, heartened by the proliferation of women’s teams in
disparate regions of the country, women launched an unsuccess-
ful campaign to push the Confederação Brasileiro de Desportos
(Brazilian Confederation of Sports) to revoke the ban.62 One woman
interviewed by O Globo estimated that more than thirty women’s
football teams played regularly in the Paraíba Valley alone. Identified
as Luci, the young woman described the ban as “hateful discrimina-
tion.”63 The players defended the morality of women’s football by
noting that a major supporter of the women’s game in the region was
a Catholic school, where girls had the support of the priests. They
also claimed to have the support of Vicente Feola, coach of the 1958
men’s World Cup winning team.64 Futboleras argued that they could
bring grace and beauty back to football, which men had marred
through brutality and rough play. Ultimately, conflict over women’s
football caused violence itself, which caught the attention of local
media. In October 1960, women students in the School of Pharmacy
and Dentistry in Belo Horizonte organized a football match. The
game provoked social unrest. According to reports, fellow students
attacked the players. The fighting escalated to the point where a
soldier at the scene fired his gun, and the disturbance was such that
the regional secretary of public safety considered posting an officer
permanently at the university to restore order. The title of the news
piece, “Futebol de mulhers causa conflito” (Women’s football causes
conflict), sent a clear message to readers that women’s football—not
opposition to it—was the problem.65 Victoria Langland and others
have written about the degree of police intervention in Brazilian uni-
versity activities during the Cold War.66 It is possible that increased
surveillance hampered the development of women’s football clubs
at Brazilian universities. While neighboring Chile and Argentina had
visible women’s football clubs based at institutions of higher educa-
tion, Brazil had none.
The 1964 military coup against President João Goulart ushered in
an era of increased surveillance, repression, and state violence. While
women’s sports occupied a rather insignificant space in the social
124FUTBOLERA

concerns of the military, defying any law could result in harrowing

consequences. As the military assigned officers to positions within
civil society and education, the chances for women’s athletics to
thrive within clubs and schools dimmed. Still, throughout the 1960s,
women continued to play football, though small notices in major
newspapers remain some of the only evidence of the sport. In March
1965, tucked at the bottom of the page, O Estado de São Paulo
announced a match at Estádio Mansueto Pieroti in the São Paulo
suburb of São Vicente. The match, between Comercial Futebol
Feminino and Esporte Clube Emabaré, was played as a preliminary
of the match between Santos and São Vicente. As minor as it might
have been (the capacity of the stadium was around five thousand),
the CND took notice.67 That body’s vice president, Anibal Pelon,
later demanded an inquiry into Santos FC (home club of Pelé), accus-
ing it of intentionally circumventing the ban on women’s football.68
In fact, the CND launched a new offensive against women’s foot-
ball in 1965, less than a year after the military coup, by increasing
pressure on provincial governors to stop women’s games, particu-
larly in Santos and Belo Horizonte.69 In the latter case, organizers
were forced to cancel a women’s tournament because the vice squad
of Belo Horizonte demanded that the municipality enforce the ille-
gality of women’s football.70 Given the frequency with which notices
of women’s football matches appeared, with large headlines but
virtually no information, they likely acted as warnings to women
who might have had ideas about playing. The anti–women’s foot-
ball campaign also included new enforcement in Guanabara, which
mainly comprised Rio de Janeiro. Its governor, Carlos Lacerda, a
well-known conservative, received orders from the CND and com-
mitted to obliterate the women’s game.71 After the 1965 match
between Comercial Futebol Feminino and EC Emabaré mentioned
above, which between six and seven thousand people attended, the
CND began to look at women’s football in São Paulo as well.72 That
same year, an emergency committee of the International Federation
of Association Football (FIFA) officially weighed in on women’s foot-
ball, recommending that federations “adopt ‘prudent reserve’ and
. . . not encourage its development.”73
Brazilian Sportswomen Defying Prohibition  125

Amidst renewed efforts to suppress the sport in the political con-

text of dictatorship, women persisted in carving space for them-
selves in Brazilian sports.74 Historical work has demonstrated the
importance of policing gender difference to the military government’s
ideology. Benjamin Cowan, for example, has shown the right wing’s
conflation of Communism with the breakdown of gender binaries
and diffusion of sexual licentiousness.75 Given the climate of extreme
political violence during the 1960s and 1970s, Brazilian women’s re-
fusal to obey the football ban, and their efforts in other sports, takes
on a new meaning. In Catanduva, a northern municipality of São
Paulo, a women’s football match was held in 1969 to commemorate
the founding of the city. Played as a preliminary to the men’s match
between Cantanduva and Rio, the Instituto de Educação Barão do
Rio Branco faced off against Ginâsio Estadual Elias Nechar. That
local secondary schools supported girls’ football teams only high-
lights the conflicting attitudes about the sport. Due to the popularity
and enthusiasm for the game, during the match regular substitution
rules were suspended so that more girls would have the opportunity
to play.76 In addition, the match length was shortened to fifty min-
utes, ostensibly because the women were not in shape to play full
games. These are fascinating examples of how women organizers
changed the rules in order to create a different environment. At the
same time, however, they highlight how organizers assumed that
women had less ability than men, and both mimicked earlier efforts
and presaged later ones to make the women’s game less demand-
ing. Following the game in Catanduva, the squad from Instituto
de Educação Barão do Rio Branco was supposed to continue to
Tabapuã, where they were scheduled to play another game in honor
of that city’s anniversary. The article made clear that the girls of the
institute had been playing football for some time, practicing in the
safe confines of the school.77

FUTBOLERAS BEYOND THE PITCH

Alongside playing, women created spaces for themselves within

the torcedores, or organized fan groups, as well as within sports
126FUTBOLERA

FIGURE 3.2. Figure 3.2. Press badge of Semíramis Alves Teixeira. Courtesy of
Museu do Futebol, Coleção Semíramis Alves Teixera.

journalism. In 1956 Dulce Rosalina became the first female president

of the Vasco da Gama torcedores, a position she retained for nearly
twenty years.78 Elisa Alves do Nascimento, from Corinthians, be-
came one of the club’s iconic fans, if not the actual president of a tor-
cida. The Paulista Football Federation gave Elisa, as she was known,
a pass to enter any field. These women, both working class and of
color, knew male players personally, consulted with coaches over
team strategy, and dined with club presidents. Thus, they wielded a
notable amount of power. Club directors, players, and the media em-
phasized the maternal character of these women. Still, women at the
top of the fan structure had power in orchestrating fan performances,
influencing ticket sales, advising club trainers, and achieving com-
munity recognition. The historian Bernardo Buarque de Hollanda
has discussed the important social relationships forged in fan clubs.
Members organized complicated tours, working to pool resources.79
They also created dances, songs, costumes, and placards in sup-
port of their teams. By the 1970s these relationships had dissipated.
Scholars have shown that by then torcidas had become more hierar-
chical and violent, mirroring the military dictatorship’s practices.80
Brazilian Sportswomen Defying Prohibition  127

The transition from the carnivalesque nature of fan groups in the

1940s and 1950s to the configuration along military lines made it
difficult for women to participate in such groups.
The career of Semíramis Alves Teixeira, who became a pioneer
in sports journalism, presents another window on women’s involve-
ment in sports and an important exception to women’s public roles
in the field. A young woman who was fashionable and assertive,
Teixeira elbowed her way onto the field and into the locker rooms.
According to the Brazilian media, she was a rarity, maybe the “only
woman in the world” who could easily discuss techniques and tactics
of football. By 1966 Teixeira was a regular on Brazilian television,
commenting on men’s football. Interestingly, she was not forced to
present herself as a sex symbol. Female journalists that came after
found it difficult to achieve a similar level of respect.

INTERNATIONAL INTEREST

Given Brazil’s importance in global football, it is not surprising

that women’s football organizers from Europe sought to arrange
matches with women’s teams from the country. In the early 1960s,
an English women’s team promoted by Percy Ashley approached
Brazilian officials in hopes of playing a match in Maracanã against
a Brazilian team.81 The CND turned down the proposal. Brazil’s
sports authorities rejected another proposed tour of British teams,
spearheaded by the businessman José da Gama—who had earlier
asked for permission to take a women’s team to England—on the
grounds that football was “incompatible” with women’s nature.
The CND described women’s football as a “ridiculous” spectacle.82
Da Gama sought to bring Nomad Ladies FC and Corinthians FC to
play exhibition matches in Brazil. At least one of the British clubs,
Corinthians, was accustomed to barnstorming in Latin America.
In 1960 Corinthians—and a club called Northern Nomads—had
played a four-team tournament in Venezuela.83 Newspapers also
briefly mentioned the effervescence of women’s football in Sweden,
which years later would become a premier destination for Brazil’s
most talented women players.
128FUTBOLERA

News of the first women’s world championship in 1970 made

it into the Brazilian papers, if only as small notices tucked away
in the sports pages. Modest paragraphs here and there announced
that Denmark had become the champions of women’s football in
Turin, defeating Italy 2–0. In third place figured Mexico, which had
beaten England. The reports brought up the question of finances,
and quoted the promoters’ claims that profits had been “reason-
able.”84 O Globo also briefly mentioned the tournament, giving
its readers the barest of facts. Drawing from international news
agency reports, O Globo informed its readers that the tournament
had been organized in Italy and the teams attending included Italy,
Austria, Switzerland, Mexico, England, France, Czechoslovakia, and
Denmark.85 Reports indicated that fans turned out in large numbers
and that the teams had a high level of skill (with the exception of
Austria and West Germany; Mexico defeated the former 9–0).86 The
media also reported that following the tournament, women’s teams
played throughout Italy.87 The fact that the tournament was played
in Italy surely raised eyebrows in Brazil, where Italian heritage was
associated with whiteness and modernity.
The structure of the coverage of the women’s world championship
sheds light on the way that women’s football was perceived in Brazil.
Even as they were reporting on a world championship, Brazilian
newspapers had a difficult time stepping out of the patriarchal
norms about the sport and the women who participated. Correio
da Manhã, for example, reassured its readers that the players did
not exchange their shirts after the matches, at least not on the field.88
The author highlighted at once that the sport did not transgress
moral norms for women (stripping to bras to exchange shirts on the
field) and that it represented the potential transgressing of sexual
norms in suspected homosexual relationships among players (ex-
changing shirts in the privacy and intimacy of the dressing rooms).
Thus, women’s football was framed as sexualized—either with the
titillation of the presumably male readership by suggesting female
seminudity or the transgressive potential of the sport as a site of
homosexuality. This sexualization was only magnified by comments
Brazilian Sportswomen Defying Prohibition  129

that objectified players. One journalist mentioned that the masseur

likely worked for free, presumably because it allowed him to touch
women’s legs at will.89 Correio da Manhã’s coverage included pho-
tographs of the matches, including one of the “invincible” Mexican
midfielder Cristina García.90 Ideologies of ethnicity also played a role
in framing conversations about the women’s tournament and pro-
vided alluring titles, such as “Who will win in football: The blondes
or the brunettes?”91 In this case, the brunettes were Mexican and
Italian, while the blondes were Danish and English. Importantly,
the threat of the sport was brought home as well when local papers
mentioned that a group of women in Rio was trying to organize
weekly games in Aterro do Flamengo.92
The second world championship took place in 1971, in Mexico.
According to one Brazilian newspaper, the tournament organizers
asked Brazil to participate, but the Brazilian Football Confederation
rejected the invitation.93 Still, there were Brazilian supporters. Diário
da Noite, for example, advocated that women take part in the
tournament so that Brazil would not fall behind in developing any
sports. The article mentioned that tournaments had been organized
in various states of Brazil and that FIFA was changing its position on
women’s football, urging federations to take charge of the sport.94
While Brazil did not send a team, the Brazilian media passively
followed the planning and suggested that another Latin American
team, perhaps Chile, Argentina, or Costa Rica, would participate.95
In the end, Argentina sent a delegation and finished fourth. Some
reports on the second championship criticized Mexican organizers
for using starlets as prematch entertainment. The media criticized
female athletes for lacking professionalism, despite the fact that they
were by definition amateurs. One article called out Lena Schelke, the
goalkeeper for Denmark, for taking pictures of the packed Estadio
Azteca from midfield as her team was announced.96 The article also
complained that the English team took a day off from training in
order to go sightseeing.97 The reporting on these behaviors repre-
sented a persistent pattern of professional expectations placed on
amateur players.
130FUTBOLERA

WOMEN’S FOOTBALL IN THE 1970S

To get a sense of Brazilian women’s football in 1970, the example

of Clube Atlético Indiano is illustrative. The club, which still ex-
ists today, was founded in 1930 on the outskirts of São Paulo in a
newly settled middle-class neighborhood and named, if clumsily,
after Gandhi and the Indian independence movement. Despite the
ban on women’s football, women of Indiano played the sport from
the inception of the club and ignored the CND’s ban.98 Initially, the
women’s team organized charity matches, but by 1970 it had reorga-
nized into a functional club, with over fifty women playing football.
According to one newspaper article about the team, the women
played with force and vigor, though their long nails could inflict
serious injury. The article attempted to normalize women players
by placing them into acceptable categories. That they grew their
nails suggested femininity (and heterosexuality), as did reports that
the team had a solid fan base, particularly among their boyfriends,
husbands, and sons. The club’s leader, Zuka, was the sister of José
María Marin, a conservative politician and staunch supporter of
the military government.99 Zuka believed that concern over football
affecting women’s sexuality was nonsense. “True femininity,” she
told the reporter, “never disappears even in the heat of the con-
test.” She suggested that players preferred “to clean the sweat from
their faces than worry about their adversaries’ shots.”100 Why would
the military regime ignore the organization of women’s football in
some cases and persecute it in others? In the case of CA Indiano,
Zuka’s personal connections might have assuaged the government’s
fears about the demoralizing potential of the sport and reduced the
chances of repression. Moreover, interviews with the players care-
fully toed the line of accepted feminine norms. And without con-
certed opposition, women’s football thrived in a state of indifference.
The article on CA Indiano contained other insights into women’s
football culture. One woman stressed the joy and freedom she felt
when playing, as if she could “forget everything.”101 But women’s
football also offered something else: a space where both men and
Brazilian Sportswomen Defying Prohibition  131

FIGURE 3.3. Women’s football in Recife, Brazil, 1970s. Photo Narciso Lins.
Courtesy of Museu do Futebol, Acervo da Cidade do Recife.

women could enjoy the game together. For example, Paulo Tanaka
told the reporter that his wife attended his games to pick up pointers
and that they were able to chat about what happened in matches in a
friendly way.102 The women’s team included both married and single
women, including pairs of mothers and daughters, which gave the
team security. It was more difficult to attack the players as immoral
since some were wives and mothers. The team benefitted from the
support of the club board, which provided two fields with lights for
the women to play on. The club also provided a coach, who said
that women required special care because they were “sensitive and
easily angered,” and a masseuse.103
Not all women’s efforts at organizing football were as well sup-
ported. That same year, the Rio newspaper Correio da Manhã pub-
lished an article on what it claimed were “the only women playing
football.”104 According to the article, a group in Aterro do Flamengo
had organized four teams of futsal—a faster-paced, five-a-side
derivative of football—which was not perceived to be as threatening
132FUTBOLERA

as football itself. Though many of the players were quite talented,

and one of the team’s coaches had played for Brazil against Uruguay,
they faced a good deal of opposition. The young women complained
that “the world is against us” and noted that their mothers were the
most opposed to their interest in the sport, fearing that their daugh-
ters would be harmed or “masculinized,” which the players called
“nonsense.”105 Perhaps Aterro do Flamengo, the largest public park
in Rio, was too public of a site for women to fly under the radar.
In 1970 the club Santa Cruz, in Recife, created a women’s football
branch, and did so with CND permission. Although the military
dictatorship was at its peak in terms of repression, the women took
advantage of the brief window when Antonio Cordeiro was interim
secretary of the CND.106 Advocates believed that Brazil should
model itself on the English women’s league, which had adjusted the
ball size and made other rule changes.107 A supporter of women’s
football, Cordeiro granted permission for some women’s institu-
tions and matches. The request also received support from Alkindar
Soares Filho, a local gynecologist who refuted claims that football
caused breast cancer or was otherwise physically dangerous, as was
popularly believed.108 The new team was not without its detrac-
tors. Correio da Manhã surveyed Santa Cruz residents on the topic
of women’s football and found many opposed to the sport. The
first interviewee, “Eneida,” felt that women were too emotional to
play football, while Irma Alvarez described the game as a “horrible
thing.” Although she had played three years of professional bas-
ketball in Argentina, Alvarez complained that football developed
the wrong muscles and was an inappropriate sport for women. The
wife of Mario Viana, a conservative radio journalist, said that her
husband prohibited her from all sorts of things, including smok-
ing, drinking, and playing football.109 Pedro Valente, an ex–medical
director of CR Vasco da Gama, concluded that women’s physical
state was incompatible with football. Still, a minority featured in
the article expressed tepid support for women’s football.110 Claudio
Marzo, a popular actor who played a football star, said he would
love to see women play, mentioning his young daughter Alexandra’s
enthusiasm for a recent Brazil versus Peru match.111
Brazilian Sportswomen Defying Prohibition  133

THE END OF THE BAN

In 1970, while women’s football grew all over the world, both in
terms of organizing teams and developing the world championship,
the CND reminded Brazilians that the ban on women’s football
remained in place. That year it sent a circular to all sporting au-
thorities and institutions in the nation, informing them that regard-
less of shifting attitudes on women’s football and the prohibition of
it—which many had begun to treat as a joke—the CND intended to
enforce the ban.112 However threatening the circular, the CND did
not increase its efforts to stymie futboleras. Throughout the 1970s,
women’s teams continued to play, and many garnered male support.
The 1980s was the watershed decade for women’s football, with
teams gaining stability and momentum. By the time the final vestiges
of the ban on women’s football disappeared, in 1983, the sport had
already experienced something of a boom.
One of the most notable features of the effervescence of wom-
en’s football in the 1980s was its close relationship to the dynamic
feminist movement in Brazil. Unlike in neighboring Argentina, in
Brazil feminists made remarkable efforts to take up the banner of
women’s sports. Indeed, Brazilian feminists identified their exclu-
sion from the national sport as an important part of their oppres-
sion. The magazine Mulherio took the lead in calling attention to
the continued exclusion of women from football. It pointed to the
fact that no woman served on the eleven-member council of sports,
as well as to the profits that men gained from the sport.113 Even
after the ban was overturned, feminists noted that the governing
bodies remained bastions of sexism. In 1982, feminists organized
the first National Festival of Women in the Arts, in which football
played a significant role.114 The festival, held from September 3–12,
featured international figures such as the singer Mercedes Sosa and
the Bolivian activist Domitila Chúngara. The final event of the fes-
tival was a football match between women’s select teams from Rio
and São Paulo. The match was a preliminary to an official match
between Corinthians and São Paulo, and was held at the Estádio de
Morumbi. Even though it was highly irregular—the first half lasted
134FUTBOLERA

eighteen minutes and the second half only ten—that it was officiated
by the veteran referee Olten Aires de Abreu and played at an official
stadium raised red flags with Brazilian sporting authorities.115
When the Confederação Brasileira de Futebol (Brazilian Football
Confederation, CBF) found out about the festival, it attempted to
stop the match. In late September 1982 the Federação Paulista de
Futebol (Paulista Football Federation) sent a circular to member
clubs explaining that the ban on women’s football was still in force.
Roseli Cordeiro Filardo, better known as Rose do Rio, took action.
The circular stated that members could not allow games of affili-
ated clubs, could not cede fields or training grounds for women’s
matches, and could not permit women’s matches to be played as
preliminaries.116 Rose had already organized another women’s game
to be played between select teams from Rio and São Paulo as a
preliminary to a match pitting Palmeiras against Corinthians. When
word of the memo reached the public, she hired two lawyers, who
traveled to Brasília to meet with the minister of education and cul-
ture, Esther de Figueiredo Ferraz.117 According to Rose, more than
two hundred women’s teams were already active in Rio.118
Among the clubs that formed and quickly gained momentum was
the Paraná Esporte Clube of Curitiba, formed in the 1980–1981
season.119 The team played eighteen games that season. In 1982, a
select team of Futebol Amador de Luziânia played against the selec-
tion of Juniors de Brasília in Estádio Francisco das Chagas Rocha,
near Brasília.120 The match was well received, and one newspaper
reported that women were no longer “mere spectators” for the
people of Luziânia.121 This sentiment was echoed by Ultima Hora,
whose writer explained that women’s football was losing its status
as a spectacle and becoming respectable.122
The CND finally ended the ban on women’s football with the
publication of Deliberação do CND 01/83 on April 11, 1983. When
the decision was made by the CND in 1983 to permit women’s
football, it referred to rules put in place by the Union of European
Football Associations to govern the women’s game. In Curitiba,
Diário da Tarde published the decision in its entirety and commented
that many women players and teams in Paraná had been awaiting
Brazilian Sportswomen Defying Prohibition  135

FIGURE 3.4. National Women’s Festival, São Paulo, 1982. Courtesy of Museu
do Futebol, Acervo Rose do Rio.

it.123 Futboleras and their supporters organized a number of events in

celebration. The neighborhood of Nova Orleans in Curitiba in par-
ticular had a vibrant community of futboleras. Jair de Lucca, presi-
dent of the Associação Beneficente Esportiva Flamengo, or Flamengo
(not to be confused with the Rio club of the same name), organized
a women’s championship in the city, which included the teams of
Frigorifico Túlio, Vasquinho, Flamengo, Lojas Stival, Iguaçu, and
Brasinha. This was the second tournament organized by Flamengo,
and according to Lucca, the first had made a significant profit.124
Women athletes and their allies had pressured the Brazilian foot-
ball institutions enough that 1983 saw what was incorrectly billed as
the first women’s football tournament in São Paulo, promoted by the
municipal secretary of sports. In fact, the tournament highlighted the
underground survival of the sport over the more than forty-year ban.
When the tournament was announced, at least forty teams signed
up for the cup.125 More important, however, some sports institutions
began to give tentative support to the women’s game. In 1983, São
136FUTBOLERA

Paulo’s Municipal Secretariat of Sports started a women’s football

school for girls fourteen years or older. The idea supposedly came
from the municipal secretary, Andrade Figueira, though it was likely
the ex-player Rose do Rio who came up with the plan. Rose was
to run the school, which met twice a week in the afternoon at the
Estádio Distrital da Aclimação.126
By 1984 there were 3,000 women’s football teams scattered
throughout the country and 1,615 players registered with the Football
Federation of Rio de Janeiro. By 1987 the numbers would jump to
40,000 women and girls.127 The most famous team was sponsored
by Esporte Clube Radar of Copacabana, known simply as Radar.
The club itself had been founded in 1931, but in 1981 the club pres-
ident, the promoter Eurico Lira, organized a women’s football sec-
tion. Begun on the beaches of Rio de Janeiro, the team eventually
borrowed practice fields inside the Casa de Marinheiro, a sports
and recreation facility for Brazilian naval officers and their families.
Given access to naval facilities at a time when the Brazilian Navy
only hired women as secretaries, they practiced for five hours or
more per day.128 Radar toured Spain in 1982 and won every match,
and their players were semiprofessional, although they earned only
60,000 cruzeiros per month.129 Radar gained a good deal of press
attention as women’s football grew. From its founding in 1981 until
1983, the team went 76–0.130 One of Radar’s star players was an
eighteen-year-old known as Pelezinha.131 In many ways, her story
was like that of many of her teammates. She began playing seriously
at age ten with her brothers, two of whom played professionally,
and then joined a futsal team at the Club Renascença in Andaraí at
age thirteen before she started playing on the beach with Radar.132
The club then gave her a job as a receptionist in order for her to be
able to complete her education. Indeed, Radar sought to ensure that
all of its players had job training and an education.133
Radar’s players saw themselves as pioneers. Some, such as
Cândida Levy Pestana, believed that they were the first women in
Brazil to play football. The twenty-four-year-old Andréa Ribas
explained that most of the players had begun playing as kids in
the late 1960s and early 1970s, when it was considered even more
Brazilian Sportswomen Defying Prohibition  137

taboo for girls to play. Rodrigues dos Santos, the Radar trainer,
told the press he preferred coaching women because they played a
purer form of the game.134 Of course, players still had to contend
with stereotypes about women footballers. Ribas defended herself
against the male gaze by arguing that women were not masculinized
by playing. Moreover, she called attention to the intelligence of the
young women on her team.135 Because of the belief that the game
was too strenuous for women, in 1983 women still only played a
seventy-minute game and used smaller balls. Radar, as a national
and international women’s football power, sought support from the
state. The club’s president, Eurico Lira, met with the secretary of
tourism and sports, Trajano Ribeiro. Ribeiro helped Radar to secure
patrons for the Brazilian championship.136 Lira took the team to
Spain, where they defeated a Madrid team 11–1. Radar also played
in Castilha, Alicante. Lira called the Radar tour of Spain a historic
moment, the first time that a South American women’s team went
to Europe to play.137 The players were amazed at where football
had taken them. Pelezinha remarked that she had “never dreamed
that one day I would go to Europe,” let alone as a football player.138
The club planned to tour the United States in 1983, with stops in
Tampa Bay, Orlando, Miami, Washington, and New York, for the
first preliminaries of the American championship. Yet despite their
success, Radar could not pay for their everyday expenses. In the end
Banco BRJ sponsored the club, covering about half of its operating
budget.139
In 1984, Eurico Lira of Radar and Fábio Lazzari, the sports pro-
motion director of the São Paulo city sports department and the
president of the Brazilian Association of Women’s Football Clubs,
claimed that João Havelange had become excited by the idea of
a Brazilian national team.140 Yet plans did not materialize. The
player and activist Rose do Rio hoped to organize a national team
in 1984, and to use the resources of Palmeiras as the team base.141
The Palmeiras coach Oscar Paulino supported Rose’s efforts, yet
significant forces within football obstructed the project. While space
was available at Parque Antárctica or Estádio Palestra Itália (where
Palmeiras played, now known as Allianz Parque), the Palmeiras
138FUTBOLERA

FIGURE 3.5. Rose do Rio, the Brazilian football player and activist. Courtesy of
Museu do Futebol, Acervo Rose do Rio.

director Hugo Palaia called women’s football absurd and blocked

the plan.142 In the end, Lira used Radar players to compete and per-
sonally funded the Brazilian women’s appearance at the 1988 FIFA
Women’s Invitation Tournament in China.143
Rose do Rio was among the most important advocates for wom-
en’s football. Her playing career highlights the precarious nature of
women’s football in Brazil in the 1980s. She played for various clubs,
including American Denim, Acisul, Radar, Beija Flor, and Roma EC.
None of these clubs—with the exception of Radar—offered much
in the way of stability. In 1986 she traveled to Spain, representing
Brazil with Radar, and she continued her contributions to women’s
football after her playing career ended. She served as president of
the Associação de Futebol Feminino do Estado do Rio de Janeiro
(Women’s Football Association of the State of Rio de Janeiro)
and was the first woman to obtain a coaching license in Brazil, in
1989.144 Rose mobilized support for candidates for directory posi-
tions, including the candidacy of Onaireves Nilo Rolim de Moura
for president of the Paranaense Football Federation.145 Rose was also
Brazilian Sportswomen Defying Prohibition  139

friends with some male players and received key support from them.
For example, Ubiraci Ferreira dos Santos went on the record with
Rose calling for men to support women’s football.146 In 1985 Rose
asked the former national team star Zico, at that time the secretary
of sports, for help in developing women’s football.147 In large part,
she was frustrated at every turn by leaders of sports associations.
Rose do Rio and Club Radar created the conditions for the first
generation of professional women players. Among them, the star
player Sisleide do Amor Lima, known as “Sissi,” became one of
the world’s premier players in the 1980s and 1990s. Growing up
in Esplenada, in the northeastern state of Bahia, Sissi began playing
football while it was still prohibited. Her mother struggled to under-
stand her daughter’s passion for the game. In her adolescence Sissi
fought for space on boys’ teams, recalling, “They were mean to me.
They told me that football was for men, not girls.”148 At fifteen years
old, Sissi went to play for SC Bahia in the state capital of Salvador.
The rumors of what Radar was starting in Rio excited her, and even-
tually she landed a spot on the first national team and subsequently
played football for Radar, as well as futsal for Corinthians in São
Paulo. She explained that the nature of professionalism under Lira’s
Radar meant the players did not receive salaries, but Radar pro-
vided their food, lodging, transportation, and clothing. Although
Sissi remembered the excitement of that era, she also recognized
the deep sexism and homophobia players faced. “There were con-
sequences for being who you were,” she explained. “The coaches
told us to keep closeted, and if you were gay you might not be
called up anymore because of that.” When Sissi shaved her head,
she faced outright hostility and could not play in the Paulista tour-
naments, because the federation required women to wear long hair.
Despite winning the 1999 Women’s World Cup Golden Boot award,
Sissi’s opportunities were bleak in Brazil. She found a home, along-
side greats like Brandi Chastain, in the US professional league, the
Women’s United Soccer Association (WUSA), in the early 2000s,
paving the way for the next generation of Brazilian futboleras.
The growth of women’s football led to its increased, and consid-
erably more positive, press coverage, again helped along by Andrade
140FUTBOLERA

Figueira. Television and radio began to broadcast women’s games as

well. For example, Rede Bandeirantes transmitted Isis POP’s game
against Internacional of Porto Alegre. Other women emerged along-
side Rose do Rio as darlings of the sporting press, including Helen
Cristiane of Isis POP. And, as with the 1930s era, the media helped
grow the sport. Notices of matches often included information
about where young women could play. One clipping from the press
told women interested in the sport to head to Centro Educacional
do Tatuapé.149 Another article, from 1982, published a telephone
number for interested players to call.150 During interviews, play-
ers frequently mentioned the telephone calls between players and
how important improvements in communication were to creating
clubs. Still, gendered notions of women on the field persisted in
some circles. A 1985 article about Radar in Placar, entitled “The
Invincibles,” detailed the strength of the team and their commitment
to the game. At the same time, the article described some of the
players, providing their weight, height, and bust size.151
The growth of women’s football—and women’s sports more gen-
erally—also led, in 1984, to the creation of the first sports section
in a feminist magazine. That year Mulherio began a sports section
that focused on women athletes, particularly those headed to the
1984 Olympic Games. The writers at Mulherio considered the rapid
development of women’s sports in the 1960s and 1970s as crucial
to challenging pervasive medical concepts that categorized women’s
bodies as defective because they had a uterus, breasts that needed
protection, and monthly menstruation.152 The authors pointed to
women athletes breaking records at the Olympic Games while men-
struating, and highlighted the explosion of women athletes in Rio
in 1984. In that year, there were nine thousand women swimmers in
Rio, two hundred women registered with the Rio Judo Federation,
and thirty women boxers. The magazine emphasized that football
was the most sensitive sport, given that it had been prohibited by
the CND until the year before. Mulherio’s sports page targeted a
wide range of practices that disadvantaged women and perpetuated
stereotypes about women’s sports and women athletes. Physical ed-
ucation programs, for example, were singled out as being highly
Brazilian Sportswomen Defying Prohibition  141

unequal.153 So too sports journalism became a focus of feminist

exposé. Female reporters, the magazine noted, were not allowed
to enter locker rooms with the other journalists.154 The magazine
focused on how the lack of women’s voices had contributed to the
construction of a patriarchal media.
By 1984 women’s football had developed enough that the for-
mer president of the CND, General Cesar Montagna, recognized
the growth, diffusion, and benefits of women’s football. Indeed, his
own daughter played for the club Teresópolis. Although the daugh-
ters of Montagna and of Marcio Braga, the president of Flamengo,
joined the ranks of women’s football, according to contemporary
press reports most female athletes came from poor families. The
popular Pelezinha, the eighteen-year-old “queen of the beach,” was
from a working-class background.155 Hortencia, who played for the
Brazilian women’s basketball team that won the bronze medal at the
1983 Pan-American Games, claimed that poor female athletes per-
formed better because their parents had fewer preconceived notions
and were more willing to let their daughters try to make a living
outside “traditional” social norms. At the time, Hortencia received
a good deal of press coverage and was forthcoming on feminist is-
sues. Nonetheless, while defending women’s right to play sports and
criticizing those who opposed women athletes, she felt it necessary
to defend her heterosexuality. She explicitly sought to change the
standards of beauty in Brazil to allow for muscled women to be con-
sidered sexy, explaining that “no one believed I was a woman. The
whole world called me a man.” However, she continued, “it never
humiliated me because I like myself the way I am.”156 She explained
that men regularly tried to shame women basketball players by call-
ing them sapatões, slang for lesbians. Yet while she criticized men
for their sexist attitudes, she expressed a complex relationship with
the stereotype. “I was never called that,” she noted, “because I’m
not.”157 In other words, she implied that there was justification for
calling certain women lesbians, and it was derisive.
Not all female athletes embraced feminist ideas, even as the bur-
geoning feminist movement vocally supported them. Isabel, who
played football for the Porto Alegre club Internacional, described
142FUTBOLERA

the quest for gender equality as “silly.”158 This might have been
part of a strategic discourse to increase support for women’s sports,
but it played a role in shaping the conversation around women’s
football. Isabel’s attitude served as fodder for those who believed
that women’s football was a diversion rather than a serious sport.
Sexism, of course, remained a part of women’s football. From con-
stant discussion in newspaper articles about the appearance and
beauty of women players to hostility from fans, that much remained
clear. Radar’s Cenira, for example, recalled being told by a member
of the crowd that she should be doing laundry and washing clothes
instead of playing.159 Further reinforcing the patriarchal stereotypes
about women’s football, the women’s 1985 Taça Brasil de Futebol
Feminino (Brazilian Women’s Football Cup) included a “most beau-
tiful player” award.160
Violence accompanied the women’s sport—just as it did the
men’s—throughout the 1980s. According to some scholars, cheating
and violence played a big role in the failure of women’s football in the
decade. In 1983, the Rio de Janeiro city football federation received
forty-two lawsuits dealing with women’s football. The clubs Radar
and Bangú, in particular, were known for their violent rivalry. When
Bangú lost to Radar in 1983, its manager, Castor de Andrade, beat up
the referee Ricardo Ferreira.161 Video from a 1983 match between
Radar and Goías shows the anger that the teams aimed toward the
showman-referee Jorge Emiliano dos Santos, known as “Margarida.”162
When Margarida made a poor call against Goías, the players phys-
ically threatened him until he left the field. In the film clip, one can
see that both teams had passionate fans; male fans were also ready to
fight the opponents. In 1989, the “folkloric” and “polemical” referee
faced a two-year suspension for assaulting a player during the cham-
pionship between Radar and Saad.163 The referee punched a player
named Elaine in the mouth after she complained about a penalty
call. The CBF reviewed the case, but Elaine was displeased with the
outcome and took the case to local court. When Elaine arrived in
court she asked the judge for an apology from Margarida, which
she eventually received.164 The conflicts over women taking to the
Brazilian Sportswomen Defying Prohibition  143

pitch involved physical confrontations, judicial actions, and personal

arguments.

CONCLUSION

At first glance, it seems particularly strange that out of the most re-
pressive institutional and cultural contexts, Brazilian women’s foot-
ball has dominated the continental game since the end of its prohi-
bition. Once the continuity of teams in the provinces is taken into
account, however, it starts to make more sense. In interviews with
top Brazilian international players, almost all recalled playing on
boys’ teams until they traveled to Rio or São Paulo for Radar or the
national team. The embedded nature of football in Brazilian society
meant that women carved spaces for themselves to play in infor-
mal settings, in the neighborhood club, on the playground, and at
family gatherings. Radar went on to win six Rio championships in
the 1980s and to promote the sport internationally. Eurico Lira’s
club surprised everyone by placing third at the 1988 FIFA Women’s
Invitation Tournament in China. The 1991 World Cup team also
relied almost exclusively on Radar players. Following that tourna-
ment, however, Lira faced charges of sexually harassing players and
faded out of the women’s football scene.
As the sport began to gain traction, however tenuous, backlash
continued. Throughout the 1990s Brazilian women footballers were
criticized as unfeminine. Some sought to highlight their femininity
as a form of self-defense. Milene Domingues, who played for the
national team and Corinthians, among other clubs, became—
according to the Jornal do Futebol—the “symbol of women’s foot-
ball.” With her blonde hair and blue eyes, she was the perfect pinup
for those seeking to dispel notions of football as masculinizing.
Domingues first signed up for Corinthians as a seventeen-year-old,
and had already achieved fame for keeping a ball in the air over fifty-
five thousand touches while juggling. An interview with the Jornal
do Futebol presented Domingues to the broader Brazilian football
world. She showed awareness of the struggle that women had gone
144FUTBOLERA

through to play football in Brazil, and expressed the belief that the
sport was on solid ground.165 And in part, she was right. After all,
Brazil had finished fourth in women’s football at the 1996 and 2000
Olympic Games and finished second in 2004. The Canarinha, or
women’s national team, also won at the 2003 Pan-American Games.
In other ways, however, she might have been overly optimistic. The
fact that she was the symbol of Brazilian women’s football suggests
that the sport still needed to defend the heterosexuality of the play-
ers. That she was briefly married to Ronaldo further cemented her
status. Domingues further raised the status of women’s football in
Brazil when she was transferred to Rayo Vallecano in Spain in 2002.166
The foregrounding of white, blonde Brazilian women players was
only one way that the Brazilian media objectified women footballers.
In 1995, Placar, the major Brazilian sports magazine, published an
issue with women’s football on the cover—only the cover was of
four women in a hot pants version of the Brazilian national team
uniform, pictured from behind. Rather than playing, they were touch
ing each other suggestively. One woman was spanking another, while
two others rubbed against each other. The cover text read: “The girls
know how to play ball (and even exchange shirts after the game).”167
The juxtaposition of the title’s first and second halves, when combined
with the image of sexualized women, only served to marginalize fut-
boleras and to support men’s fantasies rather than women’s football.
Sadly, Brazilian women players have continued to face objec-
tification, harassment, and neglect from the CBF and mainstream
sports media throughout the 2000s. The federation consistently
failed to provide necessary resources and training opportunities
to the women’s squad. In the 2011 World Cup, Brazil arrived in
Germany with less time in camp than other squads and less time to
acclimate. Fatigue and inadequate conditioning played a major role
in the Canarinha’s early exit. Three incidents since 2015 highlight
how far the Brazilian sporting establishment still has to go. During
the 2015 FIFA Women’s World Cup, the CBF women’s football di-
rector Marco Cunha applauded players for dressing more feminine.
After the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio, when the Brazilian women
had captured the attention of the nation like never before, playing to
Brazilian Sportswomen Defying Prohibition  145

sold-out stadiums and rivaling the men’s team in popularity, the CBF
announced cuts to the women’s program. And in 2017 Brazil fired
its first woman head coach, Emily da Cunha Lima, after less than a
year on the job. Her dismissal appeared to be a breaking point for
many players: five senior players retired, and top stars wrote an open
letter to the CBF demanding change. The pressure to market them-
selves, or to render women’s football marketable, has resulted in the
“femming up” of the national team, as well as the “whitening” and
the “closeting” of players. Whereas in the late 1980s, the Brazilian
national team fielded women with short hair, without makeup, and
from diverse racial backgrounds, in the 2010s, the team had hardly
any Afro-Brazilian players, and nearly all of the players sported
long ponytails. None identified openly as gay. When we interviewed
two former Radar and national team players, Sissi and Taffarel,
they expressed astonishment that the situation for women’s football
in Brazil had not improved significantly since the 1980s.168 Even
with unprecedented fame, the Brazilian star Marta Vieira da Silva,
better known simply as Marta, earned just about $45,000 with the
Orlando Pride, while her counterpart with Orlando City SC, Kaká,
pulled in $6.5 million. Thus, the field of Brazilian football, domes-
tically and abroad, has continued to be awash in sexism.
Throughout Latin America in the twentieth century, women’s
involvement in football ran the gamut from acting as godmothers
of clubs, to running fan clubs, to writing groundbreaking sports
journalism. More than anything, though, women’s involvement in-
cluded playing the game. At every turn, men’s football institutions,
governments, and the media sought to suppress the sport. Perhaps
nowhere were these efforts more explicit, and on the surface more
effective, than in Brazil. Public health experts railed against the
sport, claiming that it was too rough and thus unnatural for femi-
nine harmony. Women whose bodies failed to develop softness and
suppleness could not fulfill their “primordial duty” of motherhood.
Thus, they risked the “extinction of their descendants,” and by ex-
tension, the nation.169
Despite the institutional efforts to keep them out of the football
world, women found a way to be engaged in the game. Women like
146FUTBOLERA

Elisa Alves do Nascimento and Dulce Rosalina worked their way

to the top of fan organizations and wielded power and commanded
respect. Semíramis Alves Teixeira, for her part, showed Brazil that
women could conduct professional interviews and speak intelligently
about football. However, the general public quickly forgot these
pioneers. Players and supporters of women’s football, too, played in
the face of official sanction and threats. From the moment that the
CND was formed and banned women from playing football, women
ignored the ban. Moreover, they actively and knowingly resisted the
prohibition. They wrote letters challenging the patriarchal attitudes
of so-called experts, they petitioned the CND to change its deci-
sion on women’s football, and, just as important, they continued to
play. Realizing that they would receive little in the way of support
from male-dominated institutions, women acted themselves. They
established teams, organized games, and found allies willing to aid
the sport.
Ultimately, the work of women football players like Rose do Rio
and the associations she helped to create in São Paulo and Rio laid
the groundwork for Brazil’s participation in world football in the
1990s. That Brazil was able to build a competitive national team
a mere decade after the prohibition on women’s football was lifted
highlights the fact that the ban was never effective in the first place.
The efforts of generations of women who played illicitly eventually
resulted in the first stable local, regional, and national women’s as-
sociations. In the early 1980s, the relationship of futboleras to the
feminist movement contributed to the discussion of women’s rights
in Brazil at the critical moment of democratization. Moreover, femi-
nist leaders created an important set of arguments that placed sports
within the broader claims for gender equality.
4
PHYSICAL EDUCATION AND
WOMEN’S SPORTS IN MEXICO
AND CENTRAL AMERICA

WHEREAS IN ARGENTINA AND CHILE THE DEMAND FOR

physical education came from low-level bureaucrats, in Mexico and
Central America governments played a heavier hand in shaping girls’
exercise in schools. At the same time, however, advocates of women’s
sports also encountered stronger resistance, ranging from objections
of conservative parents to congressional inquiries. While different
political forces competed to control curricula in the Southern Cone,
in Mexico the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) and its prede-
cessors, the National Revolutionary Party (PRN) and the Mexican
Revolutionary Party (PRM), created a hegemonic apparatus that
extended into the countryside. Mexican state officials understood
sports, as did the Costa Rican governments of the midcentury, as
an important diplomatic tool. They pioneered spectacle and sports
events throughout the twentieth century. As revolutionary rhetoric
of democracy began to dominate Mexican politics, there was an
important reevaluation of the privileging of European culture. Still,
however integrative the organizers hoped these events would be,
in the end they still emphasized European sporting activities. This
chapter attempts to balance a sensitive consideration of local his-
torical conditions, while also connecting and comparing different
national contexts.
Hand in hand with the changes sweeping Latin American eco-
nomic and political systems in the late nineteenth and early twentieth
centuries, including urbanization, immigration, and the development
of export industries, came debates about proper gender roles. The
new economic and social realities of many Latin American nations

147
148FUTBOLERA

demanded women be active in the workforce simply for families to

survive. Yet much of the drive for change came neither from soci-
ety at large nor from the logic of capitalist development, but from
women themselves. Aware of the possibilities afforded them by a
more open political and social system, women began to advocate
for increased rights.
At the same time, as discussed in relation to Argentina, Brazil,
and Chile, the image of the ideal woman in Latin America shifted
with the tenor of the times. For many in the region, the traditional
roles of women—living a sheltered, more or less homebound exis-
tence—were outdated. In their place appeared new role models for
“modern girls” or “new women.” These were supposed to be more
partners for men than mere servants, able to hold male interest as
much for their intellect and engagement as for their appearance. To
that end, the education of women and girls became an important
element of creating modern citizens. Even for those who saw the rise
of women working outside the home as a threat and who hewed
to more “traditional” values, educating girls was seen as critical.
But education was more than formal schooling (and indeed, across
the region, advances in education for girls progressed unevenly).
Rather, it included in an equally important role what we might call
“informal education”: reading newspapers and magazines, going
to movies, attending sporting events, and being exposed, in other
words, to a range of life outside the confines of the home. These
experiences were, in the eyes of supporters of the new woman, part
and parcel of improving women’s happiness and the national health.
State officials, journalists, and other public figures who attempted
to consolidate national identities in the early twentieth century spot-
lighted women’s roles as mothers. To raise healthy, active citizens,
women needed to be both educated and healthy themselves. Influ-
enced by then-popular Social Darwinist ideas of race and evolution,
the eugenic movement, and “scientific” racism, Latin Americans
looked for ways to “improve” their “race,” including the recruit-
ment of immigrants from Europe, but also the redefinition of moth-
erhood and femininity. They used eugenic ideas, which argued that
selective breeding could create a stronger, more intelligent, and,
WOMEN’S SPORTS IN MEXICO AND CENTRAL AMERICA 149

important for national elites, whiter population. As mothers and care-

givers, women formed the linchpin of these policies. No longer could
they be confined to the home and sheltered from the realities of the
world. To the contrary, women were expected to be educated and
able to pass on to their sons and daughters the national values and
norms.
Even before the rise of Porfirio Díaz in 1876, liberals in Mexico
viewed the public education system as a way to modernize the na-
tion, secularize society, and “civilize” its people. Mandatory primary
education was suggested as early as 1867, when Mexico City made
it obligatory. Roughly half of Mexican states adopted legal stat-
utes requiring it by 1875. According to José Díaz Covarrubias, the
minister of justice and public instruction from 1872 to 1876, the
view of education as a vehicle for modernity reached back as far as
the administration of Benito Juárez. As minister of education, Díaz
Covarrubias outlined a detailed educational program in efforts to
create modern Mexican citizens. His plan included physics, chemis-
try, mathematics, grammar, and, importantly, “hygienic gymnastics”
for both boys and girls. In order to create well-educated youth, he
argued, it was important to gain the “fundamental principles” of all
subjects rather than to study one thing in isolation.1 The goal of gym-
nastics was not to create “acrobats [funámbulo] and athletes,” but
rather “to develop . . . moderately, different parts of the body.”
Gymnastics, as Díaz Covarrubias saw it, consisted in “bodily move-
ments regulated by strength and the use of muscles, taking advan-
tage of the mechanical conditions of the human body.”2 Marching,
jumping, running—all of these were to be practiced in moderation
in order to “improve the race.”3 That other Latin American nations
(which Díaz Covarrubias did not name) and much of Europe were
using these techniques made the practice all the more important for
“children and youth of both sexes.”4
In this regard, the physical education landscape in Mexico prior
to the revolution was not markedly different from that of Argentina,
Brazil, or Chile. Concerns over the eugenic health of the nation and
women’s beauty surfaced in debates about women’s physical activ-
ity. Public health experts and physical education teachers suggested
150FUTBOLERA

gymnastics, swimming, and even baseball as ways to create women

who were healthy but whose physical activity did not compromise
their feminine beauty. The focus of physical education, and physical
culture more broadly, was to maintain, according to Monica Chávez
Gónzalez, the “differentiation and inequality between genders.”5
This attention to maintaining gender differences meant that physical
education factored in the social uses of male and female bodies. Or,
put more plainly by Porfirian thinkers in the education journal La
Enseñanza Primaria, physical education such as gymnastics should
“correspond exactly to [women’s] delicate and fragile constitutions,”
as well as their “complex physiological functions.”6 Gender-specific
physical education, in other words, was the norm.
Still, under the Porfiriato, the development of an educational sys-
tem received crucial support, even if it remained strikingly under-
funded in the countryside. Justo Sierra, Porfirio Díaz’s secretary of
education from 1905 to 1911, sought to model the Mexican system
after that of France, believing it to be the ideal system for a modern
republic. Though it would not be until after the Mexican Revolution
that physical education became a part of the state educational cur-
riculum, interest in physical culture gripped the country during the
Porfiriato as well. The elite of Mexico City and larger towns in the
central valley began riding bicycles, while baseball had entered the
northern border region and the Yucatán Peninsula by the late 1800s.
In other words, sports and physical education spread organically
around the country. The institutional manifestation of the govern-
ment’s enthusiasm for gymnastics and modernity occurred in the
Escuela Nacional Preparatoria (National Preparatory High School)
and the Heroico Colegio Militar (Heroic Military College), as well
as in elite private clubs such as the Porfirio Díaz Central Circle of
Mexican Gymnastics. Through these institutions, Porfirian officials
hoped to create a scientific physical culture that would create more
racially fit men. At the grassroots level, police intervened in sports at
an unprecedented level, regulating the use of the bicycle and shutting
down boxing matches.7
The tie between modern life and physical culture came from
both private institutions and the state. The Young Men’s Christian
WOMEN’S SPORTS IN MEXICO AND CENTRAL AMERICA 151

Association (YMCA) opened its first branch in Mexico City in

1902, ostensibly for the American community there.8 By 1904 the
Mexican YMCA had two branches in Mexico City, as well as one
in Monterrey. A Chihuahua branch would open in 1907, and by
the outbreak of the revolution, Tampico also boasted a YMCA. The
YMCA made the link between organized physical activity, individual
development, and national progress explicit, advertising programs
that would help young men gain life skills. While there is little men-
tion of women’s activities in the YMCA, they did exist. For example,
a 1910 excursion to Xochimilco featured races for boys and girls,
as well as “indoor baseball for everyone.”9 But the YMCA appears
to have had little influence in rural Mexico, at least until after the
Mexican Revolution.
Beginning in the 1920s and continuing through the 1940s, suc-
cessive governments sought to connect themselves to sports and
physical education. With the former, they attempted to harness pop-
ular culture to their own ends. With the latter, they tried to engineer
that culture and Mexican society more broadly. Although important
distinctions separate the revolutionary and postrevolutionary govern-
ments of Venustiano Carranza (1917–1920), Álvaro Obregón (1920–
1924), Plutarco Elías Calles (1924–1928), and Lázaro Cárdenas
(1934–1940), all constructed stadiums, organized sporting events,
and publicly connected themselves to sports, particularly baseball
and football.
These sports had developed independent of state support or
stimulus. In the case of baseball, the sport arrived in the Yucatán
Peninsula with henequen production in the late 1800s and spread
throughout the northern border territories. Football, on the other
hand, developed as it did in much of the region—in elite sports
clubs and in manufacturing towns. The Reforma Athletic Club was
among the first places to see football played. The sport also caught
on rapidly with miners in Pachuca and Real del Monte after being
introduced by English engineers. Elsewhere in Mexico’s central val-
ley, textile workers and management in Orizaba formed a team at
the beginning of the twentieth century.10 Even before the revolu-
tion, in other words, football was popular, though by no means the
152FUTBOLERA

hegemonic sport, in much of Mexico. The postrevolutionary state

did support organized team sports such as baseball and football,
however, lending legitimacy to the practices of the people and pro-
viding important official backing to them. In 1919, for example,
President Venustiano Carranza granted an import tax exemption to
all sporting goods entering the country. Two years later, President
Álvaro Obregón provided federal funds for a football tournament
to celebrate the centennial of Mexican independence in 1921, and
gave the ceremonial first kick for the event. He also initiated a phys-
ical education regimen on all army bases in the country.11 Obregón
mandated that football be part of the curriculum, which had a two-
fold effect. On the one hand, it would create a sense of teamwork
and camaraderie among the troops. On the other, it helped diffuse
sports and physical education around the country—particularly to
rural and heavily indigenous areas, which the government sought
to homogenize. Mexican presidents began to attend sporting events
such as football matches and baseball games on a regular basis,
showing their approval for sports. The Copa Eliminatoria, the do-
mestic football championship, renamed the Copa Lázaro Cárdenas
in 1932, when the governor of Michoacán and future president do-
nated a new trophy, pitted teams from around the country against
each other. The cup brought players from different regions into con-
tact with one another on a regular basis.12 The state and national
governments did not exclusively support football. In the physical
education curricula, as well as in the cultural missions that sought
to modernize the countryside, basketball, baseball, and volleyball
received equal impetus. Sports became “a metaphor for the country’s
vitality and potential.”13

POSTREVOLUTIONARY MEXICAN
PHYSICAL EDUCATION

In Mexico, the revolution from 1910 to 1920 left a society with

deep divisions between rural and urban, modern and traditional.
Successive revolutionary governments sought to bridge these divides
in a variety of ways, including through educational programs meant
WOMEN’S SPORTS IN MEXICO AND CENTRAL AMERICA 153

to “civilize” the rural and mostly indigenous populations, in order

for them to conform to the goals of the modernizing state. To be-
come active citizens in the “new” Mexico meant a focus on individ-
ual development, particularly adopting the dietary, physical, dress,
and cultural habits of Europeans. These ideas were often modified
and adapted to fit the needs of local politicians and daily lives of
Mexicans. While the state sought to bring education to rural areas,
in many ways rural Mexico came to the capital. Beginning in 1850,
rural Mexicans began moving to Mexico City in ever larger num-
bers, so that by 1900 the city’s population had doubled to 500,000,
with fully 43 percent of that number being migrants.14 By the start
of the revolution the population of the city grew to 720,000, and
over the next ten years another 200,000 would move to the Federal
District as the population approached one million. The majority of
these migrants were women. Starting in the 1910s and continuing
throughout the course of the revolution, women from rural areas
moved to the capital, believing it to be a safer alternative to life
in the countryside. Such was the level of migration that by 1930,
roughly 55 percent of the city’s population was women.15 Even with
this migration, however, Mexico’s population remained predomi-
nantly rural, which posed a challenge for the new government.
In the views of postrevolutionary state crafters, men and women,
particularly those in rural areas, needed training in new modes of
citizenship. Sports and spectacle were one way to co-opt preexisting
pastimes to state-oriented ends, but education, both physical and in-
tellectual, became a crucial tool in state efforts to create new, modern
Mexicans. Starting with Álvaro Obregón’s Secretaría de Educación
Pública (Secretariat of Public Education, SEP) and its minister of
education, José Vasconcelos, successive Mexican governments im-
plemented physical education programs aimed at modernizing the
nation. The national government took responsibility for diffusing
education to the countryside, creating a system of rural schools,
which it provided with technical training and support. Reception of
these efforts in the countryside was mixed at best, as evidenced by
the Cristero Rebellion in 1926.16 The rebellion, in part a response
to Plutarco Elías Calles’s efforts to intensify the state’s incursion into
154FUTBOLERA

the countryside through education at the expense of the Church,

would cost nearly one hundred thousand lives. It directly affected
relations between many rural communities and the representatives
of the SEP—be they teachers or members of cultural missions.17 The
Cristeros’ antipathy for the teachers and their concern over state
efforts to roll back the importance of the Church likely carried over
to physical education as well, especially curricula that called for
girls’ and coed programs.
Nevertheless, the Mexican state persisted in its plans for rural
schools, seeing an “urgent necessity to create a new race; strong,
optimistic.”18 For the editors of Educación Física, there was only
one “infallible way to attain this patriotic proposition: physical
education.”19 This goal required extensive efforts at erasing ethnic
difference and expunging indigenous roots, which the state believed
could be done through the implantation of advanced educational
and physical education programs, among other methods. Whereas
the Chilean state physical education programs served elite public
institutions first and foremost, the Mexican state showed a greater
interest in bringing the state to the countryside in efforts to diffuse
state power down to the local level. According to Keith Brewster,
“mass sports formed part of a broader educational initiative de-
signed to break down the insularity of the provinces and convert”
the indigenous population into “useful members of society.”20
The rural school acted as the nexus of local needs, daily routines,
and state programs. Beginning in the 1920s, the revolutionary ad-
ministrations of Álvaro Obregón and Plutarco Elías Calles strove
to extend state authority into the far corners of the country. While
Mary Kay Vaughan rightly suggests that the Mexican countryside
was not as bereft of schools as the revolutionary government sug-
gested at the time, nevertheless the state in the 1920s expanded
opportunities exponentially.21 Under Obregón, the SEP created a
robust structure for education, including rural schools throughout
the countryside. Elías Calles placed greater emphasis on construct-
ing schools in the countryside. By 1928, for example, there were
over 4,800 rural teachers spread throughout the country.22 The na-
tional government took over administration of rural schools from
WOMEN’S SPORTS IN MEXICO AND CENTRAL AMERICA 155

the Mexican states and at the same time sought to disentangle the
Church from education altogether.
As the main representatives of the state in the countryside, rural
teachers were essential to SEP plans.23 According to the minister of
education, J. M. Puig Casauranc, teachers’ “social action” would
“overflow . . . from the poor little school and reaches the whole com-
munity, moving villagers to work for the collective good.”24 Social
solidarity, glued by common culture and leisure such as sports, took
on new importance in the late 1920s. The Mexican state augmented
rural education by creating regional normal schools. Instead of hav-
ing to travel to Mexico City for teacher training, students learned
basic educational theory and practice in these rural normal schools.
These teacher training facilities inculcated future teachers with the
correct pedagogical and political messages. As part of the curricula,
both female and male rural teachers received training in instruc-
tion on sports and physical education. Gender segregation in these
lessons varied from place to place. For example, the rural normal
school in Rioverde, San Luis Potosí, had no sports facilities when it
was established. Future teachers had to level the land where barley
fields and kilns once were in order to build basketball, volleyball,
and tennis courts. Students did not form teams, preferring to practice
all sports equally, and photographs show that these sports activities
were mixed boys and girls. By contrast, in Tixtla, Guerrero, teams
appear to have been gender segregated. Perhaps this was due to
the opposition that the normal school faced from parents. Initially,
many families refused to let their daughters go to classes with boys.25
Along with rural schools and regional normal schools, the SEP
sent cultural missions around the country to reach further into
Mexican society. Beginning in 1926, cultural missions traveled
around the country, staying in rural villages for three weeks at a time
in attempts to bring the state to the people. The missions worked
with rural teachers, often lacking in training and resources, to pro-
vide assistance in pedagogy and in how to assess local educational
needs.26 The cultural missions also established local musical groups,
crafts collectives, and sporting organizations, all of which were to be
supported by local teachers when the missions left. While the explicit
156FUTBOLERA

goal of the missions was to regularize teaching in rural Mexico, the

underlying aims revolved around the desire to improve Mexico’s “ra-
cial” stock, bring modern ideas of hygiene and family to the largely
indigenous population, and increase the rural citizenry’s attachment
to the revolutionary state. For this task, women were crucial. And
while the cultural missions, and rural schools more broadly, had ele-
ments of liberation in them, there were limits to what they could—or
wanted—to do. As Jocelyn Olcott points out, while many within
Mexican educational institutions sought radical change, upsetting
the patriarchy proved difficult.27 And so in many ways cultural mis-
sions also worked to reaffirm gender norms: they helped to establish
communal kitchens, developed sewing workshops, and taught home
economics classes as a way to both modernize Mexican women and
keep them in their traditional roles. A physical education instructor
traveled with each cultural mission, as physical well-being was con-
sidered a crucial part of uplifting the rural populations, and sports
were a way of building modern citizens and communities.
According to Rafael Ramírez, the director of cultural missions in
1927, the role of the physical education teacher was “threefold.”
First, physical education instructors were charged with instructing
rural teachers in sports, gymnastics, and games in order to create
a “balance with the intellectual activities of the teachers,” as well
as to give them the skills they needed to introduce the activities to
students. As a part of this role they were also supposed to organize
rural sporting festivals. Second, physical education instructors were
charged with “systematically” teaching sports, games, and gymnas-
tics to students, both for their own education and as demonstrations
of correct methods for the communities’ permanent teachers. Finally,
within the community the cultural missions established “sports
organizations.” The cultural missions trained teachers in physical
education instruction methods and created sports clubs that were
expected to carry on through local impetus.28
Instructions for community activities explicitly delineated activ-
ities “with men” and “with women,” though no clarification on
activities was provided.29 To this end, physical education professors
underwent refresher trainings in January 1927, not only on sports
WOMEN’S SPORTS IN MEXICO AND CENTRAL AMERICA 157

and gymnastics (calisthenic, rhythmic, and aesthetic) but also on

physiology and hygiene.30 In 1928 they received two hours of train-
ing per week, over four weeks, on football and basketball.31 And the
importance of physical education for the cultural missions and rural
schools could not have been more explicitly expressed. The cultural
missions were “creating habits of physical culture through games,
gymnastics, dancing, singing, and sports” as part of the state’s public
health and hygiene efforts. Once the cultural mission left, the ex-
pectation was that the rural teachers would build on the work done
by the mission. Teachers would help to establish athletic clubs for
men, while women and women teachers would “practice rhythmic
gymnastics.” They would all feel part of the same movement toward
improving public health, however, by wearing the same uniforms.32
Two aspects are striking when examining the regional reports of
the cultural missions. The vast majority of rural teachers, the targets
of training for the cultural missions and the rural normal schools,
were women. Moreover, girls comprised at least half of members
of the rural sports clubs founded by cultural mission programs. An
examination of the cultural mission records from the late 1920s
demonstrates that girls and women in rural areas participated in
sports in large numbers. In Sonora, for example, fifty-five of sixty
teachers were women. 33 Many sports clubs established by rural
cultural missions appear to have been mixed gender, while others
were all girls. In Sinaloa, Club Deportivo Anahuac, in Escuinapa,
comprised roughly twenty people, all of whom (from the very grainy
picture) appear to be girls. Photos of Club Deportivo Fenochio, in
Magdalena, on the other hand, show twelve boys and fifteen girls.
The club appears in two separate pictures, one of boys in tank tops
and shirts, the other of girls in the de rigueur physical education
attire: bloomers, white shirts, and ties. That the youth were segre-
gated by gender suggests that they participated in different events.
Their neighbors from Magdalena, Club Deportivo Femenil Excelsior,
comprised twelve girls. There, the mission organized sports clubs,
improved sports fields, and created facilities for tennis, volleyball,
basketball, and baseball for boys and girls.34 Other missions clearly
helped to organize girls into athletic teams, as was the case in
158FUTBOLERA

Chihuahua and San Luis Potosí.35 In Nayarit, the sports learned by

local rural educators included those already mentioned, but also
horseback riding, swimming, and football.36
Throughout Mexico, in all of the villages that the cultural mis-
sions visited, state officials sought to explain “the importance of
Physical Education for children and youth,” as well as the value of
sports for the “evolution” and “awakening of ideals” among the
population. At the same time, the Mexican government expressed
the hope that physical education and sports would impart “moral
customs” and the belief that they were “a sure agent of culture and
moralization.”37 In the 1930s, educational experts in the SEP also
sought to use sports to encourage sobriety of campesinos. Moreover,
sports would ingrain the rural peasants with discipline and just the
right amount of competitiveness.38 The Mexican government sought
to create more engaged and active citizenship, inculcated with the
values of revolutionary Mexico. To that end, it sought a literate
public, aware of its rights and attuned to its role as economic pro-
ducers. Still, what the cultural missions meant by “morals” and
“ideals” was so abstract that the idea evaded definitive descriptions.
Clearly, through sports the missions sought to encourage temper-
ance, physical stamina, and secularism. And women, according to
many cultural missionaries, were the surest agents of social change.
Women’s physical education and physical culture were crucial for
Mexico’s development, according to Caterina Vesta Sturges, a femi-
nist and cultural missionary. For Vesta Sturges, women were “called
urgently to take part” in the regeneration of Mexico. As the caretak-
ers of Mexico’s future generations, the importance of mothers, and
modern motherhood, could not be overstated. In order to integrate
rural women into modern life, she argued, women needed to have
opportunities for vibrant “recreation and social life,” the benefits
of which “favored physical and spiritual well-being.” These activ-
ities would keep women from an “empty life” that would lead to
“coquetry and malice” and distract them from their national duty.39
The underscoring of coquetry reflected the policing of rural women’s
sexuality, a task the state readily assumed from the Catholic Church.
In practice, both institutions increased their control over women’s
WOMEN’S SPORTS IN MEXICO AND CENTRAL AMERICA 159

bodies. Physical education molded girls’ and young women’s move-

ments, their physical habits. To extend the limbs, to jump, to run in
public spaces must have felt liberating for many girls. Furthermore,
the mixed-gender structure of many clubs and physical education
activities would have been a radical departure from the norm for
much of rural Mexico.
Despite lofty state rhetoric, local communities needed persuasion
to convince them that girls needed physical education. In Tixtla,
for example, where physical education had gone “completely un-
attended,” Rodolfo Bonilla, the head of the rural normal school,
initially encountered problems with the young women in the class.
Bonilla insisted that for physical education classes the students wear
special clothes, which were “considered an attack on [feminine] deli-
cateness.” With some cajoling, including inviting mothers to observe
the class, Bonilla was able to convince the young women to wear
the gym uniforms. He also reported that he was very successful in
raising interest among girls and young women for physical fitness
and sports. Of the six basketball teams organized by the normal
school, two of them were teams of “señoritas.” While there is no evi-
dence that women played football, it is likely that they were at least
watching matches and kicking a ball with friends. There is evidence
that other nearby regional normal schools established women’s bas-
ketball as well. Bonilla reported that the Tixtla women defeated the
corresponding team from Chilpancingo.40 Still, while the state moved
to create new women, it did not want to go too far to overturn pa-
triarchal norms. It is worth recalling the “War on the Pelonas” that
conservative young men waged in Mexico City at the same time.
The hairstyles, clothing, and habits of the “flapper” provoked some
young men to violence in order to put women back in their places.41
In the countryside as well, the conservatism of the peasantry had
not been wiped out by the suppression of the Cristero Rebellion, so
even with increased physical education, a strong social order based
on strict gender roles remained.
The impact of the rural normal schools and the cultural missions
that supported them was noted by many, including foreign visi-
tors. Elizabeth Curtiss, the general secretary of the Young Women’s
160FUTBOLERA

Christian Association (YWCA), noted the effectiveness of the

Mexican state’s efforts to educate the rural population. “Never in
all my travels,” she wrote, “have I seen such efficacious constructive
work in rural populations.” Though she thought that the cultural
missions should lengthen their stays (generally three weeks per com-
munity), she “hoped that no future circumstances” would “impede
. . . the growth of this splendid program.”42 For the Mexican Jovita
Boone de Cortina, president of the public health committee of the
National Council of Women, the introduction of sports, such as
basketball, gymnastics, and volleyball, was a “marvelous success.”43
Not everyone, however, believed team sports were optimal for girls.
Luís F. Obregón, a physical education professor and a member of
the SEP cultural missions, advocated a curriculum for girls’ physi-
cal education limited to rhythmic gymnastics and “simple rhythmic
dances.” For boys and young men, on the other hand, Obregón
recommended “calisthenic gymnastics, the formation of pyramids,
and the initiation of athletic competition.”44
This type of top-down organization in the countryside continued
through the 1930s. Even with the work of the cultural missions and
rural normal schools, the national government in Mexico City con-
fronted challenges diffusing physical education in the countryside.
In 1935, the government of Nuevo León published the Manual de
educación física (Manual of physical education), by Miguel J. Ciriza,
for the federal schools of the state. While the creation of a manual
might not suggest the lack of diffusion, the very basic instructions of
what each class would need, and how to instruct courses, suggests
that physical education had not been fully embraced in the country-
side. Ciriza had worked with the rural teachers of Nuevo León for
two years in order to understand the problems they faced in imple-
menting physical education programs, and the manual was an effort
to help institutionalize practices. That the manual was published the
year after Lázaro Cárdenas’s inauguration might have had something
to do with its goals. Among them, Ciriza noted that sports helped
to “develop a clear sense of class consciousness,” and that it should
help fight “against fanaticism and religious prejudice.”45
WOMEN’S SPORTS IN MEXICO AND CENTRAL AMERICA 161

The manual offered detailed activity plans for physical educa-

tion teachers, organized by age group, as well as descriptions of
the age-appropriate activities. For “boys and girls” aged six to ten,
Ciriza’s plan included marches and children’s games.46 For children
aged ten to twelve, Ciriza recommended teachers add dances, track-
and-field activities, basic sports skills, and gymnastics. For track and
field, the manual advised thirty-meter sprint, high jump, standing
long jump, and four-by-thirty-meter relay. Introduction to sports
included schoolyard baseball and volleyball.47 The manual recom-
mended increasingly challenging and complex versions of these
activities for older boys and girls.48 What is perhaps most surprising
about Ciriza’s manual is that even after the introduction of football
as a sport for older children, he made no distinction as to what sports
should be played by which gender. This could be read one of two
ways. Either he failed to make these distinctions because he assumed
that physical education teachers would already know that certain
activities were not meant for girls and young women, or he saw no
need to limit female physical education.49 Indeed, in only one place
in the manual did Ciriza make special mention of women and girls.
Toward the end of the publication, Ciriza laid out the relationship
between rural schools and the development of peasant sports centers.
These centers formed crucial support mechanisms for the physical
education teachers in rural areas. The centers were the idea of the
Departamento de Enseñanza Rural y Primaria Foránea (Department
of Rural and Foreigner [Ethnic Outsider] Instruction) and were to be
organized by local physical education teachers and constructed by
local populations. The goal of the centers, according to the statutes
created by the department, was “to foment and organize the prac-
tice of sports among peasant children, youth, and adults (men and
women).”50 That women were explicitly included suggests the state’s
interest in instilling in rural populations some sense of the necessity
for women’s physical activity. More than just noting the impor-
tance of female participation, however, the rural sports centers were
charged with working to “interest and create enthusiasm [for sports]
among women and girls.” This was to be done in part by choosing
162FUTBOLERA

“activities that are easy, attractive, and interesting to the female sex,
and in part through a public education campaign, in “homes and
among families in general in the towns,” about the benefits of physi-
cal activity.51 While the method for increasing women’s participation
in sports activities was patronizing, there was no mention of sports
being inappropriate for Mexican women to play. It also belied the
assumption that girls and women needed to be convinced and had
no tradition of participating in sports activities. Still, the lack of
gender segregation marked Mexico out as slightly different from its
regional neighbors. This might have been due to the revolutionary
government’s continued efforts to reshape rural Mexico and root
out vestiges of Catholic conservatism, but it remains an important
aspect of Mexican physical education programming.
Nevertheless, women were not encouraged to play football by
sporting institutions around the nation. They were pushed into
other, supposedly less physical, sports such as volleyball and bas-
ketball. And Mexico would become a regional leader in these sports
played by women, playing in circuits that included the southwestern
United States. In the region of Tecamachalco, according to Mary Kay
Vaughan, “the height of entertainment was the basketball game.”
Vaughan argued that although sports “celebrated male physical
prowess and dominance,” it did not overlap precisely with the state’s
efforts to “promote hygiene, sobriety, and productivity.”52 It is not
far-fetched to imagine that women’s enthusiastic embrace of bas-
ketball and exclusion from football increased the latter’s popularity
among men.
Another reading of the lack of gender specification in the manual
is possible. Earlier texts focusing on physical education in Mexico
differentiated between sports for girls and sports for boys, includ-
ing the official Plan de estudios de la escuela de educación física
(Plan of studies for the physical education school), which outlined
the educational program for physical education teachers. The plan re-
quired courses in biology, English, physics, and ethics, alongside prac-
tical courses in how to teach various sports. The sports and physical
activities covered included football, baseball, camping, calisthen-
ics, gymnastics, and swimming, among others. While there did not
WOMEN’S SPORTS IN MEXICO AND CENTRAL AMERICA 163

appear to be any limitation on who might teach particular subjects,

there was no gray area when it came to appropriate activities for
students. After listing all of the curricula of the future students, the
plan noted that “the practice of rhythmic [gymnastics] and dance
will be especially for girls,” and “baseball, apparatus, football, box-
ing, fighting, and handball will be specifically for boys.”53 In the
following year, the revised plan contained a number of changes to
the curricula, but the restrictions on girls playing baseball, football,
and the other sports remained.54
The Mexican state further reinforced the work of the cultural
missions and the physical education school through sporting institu-
tions. There, too, administrators believed that the correct behavior
of girls and young women was a linchpin in the evolution of Mexico
and the Mexican people. In institutional terms, the establishment of
the Confederación Deportiva Mexicana (Mexican Confederation of
Sports, CODEME) in 1932 signaled Mexico’s focus on sports and
physical education as a development model for reforming Mexican
society.55 As Keith Brewster has noted, sports, “such as baseball and
basketball,” came to be seen as a “panacea for the political, social,
and ethnic division that still beset the nation.” 56 State agencies
promoted team sports in tandem with an expanded physical edu-
cation apparatus. The same year that CODEME was formed, the
government also created the Consejo Nacional de Educación Física
(National Council on Physical Education) in order to develop phys-
ical education programs throughout the country as a way to reach
“the ideal patria.”57 Indeed, so important was the national council
that among its members were representatives of all major ministries.
The president’s office, as well as the ministries of defense, foreign
relations, health, and education all had seats on the council. The body
was tasked with a series of responsibilities, among which were to help
create the statutes that would govern all sports around the nation, to
“choose the methods for teaching sports,” and to “make all necessary
efforts, both within and outside of government, to obtain the greatest
success in sporting activities throughout the country.”58
CODEME was a top-down organization, even if its programs pri-
oritized local and grassroots athletics. Centralizing sports was seen
164FUTBOLERA

as a way to “produce athletes who could bring honor to the nation

and more importantly help to combat” vices that afflicted the coun-
try.59 Loosely organized as a part of CODEME, the Departamento
Autónomo de Educación Física (Autonomous Department of
Physical Education) published the monthly journal Educación Física
beginning in 1936. The journal heralded the importance of physical
education for the broader health of the nation. There was scant,
if suggestive, mention of women’s sports in its pages, though its
pages were full of images of female athletes. The Mexican physical
education community sought to justify its existence through arti-
cles extolling the benefits of gymnastics and other activities that
promoted a sound body and sound mind. Mexico, one anonymous
author wrote in 1938, “needs healthy men with moral qualities
like honor, mutual cooperation . . . etc.” The author stressed that
physical education practiced as an end in itself was harmful to “har-
monic development.” For women, the same held true. Women, the
journalist wrote, “develop a spirit of moral happiness with sport.”
Exercises, however, differed for men and women. Those for women
were especially designed to “strengthen . . . and make her happy and
healthy.”60 In so doing, physical education helped a woman “become
better suited to fulfill her physiological functions and run her house,
help her parents, sustain herself, or be a good wife.”61
Despite the abundance of state interest in regulating physical cul-
ture, there were also strange silences and practices that eluded state
control. One development in this regard was the growth of ath-
letic wear. Women in early twentieth-century Mexico used clothing
choices to “articulate their social roles, to define their femininity,
and to assert individual identity,” according to the historian Joanne
Hershfeld.62 Shorter sleeves, exposed skin, and lighter fabrics, along
with other fashion choices, offered women the chance to wear their
gender politics. As a relatively new way to situate oneself in post-
revolutionary Mexico, women’s participation in sports may be con-
ceived of in the same way. It could have been, to pick up Hershfeld’s
thought, “a way of rebelling against . . . patriarchal structures of
femininity . . . [or] a way of promoting their sexuality.”63 Similarly,
images of sportswomen proliferated in physical education journals
WOMEN’S SPORTS IN MEXICO AND CENTRAL AMERICA 165

FIGURE 4.1. Women’s basketball in Nayarit, Mexico, 1938. Educación

Física 3, no. 21 (September 1938).

and the press. Perhaps these photographs were intended to com-

pliment the advice, contained in physical education literature and
women’s magazines, that exercise was ultimately about wifely beauty
and healthy motherhood. Since usually no commentary accompa-
nied these images, it is difficult to ascertain their true intent. Still,
the increased presence of sportswomen in the pages of Mexican
newspapers and magazines in the 1930s helped normalize women’s
participation in sports. We must acknowledge that it is possible that
these photographs were staged. Even so, however, they suggest the
existence of significant numbers of sportswomen.64
Though the readership of a magazine such as Educación Física
was specialized, the journal’s reports on the national women’s basket-
ball tournament or on women participating in track-and-field events
highlight the regularity of these activities among young Mexican
women. Thus, that each issue of Educación Física contained at least
four pictures of sportswomen mattered. For example, the image
in this chapter of a young women’s basketball team suggests that
Mexican physical education teachers saw female participation in
166FUTBOLERA

sports as crucial to their development. The caption to the photo

reads: “The woman, devoted to physical education, has agility and
[good] health.”65 Clearly this message was intended to show the
positive aspects of women playing sports.
For the physical education community, concerned as it was with
the development of the “new” Mexico, images of women had to
walk the line between promoting physical culture and not overly
sexualizing their subjects. The dominant images used in physical
education magazines and in sports pages showed women in one
of two ways: either they were in the process of participating in a
sporting event—most often track-and-field events or gymnastics, but
also basketball, and less frequently volleyball or softball (but never
football)—or they were standing in uniform in a team photograph.
Occasionally they were shown receiving awards for their partici-
pation in sporting events. These images were intended to be both
inspirational and nonthreatening. They highlight the athletic prow-
ess of women athletes rather than their appearance, as well as the
healthfulness of the activity. For example, the cover of Educación
Física in January 1939 featured a woman throwing a javelin. The
article explained that the young woman practiced every day, one of
the denizens who trained at the workers’ sports fields in the capi-
tal. The woman appeared intensely focused on her task, and those
who trained with her represented the “healthy and vigorous” young
women of the “new” Mexico.66 Yet it remained crucial to control the
level of exercise for young women, lest they become overly muscled
or too fatigued. In the same issue of Educación Física, the editors
included an article on how to avoid fatigue. The accompanying pho-
tograph showed young women in a footrace at an interoffice meet.
These were athletic competitions between the various ministries of
the federal government. The caption with the photo read: “With
women, principally, one needs to be very careful not to expose them
to fatigue.”67 Strangely, in discussing how to avoid fatigue, the arti-
cle makes no further mention of women or girls.
The images of women in Mexican print media had a profound
effect on attitudes toward the modern woman. Perhaps nowhere was
this truer than in coverage of sporting events. Still, while images of
WOMEN’S SPORTS IN MEXICO AND CENTRAL AMERICA 167

FIGURE 4.2. Track and field in Mexico City. Educación Física 4, no. 24 (January
1939).

women in the Mexican media shifted remarkably over the period

from 1920 to 1940, patriarchal ideas about womanhood and proper
femininity persisted. Images of the modern girl were both alluring
and threatening. Their independence could be read as both powerful
and sexually open—and thus threatening to dominant norms. In
many respects, for “traditional” Mexican society, the flapper and her
more conservative, though no less public, office girl sister represented
the threatening nature of modern life. They risked stripping women
of her core responsibilities in the home. Some have suggested that
the rise in representations of sportswomen in the Mexican media
was less a function of increasing female participation than it was an
effort of the state to suggest female participation in the revolutionary
project. It was, in other words, merely one form of propaganda.
While this may be the case, it seems a stretch. Based on the available
evidence not only in Mexico but around Latin America, it would
seem that images of sportswomen increased as a consequence of an
increase in women’s sporting activities.
Still, the inclusion and normalization of sportswomen in the
media, both as individuals and as members of teams, played an im-
portant role in making physical activity and sports more acceptable
for women in Mexico in the early twentieth century. Photographs
of women’s basketball teams, and discussion, however brief, of
168FUTBOLERA

women’s sports tournaments mattered. For example, beginning in

1936, CODEME organized a national women’s basketball champi-
onship, with selected teams representing different Mexican states.
A few images of women playing basketball in the 1939 tournament
made the pages of Educación Física. Though there was not analysis
of the games themselves, the top three teams appeared in uniform.68
Another image shows the start of a basketball game in Morelia,
with girls in midair for the jump ball. One team wore skirts, while
the other is in long pants. In the picture, the crowd is visible, and
it is possible to see people watching the game both at court level
and in a balcony. This suggests that interest in women’s sports was
significant. Despite all of the tendencies to stress beauty and health,
women at center court challenged a slew of other recommendations
to girls and young women to be humble, demure, and self-effacing.69
In effect, according to Ageeth Sluis, “athleticism was encouraged
as long as it enhanced and retained the female form,” and once
accepted, it proved difficult for even the most adamant physical ed-
ucation teacher to control.70 Sluis ascribed notions of beauty as one
of the main goals of female physical education, but it is important
to recognize—as her work points out—that notions of beauty were
always evolving. Thus, the feminine ideal might have had less to do
with form, which was somewhat ephemeral, than with function,
which was seen as unchanging. That is, changes in physiognomy
were concerning to the physical education establishment only in as
much as they signaled changes in physiology. A woman could be
well toned and extremely athletic, for example, so long as she did not
forgo her womanly duties as daughter, mother, or wife. Photographic
evidence demonstrates that despite the advice of these experts on the
beautifying potential of exercise, sportswomen remained focused on
winning the games they played and promoting the sports they loved.
When women’s football emerged in an organized way in Mexico,
it would come from the ranks of physical education programs. Stable
clubs appeared in the 1960s. This reflects in some part the later
adoption of football as Mexico’s national sport, and its ongoing
competition with boxing and baseball for audiences. The history
of Mexican women and sports changed dramatically during the
WOMEN’S SPORTS IN MEXICO AND CENTRAL AMERICA 169

FIGURE 4.3. Woman javelin thrower, Mexico, 1939.

Educación Física 4, no. 24 (January 1939).

mid-twentieth century, as discussed in chapter 5, culminating in the

1971 women’s world football championship, the second edition of
the tournament. Mexican women’s sports did not exist in a vacuum.
The growth of women’s sports in the United States provided a ready-
made rival and a well-trodden competition path through universities
and high schools in the Southwest. The United States, however, was
not the only important neighbor that played a role in the develop-
ment of Mexican women’s sports. Women in neighboring Central
American countries, particularly Costa Rica, inspired sportswomen
throughout the region.

COSTA RICA

Deportivo Femenino de Costa Rica FC played its first match on

March 26, 1950. The team had been formed a little less than a year
earlier. It might have been the brainchild of two brothers—both
170FUTBOLERA

professional footballers—who concocted the idea with their sis-

ter and her friends at their father’s wake. An alternate version of
the club’s origins holds that Nelly Coto Solano, one of the friends
attending the wake, suggested a women’s football team during a dis-
cussion about women’s baseball.71 Within months, over thirty young
women were playing on the team, practicing at the Bonillas’ uncle’s
property just outside of San José. Deportivo Femenino would go
on to be, for its time, something of a missionary force for women’s
football in the region. Part of the reason for the sport’s success in
Costa Rica lies in the national context, which in 1949 was slightly
different from other countries in the region.
As it did elsewhere in Latin America, the turn of the century
brought rapid social changes to Costa Rica, particularly around
women’s education and women’s roles outside the home. According
to Roxana Hidalgo Xirinachs, Costa Rica’s emergent identity in the
late 1800s mixed rural and religious tradition with the “new values
that accompanied modernization.”72 The ability to fuse, however
unstable such a combination might have been, Catholic Church
teachings with more modern, liberal philosophies, as evidenced
with its early and earnest embrace of women’s education, set Costa
Rica apart from many of its neighbors. Women’s education in Costa
Rica began during the 1870s and 1880s. At that time, according to
Steven Palmer and Gladys Rojas Chaves, demand for girls’ educa-
tion grew from the bottom up, and the number of girls in school
approached that of boys.73 The 1880s saw the passage of laws that
were crucial to girls’ education: the Ley Fundamental de Educación
(1885) and the Ley General de Educación Común (1886). The lat-
ter made gymnastics for both boys and girls a part of the national
curriculum.74 Even before it became a required part of the day for
students in public school, gymnastics appeared in the curricula of
private schools, beginning in the 1860s. The aim of Costa Rican
gymnastics was to “develop the physical strength and moral char-
acter” of the youth. From the outset, however, the desired strength
and character differed based on gender. According to Ronald Díaz
Bolaños, gymnastics aimed to prepare boys for life in the workplace,
and in the public sphere more generally, by strengthening their upper
WOMEN’S SPORTS IN MEXICO AND CENTRAL AMERICA 171

body. At the same time, it helped girls get ready for life in the home,
through exercises that “gave form to their pelvis and abdomen.”75
By the end of the following decade, the Instituto Nacional, a high
school linked with the Universidad Santo Tomás, had taken up the
practice of gymnastics, though only for boys. 76 With the passage
of the Ley General de Educación Común and the creation of the
Colegio Superior de Señoritas in 1888, girls’ education, including
physical education, became codified and regularized.
The Colegio Superior de Señoritas altered the shape of Costa
Rican history. The school served not only as a training ground for
generations of women teachers, but also as a seedbed of Costa Rican
feminism and political activism. Teachers and students at the school
helped lead the protests that ousted the Tinoco dictatorship in 1919,
while the Liga Feminista (Feminist League), a leading voice not only
for women’s voting rights but for women’s political mobilization
more broadly, held its foundational meetings in the high school audi-
torium. Ana Rosa Chacón Gonzalez, a 1907 graduate of the Colegio
Superior de Señoritas in physical education, was a founder of the
Liga Feminista and also one of the first congresswomen in the coun-
try. The school also trained teachers, and by 1927, 71 percent of
teachers in Costa Rica were women.77 According to Roxana Hidalgo
Xirinachs, “women teachers began to see their potential for action
and decision in public and especially political spaces.” This in turn
broadened the horizons that women saw for themselves, and in a
marked difference from much of the region, that men saw for them.78
Throughout the 1920s and 1930s Costa Rican women lobbied for
the right to vote, and some presidential candidates and other male
politicians argued in favor of women’s suffrage.79
At the same time, the 1920s saw a burgeoning media presence,
which presented young ticas with European models to aspire to.
Costa Rica’s growing connections to the outside world, due to its
growth as a coffee and banana exporter, as well as the almost simul-
taneous appearance of the flapper in the post–World War I era, made
women’s beauty a “public topic of discussion.”80 Modern clothes
and hairstyles made their way into magazine articles and adver-
tisements. Women were attending and graduating from secondary
172FUTBOLERA

schools and universities (which were private at this time) in larger

numbers.81 And increasing numbers of women had income of their
own to spend, further spurring the sense that women were becoming
independent. These rapid changes caused disquiet in Costa Rica,
as they did in Mexico and much of the region. The increased role
of women in the public sphere, the state’s role in education, and
new “foreign” concepts of beauty played into fears that Costa Rica
was losing itself to modernity. Women’s newfound autonomy and
the new ideas about women in the workplace and in the public
sphere threatened traditional norms. The Church and other arbiters
of morality used the trope of the modern woman as a stand-in for
the perceived corruption of Costa Rican morality. Hidalgo Xirinachs
argues that, when confronted with a state encroaching on its tradi-
tional bases of power, the Catholic Church cast the new norms in
stark terms: secularization would lead to a degradation of honor
and feminine virtue, as well as threaten the institution of marriage.82
It is in this context that state-run physical education and gym-
nastics grew—however slowly—in the country. Though the Colegio
Superior de Señoritas initiated gymnastics for its students in 1888,
the young women’s gymnastics activities were limited to stretching
and other movements that did not run the “risk” of building mus-
cles. Swedish and rhythmic gymnastics became regular practices in
the 1920s, at roughly the same time that physical education—the
combination of gymnastics with sports and other activities—became
established practice.83 Even then, however, women were discouraged
from being overly active. There had been earlier advocates of wom-
en’s physical education, however. A 1915 article in El Manantial, a
short-lived newspaper published in Heredia, sang the praises of phys-
ical culture for girls. The author, Gustavo Louis Michaud, played a
major role in developing physical education in Costa Rica after the
educational reform of the late 1880s. He noted the long-standing
practice of physical education for girls in the United States, and
focused on girls’ ability to organize their own athletic league in New
York State. They had established the league in the face of male re-
sistance due to “customs . . . and conservative intransigence,” he
wrote, and by 1912 it included more than twenty-five thousand girls
WOMEN’S SPORTS IN MEXICO AND CENTRAL AMERICA 173

and nearly five hundred schools.84 Since “prolonged exercise in the

fresh air” were “indispensable activities for adolescent girls’ health,”
Michaud called for Costa Ricans to leave “traditional ideas” behind
for the good of the country.85
Even with recognition that physical education had moral and
physical benefits for boys and girls, the Costa Rican state was slow
to put its weight behind the practice. Though high schools and nor-
mal schools included it in their curricula in the 1920s, formalized
physical education would not reach primary school curricula until
1942 as part of a broader effort to increase primary education. Still,
according to Chester Urbina Gaitán, schools were encouraged to
give students the opportunity to exercise outside whenever possible
starting in the late 1920s.86 Moreover, successive governments in
the 1920s and 1930s funded the growth of sporting culture in other
ways, including the construction of a national stadium in 1924. The
state also created the Junta Nacional de Cultura Física (National
Board of Physical Culture), a new government body composed of
“[physical education] professionals, politicians, and public health
specialists,” charged with promoting sports in the country. Among
other things, it began arranging tours of men’s football teams from
outside the country.87 In other words, if Costa Rican governments
were not proactive about physical education, they still saw the link
between sports and the health of the nation.
That nation continued to change rapidly with regard to gender
norms and expectations. The creation of the University of Costa
Rica, in 1941, heralded a new moment in the country. From the
outset, women were admitted to all courses of study, and by 1959,
36 percent of its students were women.88 So too the civil war of
1948 altered the status of women. From political activists without
voting rights, with the 1949 constitution women gained full suffrage,
though they were not able to vote in national elections until 1953.89
Against this backdrop, women’s football began in Costa Rica.
Interest in the sport grew rapidly within the country, and football
developed rapidly beginning in 1949. Manuel and Fernando Bonilla,
both first-division professional players in the Costa Rican league,
drilled their charges twice weekly in skills, explained tactics, and
174FUTBOLERA

crafted a team. The founding players ranged in age from thirteen to

mid-twenties. None of the girls and young women had ever played
organized football before, though many had experience playing
other sports, primarily basketball, which was wholly acceptable for
women in the country.90 According to Fernando Bonilla, one of the
founders of the team, the first members of the team, including his
sister, Dora Bonilla, and sister-in-laws Julieta Zúñiga and Carmen
Morales, recruited their friends and acquaintances by “inviting them
to join the team, but telling them it was basketball.”91 This is how
Nelly Coto Solano recruited her friend Maria Eugenia Páez, asking
her to come play basketball. Only when they arrived at the field did
Coto Solano inform her friend that they were going to play football.
Páez had to be convinced to stay, since she “didn’t like football,”
but then she was a starting goaltender for four years.92 Many of
the young women lied to their families, saying that they were play-
ing basketball, since women playing football was still considered
scandalous. Irma Castillo Sánchez, another of the original players,
remembered how on the bus on the way home from church, she
saw a group of girls between the ages of fifteen and nineteen “who
seemed confident, happy, and well mannered” sitting in the back of
the bus talking loudly and laughing. After seeing them the following
Sunday, she approached the group and was invited to play. She had
never played before, but she quickly fell in love with the game. She,
too, lied to her parents and said she was practicing basketball.93
Most of the young Deportivo Femenino players learned the game
at the hands of the Bonilla brothers. Some players recounted that
they had played football as long as they could remember, often with
their brothers or fathers. But according to Fernando Bonilla, they all
needed training in basic skills. Fernando Bonilla’s wife, one of the
founders of the team, had according to them never played before.94
The very speed with which the club gathered enough women to field
two teams suggests that women had some experience playing. Indeed,
perhaps they had learned from mothers, sisters, or grandmothers.
Recent research by Chester Urbina Gaitán has uncovered earlier
traces of women’s football in Costa Rica, dating back to the 1920s.
According to Urbina Gaitán, women began joining La Libertad, a
WOMEN’S SPORTS IN MEXICO AND CENTRAL AMERICA 175

FIGURE 4.4. Deportivo Femenino de Costa Rica FC, March 26, 1950. Courtesy
of the family of Maria Elena Valverde Coto.

working-class sports club, as socios, in 1924.95 By September 1926,

enough interest existed that La Prensa published a small note that
“a number of women” in San José were “engaged in forming a num-
ber of teams in order to have a series of games.” Though the idea
“caused great enthusiasm among the feminist element,” no further
news of the sport was reported. Perhaps the women could not find
enough players, or perhaps the media failed to report further.96
Regardless of their past experience playing the sport, the team
faced scorn when news of their existence reached the public. The
Bonilla brothers were called crazy. Many of the girls and women
faced opposition from family members when they began to play
with Deportivo Femenino. Alice Quirós Alvarez’s mother threat-
ened to send her to a reformatory if she continued to play football,
and began to cut her football uniform with scissors to keep Alice
from practicing.97 Other players recalled facing opposition as well.
Zulay Loiza Martínez “had problems” with her father and brothers.
176FUTBOLERA

Carmen Morales’s father told her that women should not play foot-
ball, saying that the sport was “for marimachos [lesbians].”98 The
Araya sisters practiced with the team but did not get their parent’s
permission to play until eight days before the team’s first exhibition.
As it was, the Bonilla brothers, “accompanied by two or three play-
ers,” would go to the team members' houses to try to win their fam-
ilies over, in order to be sure that the women and girls could play.99
Deportivo Femenino de Costa Rica played its first match at the
national stadium in March 1950 in San José. The Bonilla brothers
requested permission from Antonio Escarré, the director of sports,
which was granted based on the brothers’ football pedigree.100 The
Costa Rican president, José Figueres, was in attendance. Futboleras
in Costa Rica faced audiences who were both skeptical that they
could play and expectant that players would conform to feminine
beauty standards while trying. In other words, the women were not
taken seriously and they were objectified. Still, some in the Costa
Rican sports media tried to be objective. On March 24, two days
prior to the match, La Prensa Libre ran a small story about the
match and included player names and positions for each team. The
author urged spectators to go to the match and “leave their preju-
dices to one side.”101 One journalist admitted to believing before the
match that women could not “assimilate this game,” which is nat-
urally masculine.102 Too rough and too hard, the sport could never
be mastered by women. However, he was surprised by their skill.
While most of the women played well, the commentator wrote, some
played excellently and “had nothing to envy” of male counterparts.
Unable to step out of the patriarchal wonder at women athletes,
the commentator wrote not only about the women’s skill but of
their beauty as well. The goalkeeper Maria Eugenia Páez, he wrote,
“has a stupendous figure . . . a beautiful woman.” However, he also
noted that “tall and flexible,” she “seemed more like an elegant male
goalie.”103 Another reporter noted that the crowd was at first reti-
cent, but as the match progressed they were “amazed” by the skill of
the players.104 The sportswriter for Diario de Costa Rica noted that
“in synthesis” the match was “a complete success.”105 Journalists
assumed that football masculinized women and ruined their pretty
WOMEN’S SPORTS IN MEXICO AND CENTRAL AMERICA 177

looks. That they played well and presented as traditionally feminine

women caught many observers by surprise. After the game, Unión
Deportiva de Escazú announced it would host a dance for the teams
in April, “hoping to stimulate the brilliant work” done by Deportivo
Femenino and to congratulate the team for “its brilliant debut.”106 A
second game followed in June, given the “marked enthusiasm” for
women’s football created by the first exhibition match.107
Women’s football was not universally well received. While some
reporters for La Nación and La Prensa Libre commented on the
quality of the Costa Rican players, other commentators did not.
José Antich, a French tennis and swimming instructor at the Costa
Rica Athletic Club, made his opinion known in a letter to La Prensa
Libre. While it had not been his “intention to comment on any
sporting theme” until he was well acquainted with Costa Ricans
and “their idiosyncrasies,” women’s football caused him to break
his silence. “Football,” Antich wrote, “is a sport for men and should
not be played by women.” He believed that there were many reasons
that they should not play, including “their physical, psychological,
and sociological character.” In addition, Antich argued that with
“intense exercise . . . leg muscles would become too strong . . .
[and] hips would become too wide.” As if the connection between
male expectations of feminine beauty were not clear enough, Antich
continued, saying that women’s “knee[s] would lose [their] normal
roundness and would appear bony, like men’s,” while calves “would
lose their attractiveness by becoming hard.”108 Further, Antich ar-
gued that women’s pelvic bones were naturally weak and could not
withstand the “kicking, frequent stopping, and collisions” of foot-
ball, “let alone the mere fact of walking in cleats.”109 He argued that
women “of whatever country” were not psychologically prepared
to “resist the shock to the nerves of an opponent with hundreds
of fans” cheering them on. But perhaps Antich’s primary concerns
were sociological. Women playing football harmed not only women,
who “lost their femininity,” but football in general. Were women to
keep playing, he wrote, it would not be long until “the press and the
radio compare the women’s game with the men’s and compare male
players with women players.” This, he argued, would be damaging
178FUTBOLERA

to the men’s game.110 The Spanish newspaper El Mundo Deportivo

called the game “a magnificent spectacle . . . though not precisely
of football.” Instead, it was a “disorganized mass chasing a leather
ball.” The article revealed other blemishes in the Costa Rican story
as well: women players were apparently not always treated with
respect, and the Costa Rican press had to remind spectators to mind
their manners. Of course, the Spanish sportswriter was hardly sur-
prised, since “even the coldest man would be pushed to his limits.”111
A former player and a technical advisor to the Costa Rican
general directorate of sport, Miguel Ángel Ulloa also thought that
women could not play the game. “Football,” he wrote, “is a sport
of maximum mobility, [and is] fiercely strenuous, which makes it
difficult for a certain category of men.” Since even some men could
not play the sport, women, he suggested, could not possibly be able
to.112 Not only did Ulloa’s belief that women could not play football
rest on the fallacy that the sport was too complicated, strenuous, and
difficult, but also on a poor understanding of history. That countries
“more advanced in football” than Costa Rica—“England, Italy . . .
Argentina, Brazil . . . [and] Chile”—had not “opened their arms”
to the women’s game proved that the sport was “damaging and
unsuitable.”113 Clearly, Ulloa had no knowledge of the long history
of the sport in other countries. Ulloa attempted to legitimize his
opinion on the grounds that as a former footballer, he knew how
rough and tiring the sport could be. The ball was too hard, the shoes
too dangerous, and the game too long. He did, however, suggest
that the Costa Rican public health community study the issue and
explore the “anatomical, psychological, and sociological” potential
of women’s football and the “indisputable risks” of the sport.114
Ulloa and La Prensa Libre’s sports page editor, known by his pen
name, “Chutador,” both argued for different-sized fields for women’s
football and suggested that women wear sneakers instead of cleats.
Though they couched their concerns over both in technical terms,
likely there were other motives. The field, both suggested, was too
large and women players would tire quickly from the physical activ-
ity. The shoes also “complicated” the game, and to the extent that
either accepted that women would play the game (Chutador was in
WOMEN’S SPORTS IN MEXICO AND CENTRAL AMERICA 179

favor, while Ulloa was not), they both believed that women should
wear “keeds [sic],” meaning canvas sneakers, instead of cleats.115
These justifications might have masked the deeper masculine con-
cern that football would damage the feminine aesthetic. Running on
a full-size field would tone women’s muscles beyond male desires,
while a clumsy challenge with cleats could scar women’s legs. Indeed,
the concern over the masculinizing potential of women’s sports was
made clear by Julio Mera Carrasco. Mera Carrasco, an author of
multiple books on football and a physical education expert, argued
that women’s “physical constitution” was “too delicate,” even for
track and field. He suggested that women’s physical activity “be an
adornment of their beauty” based on “grace and style” rather than
athletic perfection. He lamented that in Europe women athletes had
begun to take on “masculine characteristics,” to the extent that there
were “real problems determining the sex” of some.116
In other words, though women’s football received more support—
or faced less criticism—in Costa Rica than elsewhere, along with
support came controversy. As in Brazil and England, debate began
about the healthfulness of the sport and whether it should be per-
mitted for women at all. In 1950, the Costa Rican Senate convened
a special hearing on public health and women’s football. The panel
did not discuss women’s sports in general, just women’s football,
showing again that many viewed football as somehow different from
other sports. Much like the earlier debates in England and Brazil, in
Costa Rica discussion centered around whether the sport was too
rough for women to play and whether it threatened girls’ repro-
ductive capacity. However, unlike the two football powers that had
officially banned women and girls from playing, in Costa Rica the
government refused to lend credence to unproven arguments about
the game: women could play. But the conversation continued in the
press. Chutador, the sports editor for La Prensa Libre, asked a num-
ber of male athletes, commentators, and doctors to opine on wom-
en’s football. He offered prompts to the potential authors as well,
such as: “Is football a sport for women”; “Do you think that wom-
en’s football is good for the culture and manners” of those who play;
“Can women’s football affect the femininity of women players”;
180FUTBOLERA

and “Physiologically, will women be harmed by playing such a

rough sport.”117
Responding to these questions, Luis Cartín Paniagua, a leading
journalist of the day, defended women’s right to play in no uncertain
terms on the pages of La Prensa Libre, mocking those who called for
the sport to be banned. To those who argued that the sport was bad
for women, he pointed to the doctors who actually studied the game,
noting that not one thought it unhealthy. To another objection, that
so few nations played the sport that it must not be good, he replied
that the diffusion of sports did not happen evenly: “We do not
know . . . the game of rugby. . . . Does this mean that it is bad to
play it?” Rather, he noted that women’s football was played in Spain,
Colombia, Guatemala, and Portugal. Cartín Paniagua proudly trum-
peted that Deportivo Femenino had “broken the ridiculous chains
of prejudice” that had kept Costa Rican women off the field. “We
could almost qualify it,” he continued, “as a call for the liberation
of Costa Rican women.”118 Cartín Paniagua had coached the Costa
Rican national men’s side that year, and thus was a leading voice on
football and well connected to communities across the Americas. A
few days later, a commentator in El Mundo Femenino explained that
sports did not compromise women’s gender identity. The “brutal”
sport of football would not make women “hard” or cause them to
“lose their grace.” A woman “who is sweet and delicate will never
lose these qualities.”119 So too Deportivo Femenino’s team physician,
Dr. Coto Garbanzo, faced harsh criticism. He ignored colleagues
who informed him of the potential damage to women’s reproductive
organs and counseled the women that playing would do them no
harm whatsoever.120
In late April 1950, between its two exhibition matches in San
José, Deportivo Femenino traveled to Panama City on the invita-
tion of the Panamanian Football Federation. Thirty players and a
staff of seven, including a doctor, a nurse, the Bonilla brothers, and
three chaperones, left for Panama on April 29 for a match to be
played on the thirtieth at the Olympic stadium. According to La
Prensa Libre, Panamanians saw a good match, even though the field
was in poor condition due to heavy rain the day before. The teams
WOMEN’S SPORTS IN MEXICO AND CENTRAL AMERICA 181

left a “magnificent impression” with the “enthusiastic fans” before

returning to Costa Rica.121 While women’s football was not new
to Panama, the sport did not grow quickly there. Furthermore, de-
bates on the safety of women’s sports raged in the 1950s. Deportivo
Femenino returned to Costa Rica for its second exhibition match
at home, on June 8. That match, in honor of former president José
Figueres, also displayed the women’s burgeoning skill for the game.
The Costa Rican press reported that again the level of play was high,
and that the match surpassed the first exhibition. Figueres presented
medals to each member of the winning team.122
Deportivo Femenino de Costa Rica was soon off again, first to
Curaçao, for a two-week tour in late August and early September.
The tour almost started on a sour note: the club took two flights
to Curaçao, one a commercial flight and one a charter, with the
Salvadoran men’s team on board. The second flight experienced
trouble en route. Their delay caused a great deal of concern on the
ground in Curaçao, and when the flight landed, the players cried
and hugged each other. The rest of the tour went much better. The
women of Deportivo Femenino played a series of exhibition matches
that, according to press reports, were well attended and well received
by the thousands of fans who packed into Rif Stadium in Willemstad
to see “Azul” play “Rojo.” The spectators’ “shouts of admiration”
apparently represented the “enormous friendship” between the two
countries.123
The debate over women’s football did not end, however. In 1951,
a member of the National Council on Physical Education, José
Francisco Carballo, gave a talk on the “much discussed topic” of
women’s football. Carballo, who sat on the national council with
Miguel Ángel Ulloa and others, claimed the sport to be dangerous to
girls’ and women’s health. Carballo had, apparently “on his own ini-
tiative,” sent a request to the Congress on Pan-American Health to
look into the sport further. An anonymous columnist for La Nación
criticized the doctor, noting that he should have “tried to consult
other doctors, at least those who have treated the women [players],”
before looking to foreign intervention into the Costa Rican athletic
scene. “We believe,” wrote the author, “that this affair could have
182FUTBOLERA

FIGURE 4.5. Deportivo Femenino de Costa Rica FC, tour to Panama, 1950.
Courtesy of the family of Maria Elena Valverde Coto.

been perfectly resolved in our own environment, without having

to consult another country that has only heard of women’s foot-
ball.”124 Costa Rica, where the sport was played, the paper went on
to argue, had plenty of expertise to draw on. Perhaps the article was
referring to a medical panel, including the doctors Alfonso Acosta,
Fernando Quirós, and Gonzalo González Murielo, which had been
asked in 1950 by students at the University of Costa Rica to decide
“if women’s football is healthy or not.” The goal of the request was
to “develop a women’s team . . . at the University.”125
Regardless of the legal and public health debates, women con-
tinued to play. Deportivo Femenino de Costa Rica traveled outside
the country for most of its matches, while other clubs formed in
the country. The aforementioned La Libertad, the working-class-
supported first-division Costa Rican club, formed a women’s team,
Club Sport Femenino La Libertad, on April 13, 1950.126 The team
held its first practice three weeks later. Deportivo Lourdes, a regional
team based in Montes de Oca, had a women’s team by the end of
1950, and two other clubs had formed in the San José area: Club
Deportivo Eva de Perón, named for the powerful Argentine politi-
cian and supporter of sports; and Deportivo República de México.127
With the addition of ODECA, by 1952 at least six women’s teams,
WOMEN’S SPORTS IN MEXICO AND CENTRAL AMERICA 183

representing four clubs, played in the country. Both La Libertad

and Deportivo Femenino could field two teams, which often played
against each other in exhibition matches.
Foreign tours were common. Like Deportivo Femenino de Costa
Rica, La Libertad traveled outside of the country. In 1950, the team
received an invitation to travel to Guatemala, which apparently it
did not accept. That same year, however, La Libertad traveled to El
Salvador, playing two matches. On December 15, twenty thousand
spectators in the Estadio La Flor Blanca in San Salvador watched an
exhibition between “Blanquinegro” and “Azul y Rojo,” two teams
composed of La Libertad players. Two days later, a crowd witnessed
a rematch in Santa Ana, site of the first football match in El Salvador.
In April 1951, Deportivo Femenino played a one-match exhibition in
Tegucigalpa, Honduras. The match, played on a “dry, dusty, hard,
and poorly seeded” field at the national stadium, honored President
Juan Manuel Gálvez and had, according to the Honduran newspaper
Diario Comercial, a good attendance. What those who did not see
the match missed was nothing short of a display of talented football
players. In fact, the Honduran newspaper suggested that the level
of play exceeded “what is offered in the same national stadium,
afternoon to afternoon, by our male football stars.” The women
appeared to be “born with a ball between their feet,” which was
all the more surprising given the expectations of the crowd, who
believed that the women would have no skill at all.128
One month later, Deportivo Femenino found themselves in
Guatemala playing a match against a club from another nation.
The tour, which lasted for twenty days and comprised twenty-three
people, including coaches and chaperones, included three matches
against the women’s football club Cibeles.129 Formed in Guatemala
City in 1950, Cibeles was not the first to be formed in the country,
but it was the first whose activities were recorded; thirty years earlier,
Marta Padilla and Isabel Evans had founded a women’s sports club
called Club Deportivo Femenino.130 Guatemalans expressed pride at
being the site of what they thought was the first women’s football
international competition in the Americas, even if their team lost the
series 2–1. And in June 1951, La Libertad traveled to Nicaragua to
184FUTBOLERA

play an exhibition match in Managua against Costa Rican rivals Eva

de Perón. Diario de Costa Rica reported on the match, noting that
the 2–2 tie was an accurate reflection of the game. While La Libertad
had more technical skill, the women of Eva de Perón played with
more heart and speed.131
The women of both Deportivo Femenino de Costa Rica and La
Libertad, with their travels overseas, not only acted as missionaries
for women’s football but also took on a role often reserved for men:
acting as athletic ambassadors for the country. Cultural ambassador-
ship took on a new importance in Costa Rica with the abolition of
the military. Deportivo Femenino “flew the national colors high” on
their trip to Guatemala, comporting themselves like true emissaries
and, of course, defeating the Guatemalan team.132 The women met
with the archbishop of Guatemala, making them the first “athletic
ambassadors” to meet with the prelate. He gave the team silver
medals inscribed with pictures of Santo Cristo de Esquipulas, the
Black Christ of Esquipulas, and lauded them for showing a path to
avoid immorality through sports.133
Morality played a much different role on the next tour made
by Latin America’s women’s football missionaries. Scheduled to
play a series of matches across Colombia over a two-month period,
Deportivo Femenino de Costa Rica encountered serious opposi-
tion from the Colombian government and the League of Decency,
a conservative women’s group that had previously worked to ban
“immoral” art. Though Colombia itself had a long history of
women’s football, the league successfully petitioned to deny the
team entry visas on the grounds that the shorts worn by Deportivo
Femenino represented an affront to decency. Initially slated to play
seven games over three weeks, once the low-level diplomatic row
was settled, the ticas remained in Colombia longer than expected,
from September 9 to November 16, 1951. They traveled from
Cúcuta on the Venezuelan border to Cali, playing as many as three
games per week, and were planning to travel on to Ecuador.134 By
this time some members of the team had children, at least one of
whom made the trip as team mascot.
WOMEN’S SPORTS IN MEXICO AND CENTRAL AMERICA 185

As was the case in most places they played, in Colombia the

women of Deportivo Femenino fought against preconceived notions
of what women’s football would be. In Cali, the public expected a
game “without rhyme or reason,” while in Manizales, spectators
awaited a game of “little value.” Yet everywhere they played, ac-
cording to the press, they impressed. The Caleños witnessed a “good
match” between futboleras who played “without fear and with de-
cisiveness”—“true fútbol”—and spectators in Manizales “changed
their opinion immediately” when they saw the speed and precision
with which the women played. In Medellín, the audience saw that
“women could master the ball” just as well as men. All the while,
the ticas were able to maintain their beauty, grace, and femininity.135
Nevertheless, while the team was generally well received, it contin-
ued to clash with “ridiculous Leagues and Societies” that argued that
women’s sports represented a threat to the morality of the nation.
The League of Decency succeeded in prohibiting at least one match,
when the rector of the national university in Bogotá ordered that
the stadium remain closed on the day of a scheduled exhibition.136
Millionarios, a men’s team made up of stars from all over Latin
America who were drawn to Colombia for its high wages (hence the
name), played a match against an all-star professional team in honor
of the women.
After its return from Colombia, Deportivo Femenino continued to
play both nationally and internationally, as did the other women’s
clubs mentioned. Traces of the sport, however, became harder to
find. In 1954 Deportivo Femenino traveled to Cuba, playing against
the Cuban women’s national team six times over three weeks in
June and July. The Costa Ricans won five and tied one. In turn, the
Cuban team visited Costa Rica in December and January, and again
Costa Rican teams dominated.137 La Nación occasionally noted
women’s games, such as that between the “distinguished young la-
dies” of Eva de Perón and La Libertad, who traveled to Golfito on
the southern Pacific coast to play an exhibition match.138 We know
that the Costa Rican Women’s Association of Football had formed at
some point in the 1950s, only because La Nación reported in 1958
186FUTBOLERA

that its treasurer, Roberto Blanco Méndez, was stepping down from
his post.139 In 1960, ODECA and Independiente traveled to Caracas,
Venezuela, where they participated in a four-team tournament
against two English teams, Corinthians and Northern Nomads.140
This tournament might have spurred the sport in Venezuela, which
by 1966 had at least four women’s teams and hosted the Colombian
women’s national team.141 In 1961, Deportivo Femenino played its
first game in three years, defeating Sanyo FC. And in late 1962
the team began a six-month tour of Mexico, which culminated in
1963. Deportivo Femenino played sixteen games in Mexico, play-
ing in Tapachula, the Estadio Universitario, Veracruz, Morelia,
León, Guanajuato, Puebla, and Jalisco, “among others.” Only in
Guanajuato did Deportivo Femenino encounter a preexisting team,
but it was “in its infancy,” according to Fernando Bonilla. Guillermo
Cañedo, the president of the Mexican Football Federation and a
member of the International Federation of Association Football
(FIFA) executive committee, blocked the team from playing in “first
level stadiums,” due to his opposition to women’s football.142 With
the exception of scattered references during the 1960s and 1970s,
women’s football disappeared from the Costa Rican press and from
the historical narrative of the sport as well. Indeed, in a brief notice in
1971 on the sport outside the country, La Nación informed its read-
ers that “Costa Rica had women’s football too. Twenty years ago a
group of enthusiastic young women formed teams, and brought their
spectacle to North, Central, and South America.”143 It was as if the
women’s game had been played in 1950 and never again.

EL SALVADOR

Despite the clear differences between state development in Central

American countries, girls’ physical education in El Salvador took
shape in much the same way as in Costa Rica. Elite Salvadorans’
modernization projects targeted indigenous cultures and commu-
nities in hopes of reshaping the nation along European models.
The expansion of public education comprised part of these visions.
According to Chester Urbina Gaitán, El Salvador began promoting
WOMEN’S SPORTS IN MEXICO AND CENTRAL AMERICA 187

gymnastics in boys’ secondary school curricula in 1885.144 Soon

after, then president Francisco Menéndez signed a law on public
education that required boys to participate in “military exercises”
in school, while girls would work on “handiworks.” The stated goal
of physical education programs was to “civilize the population.”145
By 1894, the national normal school for women teachers began a
course on calisthenics and gymnastics. Still, it was not until the first
decade of the twentieth century that physical education and hygiene
became optional courses in primary school for both boys and girls.
The very movements of students, the ways that they ran and jumped,
could be controlled by the state through physical education. Thus,
physical education developed as a way for the Salvadoran state of
the early twentieth century to build a stronger military and adhere
indigenous groups to national identity. However, in El Salvador, as
elsewhere in Central America, the power of the state failed to reach
into rural areas. This resulted in what Aldo Lauria-Santiago and
Leigh Binford have described as “weak hegemony” in the country.146
In other words, local educational institutions did not always adhere
to national standards and did not create citizens with a strong na-
tional identity.147
That political elites were unable to create the population that
they wanted does not mean that they did not try. To the contrary,
throughout Central America women’s and girls’ physical education
received greater attention in the 1920s and 1930s, in part in effort to
police women’s increased autonomy and independence. The Revista
Salvadoreña de Educación Física (Salvadoran Journal of Physical
Education), which began publication in 1922, stressed the need for
women and girls to participate in physical education. In its second
issue, the journal published a translation of a speech on the topic of
women’s physical education by Elie Mercier, a noted French special-
ist.148 Mercier explained that “nature has imposed on women more
deformations than men . . . destining them to a secondary role . . .
in life.” Physically, Mercier wrote, women’s organs were “complex”
and did not allow for “alterations.”149
Women’s fashions were defined as one of the vices that physi-
cal education could combat. Fashion kept women’s muscles from
188FUTBOLERA

developing correctly and freely; the corset weakened abdominal

muscles and resulted in improper breathing, while high heels caused
deformities of the spine. To rectify the damage done to women’s
bodies by fashion, Mercier held out the promise of proper phys-
ical education: games and dances in the fresh air. These, he said,
would help to “create and maintain a healthy equilibrium in girls
and adolescents.”150 Indeed, Mercier argued that physical activity
was more important for girls aged seven to ten than it was for boys,
since girls had a greater propensity for sedentary lifestyles and the
related “fatal consequences.”151 Once girls entered puberty, however,
Mercier cautioned, physical activity should be “avoid[ed] in order to
create true women.”152 Yet he noted that French girls participated in
all sports, with slight rules alterations. The risk for girls practicing
sports, he suggested, lay not in sports itself, but rather in the fact
that if girls suddenly took up sports without prior training, they
might get injured.
Physical education was important not only to correct the mis-
takes of fashion, but also to create healthy, beautiful women with
character, qualities that were “more appreciable than intended [for]
intellectual value.” Female intelligence was, according to Mercier,
more like the “memory of a parrot than any true intellectual de-
velopment.”153 Still, women, like men, faced daily stress, and for
Mercier sports was a way to deal with the “nervous disturbances”
that came with modern civilization.154 Moreover, for improving the
“racial” stock, physical activity helped to increase people’s size. The
sports that Mercier recommended for girls were those that “tend to
straighten the spinal column, to increase breathing capacity, and do
not stunt or shock the genital organs.” Sports that fit these criteria
included swimming, rowing, and cycling (in moderation), throwing
sports, volleyball, basketball, tennis, “French boxing without at-
tacks,” and fencing. Footraces, he argued, should only be practiced
by people who were “robust.”155 Hurdles and jumping were to be
forbidden, due to the damage they could do to the ligaments of the
stomach and breasts. In the end, Mercier hoped that limited physical
activity and sports would beautify girls and help them realize that
motherhood was the only true purpose of women.156
WOMEN’S SPORTS IN MEXICO AND CENTRAL AMERICA 189

The recognition that physical education mattered for the future

of the nation proved crucial for getting girls more physically active
in the country. In 1917, the Salvadoran state created the National
Commission on Physical Education, with the aim to regulate physi-
cal education and the regionally disparate spaces of physical educa-
tion. Again, though no special mention of girls’ activities was made,
one can presume that female participation was on the minds of the
officials. Not only were women participating in sports in the regional
power Mexico, but in Costa Rica by the 1910s women and girls also
played sports in school. Moreover, a scant two years later in 1919,
the commission requested programs to teach physical education in
girls’ primary schools, in normal schools, and in secondary schools.
The activities were primarily those popular in the era for women and
girls: marching, gymnastics, jumping, and running.157
Little movement was made despite the high level of interest in
government circles. The Revista Salvadoreña de Educación Física
had begun publication, which would seem a step in the right direc-
tion, as was the arrival of four teachers to train the first group of
Salvadoran physical educators. The four, according to numerous
studies conducted in El Salvador, were the Frenchwoman Juanita
Push and three American men. Push, who arrived in 1919 and taught
at the Colegio Técnico de Señoritas (Girls Technical High School),
a teacher training school, was “passionate about basketball” and
began teaching the sport there.158 From the scant references, it ap-
pears that at least some of the teachers remained in the country until
1939. State schools had clearly been teaching physical education
and sports earlier, as by 1920 the national government sponsored a
national sporting contest for all schools, including girls’ schools, in
the country. The events ranged from one-hundred-meter sprints to
longer races, as well as long jump and high jump competitions.159
If the state did not invest the appropriate resources in sports and
physical education, private clubs did. Despite the official proscrip-
tions, women played an early role in the development of football
in El Salvador. Though they might not have played on organized
teams, they contributed directly in the formation and administration
of football clubs in San Salvador and, importantly, in rural areas as
190FUTBOLERA

well. Sporting activities in El Salvador began early in the twentieth

century, as the philosophy of “mens sana in corpore sana” swept
across the Atlantic from Europe. By 1921 there were seventy-three
sports clubs in the country, some of which had activities for girls and
women.160 Women’s tennis was promoted by the Salvadoran elite,
with Margarita Alcaine and Tula Serra winning a championship in
1921.161 In November 1921, the Salvadoran government sponsored
a sports festival that had men’s and women’s sporting events, includ-
ing women’s basketball and tennis, along with men’s baseball. On
November 5, Lycee Francais defeated Colegio Santa Inez 24–2 in
women’s basketball. The following day Julia Meardy was crowned
tennis champion.162 Chester Urbina Gaitán even references a wom-
en’s football team in Chalatenango in 1921, but only states that the
women opted to stop playing due to their physical fitness.163
Physical education remained on the government docket into the
military dictatorships of the 1930s and 1940s, with increasing reg-
ulation as to what sports women and girls could play. In 1939 the
Ministry of Public Education was tasked with deciding what types
of physical activities would be included in the physical education
curricula at both public and private schools. The state mandated
six hours of physical education per week, and required that certain
sports be taught: “track and field, swimming, football (boys), bas-
ketball, baseball (boys), indoor [baseball] (girls).”164 By 1937, the
Central American and Caribbean Games included women’s events
and provided a major impetus for the development of programs
for girls and women. Although the games did not include either
baseball or football, the two events that contended for the title of
“national sport,” it opened opportunities for women to represent
their respective nations.

CONCLUSION

The evidence from Costa Rica, El Salvador, and Mexico opens at

least as many lines of questioning as it answers. As in the rest of the
region, women’s sports in Mexico and Central America had simul-
taneously controlling and liberating tendencies. On the part of the
WOMEN’S SPORTS IN MEXICO AND CENTRAL AMERICA 191

patriarchal state, efforts to inculcate correct physical education for

girls and young women were part of larger efforts to educate modern
citizens. Physical education programs comprised part of larger efforts
of the state to police girls’ movement and autonomy. As the care-
givers for the next generation of citizens, women had to be healthy
both physically and mentally. However, for women and girls them-
selves, the civilizing designs of the state often seemed to hold little
import. Rather, they sought to play, to create community, and in
some cases to fight against the stereotypes and boundaries that
marked proper gender norms and behavior.
In Mexico, the revolutionary nature of the state afforded more
opportunities for women to be both active participants and designers
of physical education policy. In both El Salvador and Costa Rica,
women had a smaller role in creating curricula but nevertheless
played a part in the construction and dissemination of sports culture.
Particularly in Costa Rica, where the girls’ normal school was also
a center of national feminism, women’s physical education teach-
ers were equipped not only with the teaching skills and curricula
for physical education, but also with expectations to create a more
egalitarian society, in part through sports. However, throughout the
Americas, even when curricula included girls’ physical education,
it naturalized stark differences between genders. These differences
were largely fictional and based on little or no accurate research. In
the coming years, across the Americas, women athletes formed clubs
outside of state institutions in increasing numbers and complexity.
While impossible to quantify, the importance of girls’ physical ed-
ucation in normalizing exercise and creating conditions for athletes
to make connections cannot be underestimated. The comparative
cases in Mexico and Central America illustrate the importance of
educational institutions, national political events, and transnational
networks. The success of Costa Rican futboleras suggests the im-
portance of the confluence of those factors alongside an enormous
amount of passion and effort from the players themselves.
5
THE BOOM AND BUST OF
MEXICAN WOMEN’S FOOTBALL

GRAINY VIDEO SHOWS THE ESTADIO AZTECA PACKED WITH

enthusiastic fans, cheering on their national team in the world cham-
pionship finals.1 For the second year in a row, the Azteca stadium
hosted the finals of a major global tournament. The first, the 1970
men’s World Cup, saw Brazil defeat Italy. Footage of this contest is
legendary. Shown in color for the first time, the men’s World Cup final
changed the way that sports were seen. The second, the 1971 wom-
en’s world championship, overseen by the Federazione Internazionale
Europea Football Femminile (Federation of International and
European Women’s Football, FIEFF), also played in front of a capac-
ity crowd of over 110,000 people. The finals pitted Mexico against
defending champions Denmark. Though the home team would lose
3–0 to a superior opponent, the match represented the first time that
any Mexican football team had reached the finals of a global tour-
nament. Not more than three years earlier, many Mexicans would
not have known that fútbol femenil existed. Women’s football ex-
ploded in Mexico in the late 1960s, not only in Mexico City but
also around the country. Journalists and physical education teach-
ers saw an opportunity to create institutions around this energy.
A few particularly supportive men began to set the groundwork
for a women’s football league around the capital, and within two
years the number of leagues grew. During the period from 1969 to
1972, the Liga América and the other leagues formed rapidly, even-
tually consolidating under the auspices of the Mexican Federation of
Women’s Football in 1971. Mexican women’s football represented
one of the most vibrant arenas of women’s sports in the Americas.
And then it collapsed.

192
The Boom and Bust ofMexican Women’s Football  193

The story of women’s football in Mexico and the country’s partic-

ipation in the 1970 and 1971 women’s world championships offers
a fascinating micro lens onto women’s history and the politics of
popular culture in Mexico. Without significant prior scholarship
on Mexican women’s football, and with a heavy reliance on spotty
journalistic coverage, our arguments are tentative.2 There is much
that remains to be done. We explain that men, particularly the jour-
nalists at El Heraldo de México, hoped to grow the sport, but with
different motivations. Some sought to create a space for women to
play football, others saw the sport as a business opportunity, while
others believed it to be the best way forward for Mexican women’s
physical education. At the very moment of the women’s football
boom, men’s professional clubs teetered on the brink of financial
ruin due to mismanagement and corruption within the Mexican pro-
fessional leagues and the Federación Mexicana de Fútbol (Mexican
Football Federation, FMF). To differing degrees, promoters, club
directors, and journalists hoped to compensate for declining revenue
in men’s football through the women’s game. At the same time, the
FMF and others saw the sport as a potential threat to the men’s
game. Moreover, the increasing recognition of women as consumers
provided further impetus for imagining the possibilities of a women’s
football league. Women players, who had developed an extensive
grassroots network of football teams, initially welcomed the sup-
port of major newspapers and promoters. The relationship between
women and the male organizers of the league soured rather quickly,
we argue, because the two had distinct ideas about women’s foot-
ball. The players rejected attempts to market them as novelty acts
and sought compensation from their sporting gains. This flew in the
face of many male expectations that the futboleras would remain
content as amateurs, playing for free while men reaped the financial
rewards. Despite these conflicts, women players found validation
on a new scale, opportunities to travel, and cherished camaraderie.
At the same time, conflicts over the uses and misuses of women’s
football played a part in its disappearance from the historical record,
as media outlets ceased covering the sport.
194FUTBOLERA

Global cultural currents, specifically second-wave feminism and the

jipis (hippies), framed the conflicts and possibilities of women’s foot-
ball in the late 1960s. These movements were part of challenges to
the Partido Revolucionario Institucional (Institutional Revolutionary
Party, PRI), the party at the helm of Mexico’s autocratic one-party
state from the 1930s to the 1990s. Moreover, broader economic and
demographic shifts changed women’s lives. The Mexico of 1970 and
1971 was a vastly different place than it had been just fifty years
earlier. At the end of the Mexican Revolution, as discussed in chapter
4, the government implemented a series of changes that attempted to
alter society rapidly. While it faced resistance at every turn—notably
with the Cristero Rebellion—the state successfully altered Mexico’s
economy and society. From a predominantly rural society in the
1950s, Mexico’s urban population approached 60 percent in 1970.3
And while women and girls entered education and the workforce in
smaller numbers than their male compatriots, they did so at higher
rates than their mothers and grandmothers. By 1970, roughly 18
percent of the formal workforce comprised women, and about 65
percent had at least some primary education.4 Mexico’s population
soared between 1950 and 1970, nearly doubling from 28.5 million
to 48.2 million.5 This was made possible by increasing life expec-
tancy, which had climbed from 39.8 years for women in 1940 to 63
years for women in 1970.6
The rapid urbanization and increase in living standards, partic-
ularly in the cities, had social and cultural ramifications as well.
Cinema, sports, music, arts, and dance flourished in midcentury
Mexico. At the time, Mexico was unique in the region in terms of
the social forces unleashed by the revolution and the radical rhet-
oric it espoused. The postrevolutionary state set about the work of
constructing a new national identity through nationalistic imagery
and sporting events. This national identity hinged upon an idealized
masculinity that defined proper men as breadwinners and benevolent
patriarchs. Still, there were competing experiences and precedents.
As Mary Kay Vaughan noted, the “revolution was not just an attack
on property, social hierarchy, and exclusion; it assaulted Victorian
morality and rules of sexual repression and brought women into
The Boom and Bust ofMexican Women’s Football  195

public space in unprecedented ways.”7 Just as in the 1920s, when

women with bobbed hair faced violent attacks by conservative neigh-
bors, in the 1960s and 1970s women, particularly those defined as
darker and lower class, continued to face persecution when entering
the public sphere. Perhaps none of these spaces was as challenging
as the sports stadium.
Women forayed into sports in greater numbers in the 1940s and
1950s, as the postrevolutionary state stressed physical education as
a way to create healthy citizens. The Mexican state supported the
development of a strong women’s sporting culture around Olympic
events such as swimming, track and field, and tennis. These tended
to be sports practiced by the upper classes. Basketball and volleyball,
which working-class clubs incorporated at a fast rate, also grew
during the 1930s and 1940s. As with most other countries around
the world, however, football was considered by Mexican sporting
authorities to be too rough for women to play. As discussed in chap-
ter 4, in 1929 the government instructed future physical education
teachers that only boys should be taught baseball, football, and
boxing.8
The PRI was notorious for its careful use of spectacle to pro-
mote Mexican nationalism and modernity. Sporting events provided
the party with the opportunities to showcase its vision of Mexico.
Beginning with the Central American and Caribbean Games in
1926, Mexico positioned itself as a sporting leader in the region. The
1955 Pan-American Games impressed delegations from across the
Americas, establishing Mexico as a bridge between the United States
and Latin America.9 Moreover, these games included more women
athletes from Latin America than had ever come together at once.
They electrified sportswomen who saw themselves at center stage
and enjoyed the opportunity to compete against the continents’ best.
In hosting the 1968 Olympic Games and the 1970 men’s World Cup,
the Mexican state mobilized its fullest resources to create a vision
of modern Mexico through sports. Even though the Olympics were
marred by the Tlatelolco massacre, both events highlighted Mexico’s
ability to plan a worldwide event and, to paraphrase the historian
Eric Zolov, temporarily replaced the myth that Mexico was a land
196FUTBOLERA

of mañana—where things could always wait until tomorrow—with

the notion that it was the land of today.10
The Mexican state invested generously in popular culture, and
by most accounts the PRI benefitted enormously from these endeav-
ors.11 Organizations affiliated with the PRI, such as the Sindicato
Único de Trabajadores del Gobierno del Distrito Federal (Union of
Federal District Government Workers), courted workers’ children
to attend events by offering free sports clinics. The regular inclusion
of softball indicates that girls frequently participated.12 The PRI di-
rectly intervened in cultural production, whether film, visual arts,
or music. When advantageous, the government created bureaucratic
institutions that could deflect archconservative demands for moral
patrolling.13 However, by the 1960s and 1970s the Mexican state’s
monopoly on popular culture had declined dramatically. At times,
PRI officials tried to challenge social traditions that blatantly dis-
criminated against women; however, feminist organizations found
most of these PRI decrees to be empty gestures.14
The moment of the effervescence of women’s football in Mexico
coincided, not coincidentally, with the resurgence of the nueva ola,
known in English as second-wave feminism. Given that suffrage re-
mained a struggle for women’s rights activists until 1953, there was
somewhat less of a generational divide between the first and second
waves of feminism in Mexico than in the United States. Feminists
frequently point to the 1968 student movement as a benchmark in
revitalizing the women’s movement, although the sexist rhetoric of
male leaders and the state’s violent repression marginalized women
active in the student movement.15 Women cutting their maxi skirts
into minis found their way into the Mexican media, which turned
these symbolic events into calls for greater freedoms or restrictions
on women’s behavior.16 Women transformed the student movement
by infusing feminism into its ranks. Unlike their male counterparts,
women activists were not sought out for co-optation by the govern-
ment of Luís Echeverría.17 However, his administration made sym-
bolic overtures to women, notably by hosting the 1975 International
Women’s Year conference. Feminists in the 1970s created a plural-
istic women’s rights movement that organized consciousness-raising
The Boom and Bust ofMexican Women’s Football  197

groups, nongovernmental organizations, and public events. Feminists

recalled that the movement was distinctive from earlier eras in its
emphasis on women’s power over their own bodies, including
abortion rights, sexual assault awareness, and positive sexuality.18
The movement also sought to remain apart from formal political
institutions or parties. It found organized expressions in Mujeres
en Acción Solidaria (Women in Solidarity Action), which formed in
1971, and the Movimiento Nacional de Mujeres (National Women’s
Movement), which formed in 1973.19 The emphasis on personal
experience and bodily integrity connected profoundly with women’s
athletics, though the women athletes and feminists rarely connected
in a formal way.
Structural changes, including mass migration and increased num-
bers of women in the formal labor sector, challenged traditional
social relations in the 1960s and 1970s.20 New economic imperatives
created demands for low-wage labor, which women frequently filled.
Some experienced the disruption to traditional family structures as
traumatic, while others found it liberating. Women workers enjoyed
participating in popular cultural practices as they carved out free
time and some disposable income. Stories of women as consumers
of globalized fashions like the miniskirt were sensationalized and
used as cautionary tales.21 Sportswear was limited to tennis out-
fits or bathing suits, and the makeshift football kits would have
provided a comfortable, nontraditional look for players that likely
raised eyebrows.

MEXICAN WOMEN IN SPORTS

Despite the fame of Mexico’s female global icons like Frida Kahlo
and Chavela Vargas, and women’s contributions to national culture
in Mexico more broadly, female public figures routinely experienced
discrimination. In civic associations and leisure activities, women
struggled to claim free time. As men’s power rested on their control
of women’s time, labor, and bodies, women’s athletics challenged all
three. In the mid-twentieth century, tennis, gymnastics, swimming,
track and field, basketball, and volleyball dominated the women’s
198FUTBOLERA

sports scene. These women’s events, approved by the International

Olympic Committee, developed further once they were included in
the Pan-American and Central American and Caribbean Games.
This is not to say that women’s inclusion in Mexican sporting
activities was uncontroversial. In the 1951 Pan-American Games the
Mexican team caused a scandal by including a woman, Eva Valdés,
on the equestrian team. Her inclusion prompted vocal complaints
from the Argentine team, and ultimately she was blocked from the
competition. In the aftermath of the controversy, La Afición pub-
lished a letter from an anonymous source lamenting the inclusion
of Valdés, who was the sister of the team captain Alberto Valdés.22
The letter expressed horror that the woman had tried to compete,
as her efforts ignored the International Equestrian Federation’s rules
that prohibited women from competition. In fact, the shocked reader
cited the specific article in the regulations, which stated, “Amazons
are not allowed to participate.”23
The 1955 Pan-American Games proved to be crucial to Mexico’s
sporting identity. Although Mexico had hosted the Central American
and Caribbean Games, in 1955 the delegates from Argentina and
Brazil were so impressed with the Mexican sporting facilities that
they pushed Mexico to bid for an Olympics.24 For Mexican sports,
both women’s and men’s, the event was a success as well. Antonio
Estopier y Estopier, president of the Confederación Deportiva
Mexicana (Mexican Sports Confederation, CODEME) and head of
the Mexican delegation to the games, rejoiced that Mexico won
more gold medals in 1955 than it had four years earlier. That he
mistakenly attributed a women’s gold medal to the wrong athlete
perhaps speaks to the amount of attention the sporting establishment
actually paid to women’s sports.25
Mexico’s hosting of the Pan-American Games offered female
athletes a special opportunity to compete internationally without
travel, opening the door for larger numbers of women to compete.
While Mexican women did not dominate the competition, they
medaled in swimming and diving and won the gold medal in vol-
leyball. Serving as host for the 1968 Olympics further increased
funding and interest in amateur sports. While government entities
The Boom and Bust ofMexican Women’s Football  199

allocated resources unevenly, women’s sports benefitted significantly.

For example, Mexico hired the Polish coach Stanislaw Poburka in
1966 to lead the women’s volleyball team with an eye to winning
the Pan-American Games and the Olympics.26 Previously, the men’s
and women’s teams had been coached by the same person. Thus, it
appears that the Mexican Olympic Committee took the success of
the women’s team quite seriously.
Basketball, too, disseminated widely among women, despite the
fact that it was criticized early on as “too rough” due to the level
of contact between players.27 Perhaps because basketball was not
considered the national sport, women avoided some of the scrutiny
they received when playing football. It might also have helped that
the Young Men’s Christian Association (YMCA) had promoted bas-
ketball in the Americas since the 1920s as a wholesome alternative
to football. The general discourse on women’s basketball in Mexico
was that the Aztecas—as the national team was called—were very
quick and talented, but always the underdog because of their
height.28 The national team toured Mexico extensively, and regular
stops included Chihuahua and Ciudad Juárez. Northern Mexican
cities in particular had strong ties to the clubs from the capital, as
they were also convenient stops en route to the United States. Indeed,
the growth of university women’s basketball in the United States
helped create opportunities for more talented sparring partners. In
1969, for instance, the Mexican women’s national basketball team
toured the United States, visiting Northern Arizona University and
Philadelphia’s Temple University.29 Mexican teams did not compete
against only educational institutions when they toured the United
States. In Texas, they played against Union Furniture of El Paso,
Williams Air Force Base, and the Phoenix Crusaders.30 The Phoenix
Crusaders likely represented a club affiliated with a Protestant
church. Women also appeared more often as coaches in basketball
than in other sports, perhaps reflecting their longer history of playing
or their close ties to physical education institutes.
Indeed, the United States provided a significant network for wom-
en’s sports to develop. Not only women’s basketball teams, but also
volleyball teams frequently traveled to the North for competition.
200FUTBOLERA

The Mexican national women’s volleyball team often traveled with

their male counterparts in the 1960s to Los Angeles in order to play
tournaments.31 These exchanges were cordial and exciting for play-
ers. However, the politics of the US-Mexican relationship were ever
present within sports, as were broader geopolitics. For example, the
United States denied a visa to Stanislaw Poburka, the Polish coach
of the Mexican women’s volleyball team, on the basis that he had
not lived in Mexico long enough. In one stroke, the United States
upheld its Cold War rivalry with the Soviet Bloc and its sporting
rivalry with Mexico.32
Women’s basketball and volleyball teams received considerable
coverage when they represented Mexico in international tourna-
ments. In 1970 the participation of the women’s teams in the Central
American and Caribbean Games sparked media coverage of female
athletes.33 Moreover, when women’s teams outperformed their male
counterparts, it drew attention. 34 Through players’ biographies
we can glean a bit about the history of women’s basketball clubs.
Sportswriters singled out Margarita Espinoza as particularly tall and
talented.35 Espinoza began to play in Chihuahua before she moved
with her parents in 1965 to Mexico City. There, she began to play
with the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (National
Autonomous University of Mexico), where she was studying. By
1967 the university team was disintegrating and a new team called
Leyes developed, which quickly made it into the top league of the
city. Basketball provided an opportunity for Espinoza to travel to
Texas and Arizona without her parents, a trip that would have been
unheard of a generation earlier. Journalists demonstrated a long-term
familiarity with women’s basketball, which they had covered since
at least the 1950s. When the veteran player Armida Guerrero was
dropped from the national team, the press showed knowledge of her
career years before. Guerrero had played for one of Mexico’s most
prominent clubs, Marina, since 1965, when she signed at seventeen.
Her fiancé was a well-known cyclist who died tragically. Guerrero
speculated that her personal problems could have interfered with
her play.36
The Boom and Bust ofMexican Women’s Football  201

Occasionally, exceptional women captured the attention of the

press and sports fans because of their international performances.
Nuria Ortíz became a world champion in pigeon shooting in 1966.37
Women sharpshooters were not uncommon in Mexico. Known as
Adelitas, women fighters had played a prominent role in the Mexican
Revolution, and the iconography of armed women in Mexico was
particularly powerful when compared to other parts of Latin America,
at least until the civil wars in Central America in the 1980s. How-
ever, Ortíz was hardly an Adelita, a mestiza, or an indigenous peas-
ant fighter. Rather, Ortíz and sport shooting represented the upper
echelon of Mexican society. A long way removed from the revolu-
tionary fervor and practical needs of rural women sharpshooters,
sport riflery was a leisure activity that Ortíz trained to master at a
world-class level. Ortíz, a member of Club Golf México, belonged
to a small circle of female athletes that belonged to exclusive sports
clubs.38 Florencia Hernández was a leading golfer in the 1970s and
hoped to compete in the fourth world championship of amateur
women golfers. She trained at Club Chapultepec.39 At times, athletes
and their supporters used these victories to press for more state
support for women’s sports. At the 1967 Pan-American Games in
Winnipeg, for example, the gold medal performance by the fencer
Pilar Roldán led the Mexican delegation’s trainer to lament that a
complete women’s fencing team had not been sent.40
Indeed, while most of the time women’s sports and women ath-
letes received little attention in the Mexican media, coverage of
them expanded during international competitions such as the Pan-
American Games. Even still, attention paid to women’s sports paled
in comparison to that given to men’s games. The sports magazine
La Afición relied on wire services for information about particular
events and then filled readers in about certain athletes. In the 1951
games, for example, it highlighted two female track-and-field ath-
letes. Bertha Chiú, a javelin and discus thrower from Chihuahua,
received attention after achieving surprising success. Concepción
Villanueva, the national and Central American discus champion,
was quickly dismissed after she underperformed and failed to make
202FUTBOLERA

the finals.41 One journalist asked, “Nerves? Poor conditioning? Who

knows?”42
Hortensia “Tencha” López, a young woman from Ciudad Juárez,
made the sports pages’ headlines for winning the javelin throw, which
came as a shock to sportswriters.43 According to reports, López
had never competed before in the javelin. The description of López
is interesting and provides a window on the views of women ath-
letes, at least in exceptional circumstances. The press explained that
despite her supposed inexperience, the Mexican blood that coursed
through her veins combined with the “decisiveness and traditional
values of our race” meant that there “were no obstacles that could
not be overcome.”44 After the tournament was over several athletes
were invited to Brazil and Chile.45 The brief mention of López high-
lights one of the more salient features of Mexican sportswriting
at the time. Only when women performed well did they make the
sports pages, and almost always their success was seen as coming out
of the blue. Moreover, they disappeared from view just as quickly
as they appeared.

THE RISE OF FÚTBOL FEMENIL

The rapid growth of women’s football in Mexico was based in part

on grassroots development and in part on the attention paid to the
sport by journalists in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Based on
scattered references in the magazines La Afición and Esto, Mexican
women’s football began in the late 1950s but remained relatively
isolated. In Guadalajara, for example, women organized regular
football matches beginning with the two teams El Nacional and
Mayitas, in 1959.46 One news report noted that the women put “seri-
ousness and femininity into every play.”47 A league, organized by
women from the city, emerged that year and played continuously
until 1970. The league president, Clara Alicia Sepúlveda, was the sis-
ter of “Tigre” Guillermo Sepúlveda, a famous player on the Mexican
men’s national team. Armida Castellón and Estela Castellón also
served on the executive board.48 While locals in Guadalajara might
have known of the league’s existence, few others outside Jalisco’s
The Boom and Bust ofMexican Women’s Football  203

capital were aware. A 1963 tour by two Costa Rican teams might
have changed that, spurring further interest in the game. From that
point on women’s football appeared to develop quickly in Mexico,
though the sport had already been organized to a large extent.
Indeed, the rapid growth of the sport after its supposed inception
suggests that women had been playing organized football at an ear-
lier date.49 Whenever the sport actually began, however, by 1969 it
emerged for good. Since then, whether in grassroots, women-orga-
nized leagues; as part of the formal Mexican Football Federation;
or as something in between, women’s football has been a part of the
Mexican sports-scape.
In 1969, women fans from Club América organized two teams—
“Azul” and “Crema”—and began playing exhibition matches. Their
play rapidly attracted attention, and as new teams sprang up, the
Liga América was born. In the first season of the league, seven-
teen teams competed in and around Mexico City. Games had thirty-
minute halves and were played on municipal fields around the city.
The FMF refused to recognize women’s football, so the league
received support from the city government. To the municipal au-
thorities, the sport seemed to appear from almost nowhere. They
believed that Mexican women were new to football and were fol-
lowing trends in Europe. The league, according them, “was created
to open new horizons for the lovely sex inside sports, and is based
on foreign countries who were instigators of women’s football 5
or 6 years ago.”50 By 1970, Liga América had twenty-eight teams,
coexisting uneasily with two other leagues: Escuela Nacional de
Educación Física (National School of Physical Education) and Liga
Iztaccíhuatl. All three leagues competed not only for players but also
for referees, field space, and the scarce resources open to women’s
football. But leagues continued to form. The National Institute for
Youth started a league, and the Liga de Xochimilco began as well.
The first national women’s tournament, called the Copa Femenil
Mexicano, also began in 1970, organized by the newly created
Asociación Mexicana de Fútbol Femenil (Mexican Association of
Women’s Football, AMFF) and comprising sixteen teams. The popu-
larity of the sport continued to grow, and by 1971 the Liga América
204FUTBOLERA

had grown to forty-four teams. Its closest rival, Liga Iztaccíhuatl,

had a further twenty-six teams. The hosting of the second women’s
football world championship provided both impetus for increased
growth and cause for concern among the football institutions. As
the International Federation of Association Football (FIFA) had not
yet decided on whether to bring women’s football under its auspices,
any exhibition of it was deemed threatening not only to the gendered
status quo, but also to its institutional oversight of all forms of the
sport. When the FMF took over official control of the women’s game
in 1971, under instructions from FIFA, it gave women’s football no
resources. Effectively, in fact, the FMF takeover pushed the sport
underground, where it survived relatively intact until the 1980s.
After the world championship in Mexico, the sport quickly faded
from the spotlight. Due to internecine squabbles among the mostly
male league directors, including accusations of financial exploitation
of the players after the event, the media turned on women’s football
and women football players. The world championship, though a
cultural and sporting success, caused a good deal of consternation
over who deserved the profit from the games and where women fell
in terms of the professional and amateur categories.

THE FIRST LEAGUE

The “first” women’s football tournament in Mexico City was played

in November 1969, according to El Heraldo de México. It was
contested between sixteen teams at the Estadio Municipal in the
Ciudad Deportiva Magdalena Mixhuca. The matches had two
halves of thirty minutes divided by a ten-minute rest. Efraín Pérez,
a professor at the Escuela Nacional de Educación Física (National
School for Physical Education), organized the tournament. Ten
clubs came from the Federal District and six from nearby prov-
inces. The roster included Club Delsa, of Cuautitlán; Universidad de
Toluca; Universidad de Puebla; Deportivo Irapuato; Academia Fénix,
of Cuautla; Gacelas, of San Juan; Progreso Industrial; Deportivo
Coapa; Deportivo Tepito; Club Independiente; Unidad Morelos;
Deportivo Financiera; Deportivo Cellini; Deportivo Karam; and
The Boom and Bust ofMexican Women’s Football  205

América teams A and B.51 These clubs would form the basis for
the first women’s league. It is hard to determine the exact nature
of these teams. Women and girls on the teams ranged in age from
around thirteen to twenty. Judging from the club names and the
brief descriptions, several represented small clubs from barrios, ed-
ucational institutions, and workplaces. Tepito, a center of working-
class sports, was represented, as was the watchmaker Cellini, and
the dominant professional club América.52
In the first year, the only newspaper to cover the women’s league
with any regularity was El Heraldo de México, as its journalist
Manelich Quintero became deeply involved in the organization
and administration of the women’s game. At the same time that El
Heraldo de México promoted the women’s game, however, it still
relegated women’s football to the margins, and gave much more col-
umn space to the Torneo de los Barrios (Tournament of the Barrios),
which it sponsored. The Torneo de los Barrios was a male-only
affair, bringing together local amateur teams from around the city
and province for a massive competition. Moreover, while it sup-
ported both the women’s competition and the Torneo de los Barrios,
it separated them: there was no women’s branch of the Torneo de
los Barrios.53 Women participated in the tournament in traditional
roles: serving as godmothers of the teams and carrying flowers to
the winners. Even in the most supportive of spaces, in other words,
gender segregation in football was extreme.
Yet El Heraldo de México’s coverage of the Liga América took
the sport seriously. 54 In 1969, the language and images used to
describe women players were far less objectifying than those that
would appear in the following years and, indeed, in the present
day. Commentary on the matches included reports on women’s
skill and playing style. The newspaper also acted as something of
a league promoter. It listed phone numbers so that interested play-
ers could call to join the league. It also commented that the public
responded very positively to the matches. Photographs from games
presented a great rupture to the visual landscape of the late 1960s.
While certainly there were countercultural trends gaining popular-
ity, such as long hair for men and miniskirts for women, images
206FUTBOLERA

of women playing football represented a deviation from anything

else in visual culture. Instead of suggestive images of posed women
or of elderly women in domestic roles, futboleras’ hair flew, their
muscles strained, their elbows dug into opponents, and they sweat.
Their faces grimaced, celebrated, and registered surprise. Still, along-
side the constant references to women as the “weaker sex,” even
El Heraldo de México, which clearly wanted to support women’s
football, could not resist suggesting that women spent halftime
primping.55 However, the photographs that accompanied articles did
not support the implication that women were concerned about the
way they looked on the field. Moreover, in the era before women’s
sporting events were marketed on the basis of supposed sex appeal,
one can see how different the optics of women’s football in Mexico
were in 1970. The players touched each other affectionately, and
while it is impossible to know the inner workings of the women
photographed, they appeared both happy and proud.56
The burst of attention on women’s football provided a rare
opportunity for women athletes to appear in major media out-
lets. Players’ names, photographs, and small biographical details
appeared in major newspapers of the city. In 1969, a match between
América “Azul” and Ixtacalco was televised.57 Media attention was
paramount to attract spectators to games. In the league’s first days,
games attracted around two thousand people. From newspaper
photographs of the first tournament, the crowds appear, as at men’s
games, to be mostly men. This appeared to change over the course
of the tournament, with a greater number of women and young girls
attending the matches.58 El Heraldo de México published opinion
pieces that argued women’s teams deserved better fields. From the
photographs, most of the matches were played on dirt. In addition,
as the first season gained momentum, photographs show specta-
tors watching from hills and trees surrounding the fields without
bleachers.59
El Heraldo de México normalized women’s football in other ways
as well, at the same time that it mirrored larger debates around how
women could reconcile work with motherhood. When the Swedish
The Boom and Bust ofMexican Women’s Football  207

women’s player Yvonne Stelnert was offered a contract by Torino

to play professional football in Turin, Italy, El Heraldo de México
reported the news. The article title left little doubt as to the opinion
of the paper: “She’s going to be a mother . . . and they want to sign
her in football!”60 The brief story might not have had the desired
impact. Rather than shocking readers, it might have made the sport
seem more appealing. Shortly after publication, a young woman
named María Edith found her way to the offices of the newspaper
and asked for the address of the club in Turin in order to offer her
talents.61 The newspaper took photos of María Edith, put together
a press package, and sent it along to Italy. The journalists tested her
out in the office. In its promotion of María Edith, the newspaper
included photographs of her in high heels. The paper explained that
she “did not lose her femininity due to football.” “To the contrary,”
it wrote, “she is beautiful and charming.”62 The paper reported that
she immediately invited them for dinner to see that she cooked just
as well as she played. Nevertheless, María Edith admitted to the
newspaper that she lost boyfriends for playing better football than
they did.
Despite the canned narratives that framed many stories of women
footballers, their own opinions occasionally made it into print.
Women frequently noted the importance of the solidarity they felt
with other players, and solidarity represented one of the most threat-
ening aspects of women’s football. Given the patriarchal norms of
the country and the limited avenues for female solidarity, the unity
forged on the field represented a bridge too far for many men and
women. In religious practice, traditional political history, and pop-
ular culture, machismo meant that male satisfaction was of para-
mount importance. Yet futboleras frequently cited female friendship
as a central attraction to the sport. For example, María Edith ex-
plained her dissatisfaction with Club América, because of the team’s
lack of compañerismo, or fellowship.63 The pleasure of playing with
other women went beyond the pitch. It must have been a unique
opportunity to bond with other women over a shared passion and to
play competitively with them. Maria de la Luz Hernández, a forward
208FUTBOLERA

FIGURE 5.1. Dirt fields, Liga América, 1969. El Heraldo de México, December
1, 1969.

on the América team, explained that “the compañerismo of all the

girls to be able do something and win if it is possible” was the most
important part of the process.64
It is difficult to generalize about the women who played in the
first league, given that only a handful captured the attention of the
press. Some came from other sports. Elvira Aracén, for example,
had never played a game of football before 1969. Her family were
all fans of American football, so it was only when friends tricked
her into playing that she set foot on the field. But she was an accom-
plished athlete who had represented Mexico in Jamaica at the ninth
Central American and Caribbean Games in 1962, competing in the
eighty-meter hurdles and the long jump.65 Certainly, the young age
of the participants is notable. Aracén, at twenty-two, was one of the
older players, with many players between thirteen and fifteen years
old, which was markedly different from the other teams in Latin
America and Europe.66 One exception was the club organized by
the Escuela Nacional de Educación Física, which fielded multiple
teams of physical education teachers and students studying to be
physical education instructors.67 Most players fit a common profile:
they were Mexico City residents; most had migrated to the capital
as children; many were students in vocational or secondary schools;
and nearly all of them had a male family member who played foot-
ball at some level. Some were recruited from other sports, such as
The Boom and Bust ofMexican Women’s Football  209

track and field. Some futboleras worked. One, María Cristina, was
a stenographer. Another, the captain of Club Independiente, worked
as a bank secretary. Others were students, and one helped out at her
family’s fruit stand.68 The club of Escuela Nacional de Educación
Física seemed to receive at least some support from the school, as
one journalist noted the players were “very coquettish with their
new uniforms.”69 New clubs seemed to join the league in January,
including one named after the intellectual forerunner of Mexican
feminism, the seventeenth-century nun Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz.70
By January 1970 there were fifteen teams regularly competing in
what was dubbed the top league in the Federal District. El Heraldo
de México described the movement as “football fever.”71
The community of women’s football attempted to create a civic
association structure to stabilize and diffuse the leagues’ activities,
in line with international football regulations. An association, for
example, had to include more than one league. In 1970, club lead-
ers founded the Asociación Mexicana de Fútbol Femenil (Mexican
Association of Women’s Football, AMFF).72 As with any govern-
ing body, this group set about creating rules for the sport. Liga
América continued to thrive throughout the 1970 season. Yet de-
spite the fashionable trend of women’s football in 1970, reporters
continued to have more familiarity and investment in volleyball.73
Space posed a big challenge to teams that struggled for resources, in
part due to increased urbanization. Fields were at a premium, and
women’s leagues were granted access to public—either municipal or
CODEME—rather than private spaces. The fields made available,
according to contemporary reports, were less than ideal.74 They
were dirt and rock. Some had broken glass mixed in with the rocks.
In the words of Elvira Aracén, the fields “were not exactly like the
Estadio Azteca.”75 There were neither bleachers nor dressing rooms.
The women played six of the seven games of their tournament at
the Ciudad Deportiva. Newspaper reports describe a festive environ-
ment, filled with optimism for the future of women’s football. Again,
photographs show a diverse crowd, and many children attended
games, which was notably different from the men’s game. When
Progreso Industrial defeated América, fans rushed the field, but many
210FUTBOLERA

of the fans were children or were holding children.76 It was a very

different scenario than América’s usual pitch invaders. El Heraldo
de México reported that the interest in women’s football had taken
everyone by surprise. Attendance had increased so substantially that
they needed a field with bleachers because fans crowded the sidelines
so tightly that they were nearly on the pitch.
Indeed, the sport’s popularity seemed to grow every day. Celebrity
figures such as the television and film actor Chabelo agreed to be
godfathers of women’s teams.77 Local politicians also began to at-
tend women’s football events. The secretary of public works for
Querétaro, Alfonso Macedo Rivas, inaugurated a festival of wom-
en’s football in San Juan del Río.78 In the same festival, the munici-
pal president, Raúl Olvera Aróstegui, captained one of the teams.79
According to El Heraldo de México, thousands of spectators at-
tended. Women’s increasing political activity might have influenced
politician’s decisions to participate in women’s football activities.
Nevertheless, the presence of local political leaders and cultural icons
lent credibility to the sport and made it more acceptable to play.
Women of the provinces paid keen attention to the women’s
football tournaments in the Federal District. El Heraldo de México
received a letter from one Norma Ramírez, a football player from
Durango.80 She sought a spot in Club Independiente and mentioned
that her parents had already given her permission to travel to the
city to pursue playing football. The newspaper published the tele-
phone number of a hotline for women players, which they could call
between two and four in the afternoon to give their information.
The popularity of the league was such that it considered holding
open tryouts.81 Men’s teams, too, saw the opportunity in women’s
football. Deportivo Reynosa de Azcapotzalco formed a women’s
football section that apparently integrated many recent immigrants
to Mexico City from Tamaulipas.82 Indeed, coverage of Mexican
women’s football reflected the intense period of migration to Mexico
City, and many of the players—and sometimes entire teams—were
identified by their home states.83 For instance, the women’s team of
Independiente were nicknamed Las Poblanas.84 Every day, it seemed,
new clubs formed and sought affiliation with the league, including
The Boom and Bust ofMexican Women’s Football  211

FIGURE 5.2. Liga América, 1969. El Heraldo de México, December 28, 1969.

the squads Ciudad Madero, Tlacotal, Deportivo Perú, Doctores, and

La Colmena.85 Women’s football grew in the provinces as well. In
Cuernavaca, the sport was spearheaded by Textiles Morelos, which
sought to organize more matches in the city.86
As the sport continued its rise, women’s football relied on the
regular coverage it received in the Mexican press. Manelich Quintero
wrote almost daily features on the sport in El Heraldo de México.
While increased press coverage gave women more exposure than
ever, however, many pieces rested upon persistent commentary
about women’s bodies. Many descriptions focused on their legs,
hair, breasts, and faces, noting how particular colors drew out
their beauty.87 Indeed, sexuality filtered into commentary on male
players as well. As male players became part of a celebrity culture,
writers patrolled the sexualization of players by using particularly
heteronormative language. When El Heraldo de México featured
two brothers, Carlos and Nacho Calderón, in a color photograph it
stipulated that the photograph was for the “lady fans.”88 Thus, even
while supporting women’s football, El Heraldo de México reinforced
212FUTBOLERA

the notion that women were more often fans than players. At the
same time, it implied that lusting after male players was something
exclusive to women. In the same vein, journalists constantly asked
women athletes about their marital status, boyfriends, and even
hopes for future mates.
The coach and president of the Liga América (which would soon
change its name to the Liga Femenil de Fútbol Mexicana to reflect
its independence from Club América and to broaden its appeal),
Efraín Pérez, became a key leader in the organization of women’s
football. Pérez recognized the challenges that women players faced
in Mexico, even if he was unaware of the longer history of the sport
in the region. He argued that football was “a legitimate aspiration”
for women and lamented the lack of support that the sport received,
comparing women’s struggles in sports to women’s struggles in so-
ciety more broadly.89 “Women,” he suggested, “have always felt—
without being so—less than men; and through pride and eagerness
have succeeded in overcoming their lack of support.”90 In every area
of society, he argued, women were “if not surpassing, then becoming
equal to men,” including in sports “by way of football.”91 Pérez built
upon his success in organizing the league to build the first women’s
national team in 1970.
The growth of women’s football in Mexico and elsewhere made
international institutions take note. Already in 1965, after the ap-
pearance of women’s football in Costa Rica, Venezuela, Colombia,
and around Europe, FIFA discussed the sport in an emergency
meeting, encouraging member federations to discourage women’s
football.92 But with the men’s World Cup on the horizon, especially
given the role of the FMF president Guillermo Cañedo in both FIFA
and Telesistema, it was even more difficult to ignore the sport’s ex-
plosion.93 And so in 1970, just prior to the FIFA men’s World Cup in
Mexico, and before FIFA officially recognized that women’s football
existed, a group of wives of FIFA representatives toured Mexico
City. One of their stops was at the Ciudad Vicentina, a center for
the poor run by Vincentian nuns. The wives visited a workshop
where young women produced clothing, and also attended a wom-
en’s football match. El Sol de México sarcastically noted that the
The Boom and Bust ofMexican Women’s Football  213

girls “would not raise the Jules Rimet Cup,” but rather, “bruises on
their beautiful extremities.”94 The tone of the article again highlights
the difficulty some male sportswriters had with looking at women’s
sports as competition rather than spectacle. It also shows clearly that
people connected to FIFA knew women’s football existed.
If the world was coming to know Mexican women’s football, so
too the Mexican press informed its readers about the sport elsewhere.
El Heraldo de México reported on the development of women’s foot-
ball in Europe, particularly Italy and France.95 In Turin, it reported,
over twelve thousand fans attended women’s games. The game had
become so popular in France that the Women’s Football Federation
of France considered requesting affiliation with FIFA. While this
was clearly not the first time that European women’s football was
brought to the attention of the Latin American public, renewed in-
terest in its popularity among European women provided legitimacy
to the sport, at least in part, for Europhiles in Latin America.96

MEXICO AND THE FIRST WOMEN’S WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP

Media coverage of women’s football in Mexico grew throughout

1969, but expanded exponentially by the middle of the following
year as the AMFF readied a national team to compete in the first
FIEFF world championship in Italy. Interest around the sport de-
veloped in tandem with increased exposure. From the outset of the
endeavor, the press played an oversized role. The journalist Manelich
Quintero claimed that he had received information about the tour-
nament from Jorge Sandoval, a Mexican reporter based in Italy,
and passed the information on to Efraín Pérez.97 Quintero would
also accompany the team to Italy in his capacity as secretary of the
AMFF, at the expense of the team masseuse. In the end, the AMFF
might have felt it was more important to control the media narrative
of the team at the tournament, while El Heraldo de México might
have seen unfettered access to the women’s team as a marketing
advantage.
The team that represented Mexico was chosen through the same
method that men’s teams were: a set number of women were on a
214FUTBOLERA

preselection list, from which the final team was made. In the case of
Mexico’s 1970 women’s team, the team director Efraín Pérez (also
the AMFF president) and the coach José Morales gathered approx-
imately one hundred of the best women players in the Mexico City
area, and some from nearby states, and put them through a series of
skill, speed, and conditioning drills, as well as tactical discussions.
Eventually they whittled the team, after four separate selections,
down to sixteen.98 Tensions rankled the women’s football world as
the preselections approached, with rumors swirling that only players
from the Liga América would be chosen for tryouts. In fact this was
not the case, with players drawn from the Liga Iztacchíhuatl as well,
including players from Cruz Azul, Naucalpan, Pachuca, Toluca, and
Cuautla, and members of eleven teams from outside of the capital
region called in for preselection.99 The young women who were se-
lected began training at 5:00 or 5:30 a.m. in Chapultepec Park, after
which time the team would take a break in order for members to go
to school or to work, followed by practice at whatever field the team
had borrowed for the day. If no field was available, the squad found
space at Chapultepec.100 The women trained hard, in part because
they had only two or three months to prepare. In the weeks prior to
departure, the team played a series of friendly matches against local
women’s teams but faced little competition. As a result, the team
approached a high school boys’ team willing to play them.
As the media began reporting on the futboleras’ upcoming trip,
some likened the women’s participation in the first world champi-
onship to Mexico’s entrance into global football at the Olympics in
Amsterdam in 1928.101 Following this analogy, newspapers argued
that Mexico should lower its expectations. After all, women had been
playing the sport officially for less than a year, even if they had already
formed recognized leagues and an association. 102 They reminded
readers that Europe, as always, was well ahead of Mexico, especially
because women’s football was almost professional and had “true”
athletes. José Morales, head coach of the Mexican team, was uncon-
cerned about the European squads that his team would face, noting
that he had “good material in the girls” to work with.103 According
to him, even though the “morenitas” lacked height, weight, and
The Boom and Bust ofMexican Women’s Football  215

experience in comparison to their European opponents, they re-

mained “undaunted.”104 Referring to the players as morenitas—a
reference to their dark-skinned, lower-class backgrounds—high-
lights the nature of thinking about women’s sports discussed earlier.
Much in the same way that the press credited the javelin thrower
Hortensia López’s success to her Mexicanness rather than her train-
ing, here Morales stressed that the Mexican women would be un-
daunted because of their inherent mexicanidad. According to Elvira
Aracén, Morales had no training and little tactical knowledge,
though he was capable at directing players on the field.105 Just before
the departure for Italy, El Sol de México ran a photograph of the
team member Rebeca Lara on the front page, spurring the team on
and lauding its “good defenders” and “good forwards” who played
“con ganas.”106 One week before the team’s departure for Italy, the
journalist Maria Guadalupe de Santa Cruz reinforced the notion
of the Mexican underdogs, writing, “People have begun to become
very interested in this committed little group of athletes who are
ready to fight with unequaled passion in Italy.”107 While they were
inexperienced, in other words, they still represented the nation. The
image of Mexico as a smaller, darker, and scrappier team fighting
against the Europeans was powerful and was used frequently in
the press. Here, the players stood in for Mexico, often portrayed as
competing in the world against the influence and wealth of Europe
and the United States. In placing Mexicans as neophytes in the world
of football, the press both preemptively excused any defeats and set
the team up as heroic in case of victory.
But the press depiction of a team with little experience and re-
sources was hardly a narrative meant to build up the team. To the
contrary, players and coaches had much to worry about in regard to
their lack of equipment. Just six days before the team left for Italy,
Efraín Pérez put out a plea to “people and institutions of goodwill,”
through El Sol de México, asking for whatever help people could
give in order to equip the team. Pérez estimated that the team needed
roughly twenty thousand pesos to make the trip.108 The team “lacked
everything.” Less than a week before departing, they had neither
uniforms nor travel clothes. Many had no cleats, he said, due to the
216FUTBOLERA

“scarcity of small sizes.” This was not a new problem. According

to Manelich Quintero, during the months of preparation for the
championship, the women’s team had no balls with which to prac-
tice. A men’s national team player, Enrique Borja, lent the necessary
equipment, while Dr. Arturo Heredia of the medical center of the
national university offered medical care to the team for free.109 In
the end two institutional supporters came forward. General Alfonso
Corona del Rosal, the regent of the Federal District, charged his
office with providing uniforms and travel clothing, while the de-
partment of sports activities at the national university, headed by
Gustavo Moctezuma, also helped outfit the team.110 According to El
Heraldo de México, Guillermo Cañedo, the president of the FMF,
wanted to help the women’s national team but could not because
FIFA had not recognized women’s football.111
Notwithstanding financial obstacles faced by the team, women
faced individual challenges as well. The majority of the women
playing on Mexico’s first national team came from “humble back-
grounds” and lacked the resources necessary to buy shoes, balls, and
other equipment.112 Some of them were workers, as was the case
of Maria de la Luz Hernández, who assembled transistors, while
others were students or helped their mothers with work (quehaceres
domésticos) in their homes.113 Given their economic backgrounds,
traveling outside of Mexico—let alone to Europe to play football—
was something that they had never expected.114 Many had never
thought of playing football outside of the relatively safe confines of
the Liga América, though many had dreamed of wearing the Mexico
jersey. All, save the reserve goalkeeper and self-described chaperone
Elvira Aracén, were under twenty years old. Aracén was the only
one who had been on a plane before—traveling to Cuba, Jamaica,
and the United States to represent Mexico in track-and-field events.
Women players confronted disapproval from their parents, as else-
where in Latin America. A number of women players recalled being
punished for playing the sport. Maria Silvia Zaragoza’s father beat
her because he thought the sport “was made only for men.” Alicia
“La Pelé” Vargas faced opposition from her parents, who some-
times dragged her from games by her ears. Patty Hernández used
The Boom and Bust ofMexican Women’s Football  217

to argue with her sister over the appropriateness of playing foot-

ball, until her sister started to play.115 Elvira Aracén’s family thought
that because Mexico was a “machista society” and football was a
man’s game, a woman playing football was akin to “putting one’s
nose where it didn’t belong.” Still, they did not try to stop her, per-
haps because when she began to play she was already an adult.116
Nevertheless, in the run-up to Italy, the press focused on the support
futboleras received from their families. It made, after all, a much
better story. Many reports mentioned the importance of fathers and
brothers in encouraging the futboleras to play. In one case, Yolanda
Ramírez, the starting goalkeeper for the Mexican national team in
1970, actually taught her brothers how to play the game.117 So,
whatever the parents of the first Mexican national women’s team
actually thought about their daughters playing football, at least some
of them displayed pride. In an article just before the team left for
Italy, El Sol de México published a photo of “proud mothers of
families” and their “happy daughters.”118 The press offered assur-
ances that the girls never lost their femininity while playing football,
reporting, for example, that Elsa Salgado liked to knit in her spare
time.119 According to press reports, as they prepared to board the
plane, some cried for fear of flying.120 Once they arrived in Italy, the
young women showed their inexperience in other ways: the first sou-
venirs of the trip were packets of salt and sugar from the airplane;
and Maria Eugenia Rubio and Nila brought green chilies that their
families had stashed in their bags to the first dinner in Italy.121
The surprise of the Mexican sports press after Mexico’s 9–0 defeat
of Austria in its first game can hardly be overstated. Articles noted
the futboleras’ skills, complaining that “the encounter . . . lacked
interest due to the evident superiority of the winners.”122 An esti-
mated ten thousand people attended the match to witness the “more
athletic” Austrians be overwhelmed due to their lack of “technical
faculties.”123 Indeed, across the board, press commentary noted the
“technique,” the organization of the squads, and the “excellent im-
pression” that the top teams made in the tournament.124 Despite its
resounding victory over Austria, Mexico went on to lose to hosts
Italy 2–1 in the semifinals. According to press reports, the skill of
218FUTBOLERA

FIGURE 5.3. Elvira Aracén, goalkeeper for the

Mexican women’s national team, 1971. El
Heraldo de México, September 1, 1971.

the Mexican players collapsed under the physicality of the Italian

squad. El Sol de México provided a full play-by-play of the match,
noting specifically the play of the Italian “diva,” the left wing Elena
Schiavo, who scored both goals, one on a penalty and one with a
“precise shot, taken with very good style.”125 For El Heraldo de
México, however, it was not the skill but the strength of the Italian
squad that undid the mexicanas.126 “The Italian defense,” wrote El
Sol de México, was “composed of very strong girls who play quite
a rough game.”127 Still, while the physical play “demoralized” the
Mexican team, the “caserismo [favoritism]” of the Italian referee
was the “true basis” of Italy’s victory.128
The Boom and Bust ofMexican Women’s Football  219

Mexico went on to play England in the third-place game, which

made front-page headlines in El Sol de México on July 14. According
to the media, Mexico “deservedly won” the hard-fought game 3–2.
Journalists again took the efforts of the futboleras seriously, not-
ing that they “confronted a solid English team whose reaction in
the second half kept the outcome in constant doubt.”129 The photo that
topped the sports section of El Sol de México noted that both Mexico
and England “offered a good, technical game.”130 As with other
matches, players’ skills rather than appearance were analyzed. One
author commented particularly on the speed and shot of England’s
Davies, who scored her team’s first goal “with a magnificent shot
from 25 meters.”131 In the summary of Mexico’s victory, writers
stressed English physical superiority—their height and strength, par-
ticularly. However, Mexico emerged victorious due to their speed
and skill on the ball.132 From the perspective of the Mexican media,
the first women’s football world championship was a total success
in terms of its attendance. The Italian public turned up in large
numbers to see the matches (with the exception of the Italy-Mexico
semifinal, where three thousand attended a game played in extreme
heat) and “responded with enthusiasm . . . rewarding the players
with applause.”133 The games, particularly those involving Denmark,
Mexico, and England, offered the “quality” expected by football
fans of any gender, and the teams played at “an appreciable level
. . . homogenous and well organized.”134 The level of play left no
doubt that “women’s football is as valid as men’s.”135 In the face
of FIFA and FMF reticence about the place of women’s football,
this was a strong conclusion, and one that still has not managed to
penetrate the upper echelons of most footballing federations nearly
fifty years later.
After their final match against England, the Mexican national
team remained in Italy, where local officials treated them as visiting
dignitaries. They received the symbol of the city of Turin, a bronze
trophy on marble, during a visit to the Palace of Justice.136 They were
also given a tour of the Martini and Rossi factory and wine museum
and visited the Basilica of Superga.137 Italian “admiration” for the
Mexican team also prompted organizers to schedule an exhibition
220FUTBOLERA

match against Torino before returning home.138 Other matches were

offered, but the delegation turned them down for lack of funds.139
In retrospect, the significance of the experience in Italy, however
brief, for women who played on this inaugural national team cannot
be overstated. Many of the young women who played on the national
team noted that it was their dream to play for their country. “We
were truly,” one former player from the 1971 team recalled, “repre-
sentatives of Mexico.”140 Given that there were no prior women’s
national teams on which to model themselves, the futboleras had to
work very hard to create their own universe. Prior to leaving for Italy,
Silvia Zaragoza, a forward on the team, noted that football was her
“only dream.”141 El Heraldo de México described the experience as a
“dream converted into reality” for the women.142 For Elvira Aracén,
representing “the Mexico in which she was born and learned to live”
was “the highest aspiration of any athlete.”143 Patricia Hernández
concurred: “Upon being selected,” she said, “what any player feels is
a heavy weight and a responsibility that we have to fulfill.”144 Lupita
Tovar, captain of the national team because of her “seriousness,
calmness, and composure,” told the press upon departing for Italy:
“I don’t have words to describe how I feel inside [and she raises her
hand to her heart], but we’re going with soul and life to do what is
called a good job.”145
On their return to Mexico City, the Mexican delegation was met
with great fanfare, though the celebratory nature of their welcome
papered over serious conflicts. The AMFF organized the twenty-eight
clubs that belonged to the organization to greet the national team
at the airport.146 Mariachis were arranged, and groups from the
players’ neighborhoods showed up at the airport as well. Maria
Eugenia “La Peque” Rubio arrived to a big banner from La Colonial
El Alemán. So surprised were the women at the crowds waiting for
their arrival that they thought someone famous had flown with them
back to Mexico.147 Not only did players receive a warm reception
at the airport, but civic leaders and others sought to congratulate
the team. The Mexico City Lions Club, for example, arranged a
dinner for the coach and players, which was attended by the Italian
The Boom and Bust ofMexican Women’s Football  221

ambassador.148 Alfonso Corona del Rosal, the regent of Mexico City,

met the team and promised them a field of their own.149 Corona del
Rosal made good on his promise, delivering a field in the Ciudad
Deportiva Magdalena Mixhuca.150 A dance at Salón Maxim was
organized in honor of the team and featured the popular café singer
Javier Batiz.
Still, before they even returned to Mexico, concerns arose over
the place of women’s football in the country, and of women’s place
in football. The success of the women’s team occasioned little cel-
ebration on the part of the FMF. On the same day as it reported
on the final of the women’s world championship, El Sol de México
published an article addressing the Mexican federation’s attitude to-
ward women’s football. “In principle,” it reported, “the Federation
[FMF] is in favor of accepting the Association of Women’s Football,
but it first needs the authorization of FIFA, which will have the last
word.”151 The FMF executive committee had “discussed the issue
of women’s football in its last meeting, without reaching definitive
agreement.”152 Two days later, however, the headline of El Sol de
México’s sports pages read, “No women’s league has affiliated with
the FMF.”153 The headline was accompanied on the first page by an
opinion piece, “There should not be women footballers,” with the
subtitle, “The sport can cause disorders.” In it, the author made
clear that the FMF had not received any “indications” regarding the
request that it had sent to FIFA, and as a result no women’s league
had been affiliated.154 Joaquín Soria Terrazas, head of the amateur
division of the FMF, summarized the federation’s stance in regard
to women’s football:

Before we move forward with anything, we need to know under

what situations we will have women’s football. Until now we
have only had informal discussions with the directors of the
Liga Iztaccíhuatl, but only regarding the league’s organization.
It is also true that said league has requested affiliation [with
the FMF] but the fact that they have made the request does not
mean that they are affiliated.155
222FUTBOLERA

Soria added his personal opinion on the matter of women’s foot-

ball. “I consider,” he told the reporter, “football to be unsuitable
for women . . . as it is practiced, football can cause considerable
disorders.” He concluded this line of thinking with his final assess-
ment. “I just do not believe,” he said, “[football] is an appropriate
sport for women.” Soria Terrazas’s view was hardly unique. Players
recall being constantly criticized for playing football: “if you played
women’s football, it was almost as if you were thrown out of the
female sex.”156 Still, Soria Terrazas implicitly acknowledged that
the sport might have gotten too popular for the federation to stop,
noting that should the sport continue, “it is imperative to create very
different rules.”157
As head of the amateur division of the FMF, Soria Terrazas
wielded considerable influence both within and outside of the fed-
eration. At his urging, the FMF canceled a match between two wom-
en’s teams from Guadalajara in Estadio Jalisco.158 El Heraldo de
México speculated that the FMF feared the women’s match would
draw spectators away from professional men’s games, especially
because it was free. In fact, Club Oro complained that fans would
not attend their men’s match Saturday for precisely that reason.159
In other words, beyond the broader limitations of sexist structural
and cultural conditions, the FMF and FIFA played an important role
in impeding women’s football.
The FMF sought to cut off access to fields for any games hon-
oring the women’s national team by claiming to be awaiting clari-
fication on the status of women’s football from FIFA. It instructed
professional clubs not to permit women’s football teams to use their
fields under any circumstances, threatening to sanction those that
did.160 However, the organizers of the women’s tribute match had
already spent money and time in advertising the match, and support-
ers of the women’s game took little interest in the FMF sanctions.
Moreover, FMF regulations forbade professional clubs from using
their fields for other purposes. Since the exhibition was sponsored
by the national university’s department of athletic activities, the
football federation had no jurisdiction. On top of that, the jour-
nalist Flavio Zavala Millet questioned the premise that FIFA had a
The Boom and Bust ofMexican Women’s Football  223

right to rule on the permissibility of women’s football. Noting that

FIFA regulations said nothing about women’s football, he argued,
“it is a general and universal legal principle that anything that is not
expressly prohibited is permitted.” What then, he asked, did FIFA
have to decide on?161 Much as in Brazil, where clubs flouted the
government ban on women’s football when it served their interests,
so too in Mexico, those who supported the women’s game did so
anyway. Clubes Unidos de Jalisco (United Clubs of Jalisco) also
decided to ignore the FMF circular and allowed the women to play,
to a reported seven thousand spectators.162
Ultimately, the women who represented Mexico in the first wom-
en’s world championship in Turin broke new ground in many ways.
While they were hardly the first women in Mexico to play football,
they certainly raised the profile of the sport in the nation. The nar-
rative of the team, as morenitas facing off against the larger and
more football-savvy Europeans, made them into heroes for many.
The sport grew rapidly after the first world championship, with
new teams and leagues developing around the country. One former
player remembers being invited to play in different states around
the country. The futboleras had gone to Europe with little in the
way of institutional support and none from the Mexican Football
Federation, and had come back the most successful Mexican football
team to date. In fact, however, the response of the official football
institutions, both in Mexico and internationally, portended a rocky
future for the sport. Nevertheless, whether officials were in favor
of the game or not, in July 1970 women’s football seemed firmly
embedded in the media and in the Mexican landscape as a result of
the national team’s success. More and more girls and women sought
to play the game. The only path for the sport appeared to be toward
growth and greater visibility.

CONTINUED GROWTH

In spite of the official resistance from the FMF, women’s football met
with a good deal of success in 1970, and the relationships between
the Mexican women’s federation and other women’s organizations
224FUTBOLERA

forged during the first women’s championship flourished. A month

after the world championship, the AMFF, still led by Efraín Pérez,
sent a cable to the FIEFF inviting the Italian team to play a rematch
in Mexico.163 According to Manelich Quintero, Guillermo Cañedo,
the FMF president and FIFA vice president, proposed the match and
offered to pay all costs for the Italian team. He had apparently seen
some potential in the sport and was hoping to curry favor with the
Italians.164 In the autumn of 1970 the Italian women’s team arrived
in Mexico to play a rematch with the home team. The rematch be-
tween the national women’s teams of Mexico and Italy took place
in Estadio Azteca and was broadcast nationally on Channel 2.165
Mexico defeated Italy 2–0 in front of sixty thousand fans in Estadio
Azteca.166 As it aired on national TV, the game gave many more
Mexicans the chance to see the futboleras play and the opportunity
to make their own decisions about the quality of women’s football.
It also inspired a number of lengthy articles and commentaries as
the sport moved in from the margins. While many remained positive
in their evaluation of the women’s skill, not all did. For example,
Hugo Cisterna wrote an editorial for El Heraldo de México that
followed a typically ignorant pattern of assumptions. He opined,
“Although women are more flexible and coordinated than men, this
is not the case when they are playing football.”167 Cisterna described
the players as clumsy on the ball, which he excused since the women
had (according to him) only recently taken up the sport. He clearly
had not checked into the backgrounds of some of the players, many
of whom had been playing since they were children. On the whole,
however, he described the match favorably and suggested the men’s
game should play the more open, offensive game of the women’s
team.
Italy played Mexico in a second match, in Guadalajara’s Estadio
Jalisco, and also played against Club América. Channel 8 in Mexico
City broadcast the match, with commentary from Lupita Olaiz and
Addiel Bolio, though no footage of this match has been found.168 The
match was well publicized and fans were excited to see América’s
star player, Alicia “La Pelé” Vargas, who had been left out of the
games with the national team for disciplinary reasons.169 In their final
The Boom and Bust ofMexican Women’s Football  225

match before returning home, the Italian side beat Club América
4–0.170 Following the visit, Marco Rambaudi, the head of the Italian
women’s football delegation and the president of the FIEFF, was so
impressed with the facilities in Mexico and the popularity of the
sport there that he declared his support for Mexico hosting the next
women’s world championship. The site of the 1971 tournament had
yet to be determined and would be decided during a meeting of the
women’s football federation in Geneva.171 Still, it would not be an
easy task to earn the rights to host the championship, as Switzerland,
Luxembourg, and Spain had also expressed interest in hosting the
event. After an inconclusive first round, Mexico won the rights in
a second vote.172
Interest in women’s football continued to grow steadily. A match
was organized in homage to the national team’s performance that
was televised on Channel 4 and sponsored by the beer company
Superior. The sponsors and promoters of women’s football assumed
that the marketing materials used in men’s games would serve the
same purpose in the women’s game. As a result, Superior advertised
the game featuring a blonde woman with her eyes closed and a
foot on the ball in a sexy and submissive position.173 El Heraldo
de México ran color photographs of the reporters on the field and
claimed it was the first women’s match televised in full in the world.
The match was a success. By August of 1970, women’s matches were
shown regularly on Channel 8. Matches were televised at least until
October of that year.174
Women’s leagues took off as well. Elvira Aracén recalled that on
her return from Italy in 1970, “wherever you went, there were teams
of [women’s] football,” likening it to an explosion of the sport.175
As the 1970 season continued, El Heraldo de México increased its
reporting on women’s football, with more in-depth coverage from
Manelich Quintero and “Ric Rac.” El Nacional began publishing
the schedules of women’s games in its sports section, something
earlier confined to men’s amateur and youth football.176 In addition,
Ovaciones, Esto, and Fútbol de México y del Mundo began running
regular articles on women’s football. More biographical informa-
tion appeared in the press, as well as descriptions of the athletes’
226FUTBOLERA

achievements and, finally, their style of play.177 The women’s teams

were moving into all kinds of interesting places, including a con-
vent with an adjoining school. The Mexican press took interest in
women’s football in other Latin American countries as well. Taking
no small measure of pride in the Mexican situation, the local press
commented that “the environment for women’s football” elsewhere
was “adverse.” The press reported on Brazilian women in recent
months who had formed teams of “coristas y modelos” (chorus girls
and models), and that they had great figures but did not play good
football.178 According to El Heraldo de México, João Havelange
and the Brazilian Football Federation banned further matches by
pinup girls.
The press also began to give nicknames to players. This and other
quotidian practices began to alter the perception of the sport. Wom-
en players frequently acquired the nicknames of male players, which
was oftentimes complimentary. Among these was the Mexican player
Alicia Vargas, a.k.a. La Pelé. Born in 1954, Vargas began playing as
a youth with her brothers and other boys in the street. Against the
wishes of her parents, Vargas continued to play. Playing in the streets
gave her great touch with both feet, a skill she used to dribble around
opponents (à la her favorite player, Garrincha), to lay passes off to
her teammates, or to unleash a powerful shot. Maria Eugenia Rubio
acquired the name La Peque—the kid—and Silvia Zaragoza car-
ried the nickname La Borjita, after the men’s national team player
Enrique Borja, while Araceli Aviña was known as Garrincha. For
her part Rubio, La Peque, was one of the smallest players on the
team, and one of the most skilled dribblers. She was known for her
guile, with one story claiming that she ran through the legs of a taller
Austrian defender while dribbling the ball.179
And the women of the national team helped the sport to grow as
well. Along with playing on teams in Mexico City, they began some-
thing of a barnstorming tour. Every Saturday or Sunday the women
of the national team were invited to different parts of Mexico to play
against local teams. With food and lodging taken care of by the host
town, the team was often able to play away from home, thereby
bringing the sport around the country. Eventually, the team directors
The Boom and Bust ofMexican Women’s Football  227

began to plan these excursions, taking a percentage of the ticket sales

to pay for costs. The women, according to Aracén, didn’t get “even
a cent,” but “for many of the girls it was great, because they didn’t
know many places in Mexico.”180 Moreover, towns went out of
their way to “create the environment” for well-attended games. The
players would speak to the local print media and give interviews on
local radio in advance of matches in order to increase turnout. With
these mini tours, the women’s team “began to diffuse [women’s]
football around the country.”181 Moreover, after games the women
of the national team would stay and offer advice and coaching to
their erstwhile rivals. By stimulating more interest in the sport, the
women of the national team hoped to diffuse it.
There was another interest in these trips around Mexico: recruit-
ment. Whenever the national team played against a local or regional
team, they would scout their opponents, looking for the best players.
When the coaches saw someone with potential, the player would be
given a two-week trial with the team, “to show that she could play.”
And so the team for the second world championship was strength-
ened and made “more complete” as a result of the games outside of
Mexico City.182 For the entire year between the two world cham-
pionships, the team continued to train on Tuesdays and Thursdays
and to travel around the country on weekends. All of the team had
to be back in Mexico City by Monday to work or go to school. As
evidence of the diffusion of the sport around the country, an open in-
vitational tournament was held in August 1970 and included teams
from Jalisco, Cuernavaca, Morelos, Guerrero, Veracruz, and the
Federal District leagues. As preparation continued, Monterrey and
Puebla registered with the women’s football association in order to
be able to play in the tournament. By this time, there were already
two hundred women’s teams in Monterrey alone.183
The sports press occasionally discussed feminism forthrightly.
Sportswriters usually acknowledged that women were moving into
spaces hitherto reserved for men, such as the workforce.184 Sports,
for example, lagged behind the workplace in terms of the integration
of women. However, as in Brazil, the media never reflected on the
possible reasons for this. El Heraldo de México positioned itself
228FUTBOLERA

as the patron of the women’s football league and also dedicated

a fair number of articles to discussing women’s activities in other
sports, and even in coaching. One featured Elvira Jaime de Ferreira,
who coached the Titanes of Monterrey, a men’s team that played
American football. El Heraldo de México described “Vira” as able
to motivate the boys and as a coach who knew the rules perfectly. El
Heraldo de México took a moderate editorial line in regard to wom-
en’s liberation movements. While reassuring readers that changes
to gender roles would not hasten the apocalypse, and that readers
should accept them as part of modernity, the newspaper’s pieces
on women carefully avoided discussing recognition of women’s
rights or citizenship.185 Similarly, the first woman football referee
in Mexico, Grecia del Ángel, who graduated from the Colegio de
Árbitros (College of Referees) and worked her first match in 1970,
was also seen as a delightful exception to women’s exclusion from
sports. Ángel would go on to referee the France-England match in
the 1971 women’s world championship.186 When describing wom-
en’s advances in football, journalists frequently cast the process as
a women’s invasion of the sporting, political, and social spheres.
However, El Heraldo de México pointed out that women had long
played other sports, such as softball, basketball, track and field,
and hockey. It was only football that was supposedly new.187 Other
papers took on the issue of women in sports as well. In August 1970,
El Nacional published an article on the supposed danger of sports to
femininity. While “much ha[d] been written” about “sports and the
loss of femininity,” the paper suggested that the latter was hardly the
case. The anonymous journalist framed an article, ostensibly about
women’s field hockey, around debunking the myth of masculiniza-
tion. The article noted that certain sports, such as football, basket-
ball, and softball, were criticized for being defeminizing. Rosalinda
Tripp, a field hockey coach, noted that “playing with women makes
one more feminine,” regardless of the sport.188
Whether to offset male readers’ concerns about the demasculin-
izing of the sports pages or to stave off criticism of women’s sports
as defeminizing, in late 1970 and early 1971 different outlets began
to run features on sportswomen. Fútbol de México y del Mundo
The Boom and Bust ofMexican Women’s Football  229

paid attention to women football players, normalizing them for its

readership. For example, the December 13 edition carried a brief
interview with Silvia Zaragoza, forward for the national team. The
magazine asked for her birthday, height and weight, and “some-
thing about football.” Her answers, no doubt edited, included her
zodiac sign, and the interview ended with Zaragoza saying, “I’m a
romantic . . . but better if we stick to football.”189 The next install-
ment featured the “preciosa” Graciela Patiño, “the best player in
the Liga Iztaccíhuatl.” The interview revealed that at age twenty,
Patiño was already a physical education teacher, and that her future
plans included “visiting, in the not too distant future, the marriage
altar.” The photo that accompanied the interview showed Patiño in
a baseball cap, biting her lip in a coy smile.190
El Heraldo de México created a regular feature that profiled the
most beautiful and eligible sportswomen.191 However, if the news-
paper hoped to take the “sports” out of the “women,” the young
interviewees did not focus their answers on their marital status or
beauty. The first athlete featured in the series was the tennis star Elena
Subirats. Subirats opened the interview discussing her studies and
travels. The tennis players and sisters Patricia and Olga Montaño were
interviewed in the following feature, and they tackled the question
of gender equality directly.192 Patricia asserted that women were
equally as intelligent as men, and further that Mexican conservatives
encouraged women to be cloistered and fostered an indolent life.193
After traveling throughout Europe and the United States, she had
concluded that Mexicans were still “green” when it came to wom-
en’s rights. Moreover, they argued that “[p]arents put the brakes on
any advance [toward women’s independence] because of religion
and its traditionalism.”194 The Montaño sisters no doubt spoke out
with a degree of privilege not afforded to all women athletes. They
were described as blonde, were clearly wealthy, and played a sport in
which women had carved a secure space. Still, many working-class
women expressed facing precisely the same obstacles.
The third installment of the “Beauties of Sports” series featured
Lupita Tovar, the captain of the national women’s football team. The
description emphasized her well-formed body and feminine smile.195
230FUTBOLERA

Tovar’s biography sheds light onto the experience of women athletes.

She moved from Querétaro to Mexico City’s Colonia Moctezuma at
age eight. She told the reporter that as a child she had loved playing
all sports, but that around age twelve or thirteen, she quit them. She
was worried, she said, about the way that her playing with boys
would be perceived. Without sports, however, she felt depressed
and bored. Tovar explained that through a fan group of América,
she saw a notification for girls to play football and signed up. She
clearly saw the end to her playing career, however. Tovar explained
that housework was essential to women’s lives because “it gives them
a solid foundation for marriage.”196 She explained, “[M]y end goal
is to create a normal, harmonious home, and I believe that knowing
how to do housework is indispensable for this happiness.”197 Tovar
emphasized the exhilaration she felt at visiting Europe, a dream she
had never thought would be realized. The journalists tried to make
it a light piece, asking her if she read her horoscopes. “Yes,” she re-
plied, “but people make their own destiny.”198 Strangely, El Heraldo
de México published pictures of Tovar, as well as the Montaño sis-
ters, with dolls. Given that they were in their twenties, the women
appear awkward holding their dolls, presumably from childhood.
Indeed, dolls appeared often in the narratives surrounding women
athletes. In popular culture, they indicated proper gender develop-
ment. When interviewing Lupita Araceli, a basketball player for the
team Guadalajara—named after Chivas de Guadalajara but based
in Mexico City—El Heraldo de México inquired whether she was a
“hogareña,” or homemaker, to which she responded no.199 Instead
she had learned to work in the hotel industry with her father, per-
fecting her English along the way. While the series might have been
intended as a forum to attract boyfriends for female athletes, the
women interviewed expressed little interest in this angle. Instead,
they reflected on the intense and varied relationships they had to
sports and gender. In any case, both Fútbol de México y del Mundo
and El Heraldo de México sought to feminize the women athletes
for the publications’ predominantly male readership.
By the end of 1970, women’s football was a regular part of the sport-
ing scene, both in terms of media coverage and play. In the Mexico
The Boom and Bust ofMexican Women’s Football  231

City area alone, the Liga América had over forty teams in three
separate divisions.200 The Valley of Mexico had its own league, with
sixteen teams, while Cuernavaca had a fourteen-team championship.
Naucalpan, Veracruz, Puebla, and Ciudad Juárez all had leagues,
some of which began to affiliate with the AMFF. As mentioned ear-
lier, Monterrey had over two hundred teams.201 In Mexico City, the
Liga Iztaccíhuatl had over fifty teams.

THE 1971 CHAMPIONSHIP

As discussed earlier, during its tour to Mexico in 1970 the Italian del-
egation, led by Marco Rambaudi of the FIEFF, realized that Mexico
had the potential to host the second world championship. Mexico
certainly had plenty of experience with large sporting events, as hosts
of the 1968 Olympics and the 1970 men’s World Cup, so facili-
ties and infrastructure were of little concern. Mexican fans showed
great enthusiasm, and large numbers attended both the Italy-Mexico
matches and the regular league play of women’s teams. Yet even after
Mexico won the right to host the tournament, official Mexican foot-
ball institutions were unwilling to help. At a FIFA executive commit-
tee meeting in January 1971, the world governing body recognized
“the growing popularity of football for women” and instructed
member associations to “follow the matter closely.” Likely aware of
the upcoming event in Mexico, the committee noted that FIFA could
not organize a World Cup for women until such time that “this
type of football is controlled by national associations.”202 Perhaps
as a result of the meeting, at which Guillermo Cañedo was present,
FIFA sent a directive to the Mexican federation in February of 1971
prohibiting it from organizing a women’s tournament. In turn, the
FMF threatened to fine clubs twenty-five thousand pesos for allow-
ing women’s teams to practice or play on their fields. El Heraldo de
México judged that FIFA was trying to protect the male players, who
were the intended stars of mega stadiums like the Estadio Azteca, as
well as its own business interests.203 Indeed, FIFA’s concern in part
rested on fears that women’s football would “fall . . . into the hands
of promoters—which could be detrimental to FIFA.”204
232FUTBOLERA

In the face of FIFA and FMF resistance, the organizers of the

various women’s leagues met in the offices of CODEME and formed
the Federación Mexicana de Fútbol Femenil (Mexican Federation
of Women's Football, FMFF). Its purpose was to be the organizing
body of the second women’s world championship.205 And, despite
FIFA’s warning, El Heraldo de México announced that the second
world championship of women’s football would be held in Mexico
from August 8–29, 1971, though the dates would change as the
event moved closer.206 The games would take place in Estadio Azteca
and Estadio Jalisco. As municipal stadiums, these fell outside the
jurisdiction of the Mexican Football Federation. A mascot, Xochitl,
which El Heraldo de México judged to be “better looking than
Juanito,” the 1970 men’s World Cup mascot, had already been
chosen as the symbol of the event.207 Other Latin American teams
apparently expressed interest, as the announcement mentioned that
Brazil might participate in the event, although it lacked affiliation
with the FIEFF.208 As word of the tournament spread, directors
from Argentina’s Federation of Women’s Football committed right
away.209 The federation also invited Mexico to tour Argentina in
May 1971 and to play in the River Plate Stadium.210 In the end, de-
spite hopes that Brazil and Chile would participate, only Argentina
was able to commit a team to the second world championship.
The open tryouts for the Mexican national team were underway
by March and brought in many young players from Guadalajara,
Morelos, and Monterrey. According to El Heraldo de México,
Mexico boasted over one thousand women’s football teams.211 The
FMFF chose the twenty-six-year-old Victor Manuel Meléndez, a
physical education teacher, to be the national team’s coach.212 He
had not coached in the women’s leagues up until that point and
was known to be somewhat temperamental. Meléndez held typi-
cal notions of gender difference. He explained to the reporters that
women were “easier to manage” than men because of their “childish
precocity.”213 Meléndez also explained that women obeyed with a
better attitude than male athletes. Still, conflicts among the different
leagues meant that tryouts continued even after the draw for the
tournament in July.214
The Boom and Bust ofMexican Women’s Football  233

As a part of their preparations for the tournament, the Mexican

women’s team accepted an invitation from the Argentine women’s
federation and traveled to South America in July. After an emo-
tional goodbye with family and fellow players, the Mexican women’s
team boarded Air Panama in July 1971 to Buenos Aires, Argentina.
The Mexican embassy helped to organize a match between the
Mexican team and its Argentine counterpart in Estadio de Gimnasia
y Esgrima in Buenos Aires.215 The team arrived in Buenos Aires on
July 16, 1971. The scheduled match was rained out. In the mean-
time, the organizers sold so many tickets that they decided to move
the venue to the stadium of Club Atlético Nueva Chicago because
it had a capacity for fifty thousand spectators.216 Ultimately, the
game had a farcical nature to it. The game was marked with vio-
lence, as discussed in chapter 1, with the Mexican team walking
off the field and losing 3–2. On their return to Mexico, the team
stopped over in Lima, where it played a hastily organized match
against the Peruvian national team. According to the Mexican press,
the Peruvians were well prepared for the match against Mexico,
which was organized by the Asociación de Cronistas Deportivos
(Association of Sportswriters) and held in Lima’s municipal stadium.
After falling behind 0–2 in the first half, the Mexicans pulled out a
3–2 victory.217 When the Mexican team arrived home, an even larger
contingent of fans awaited them at the airport.218
The coverage of the 1971 world championship in Mexico pro-
vides the richest and most extensive view of global women’s football
in the period. Mainstream newspapers and sports magazines around
Mexico ran color photographs of the visiting delegations and fol-
lowed their daily activities.219 Games were televised in prime time
and in color, yet very little of the footage remains.220 The frustrating
aspect of this coverage is that it is difficult to gauge the compara-
tive significance or development of the sport in different countries.
Much of the media focused on turning the futboleras into sex sym-
bols and celebrities. The draw for the second world championship
was televised on the Televicentro program Siempre en Domingo.
It slated Mexico to face Argentina in Estadio Azteca, followed by
Denmark versus France in Estadio Jalisco.221 Tickets went on sale
234FUTBOLERA

soon thereafter at Sanborns, Borja Sports, and Almacenes Alvarez.

The decision to sell tickets at Sanborns, a middle-class restaurant
chain, indicates that organizers expected that many attendees would
come from a privileged group, likely from the Federal District. It also
meant that grassroots clubs, which could have distributed tickets,
were not integrated into the tournament planning. Still, prices for
a series of six games ranged from 330 pesos (roughly $24) to 30
pesos (approximately $2.40), meaning that even if tickets were sold
in middle-class establishments, they were intended to be available
to a broad cross section of Mexicans.222 Four levels of single-game
tickets (“populares,” yellow, green, and orange) ranged from 5 to
50 pesos. Prices for general admission remained 5 pesos for the
knockout round, but the three more expensive ticket prices rose.
The second least expensive tickets went from 15 to 25 pesos, while
the best seats went from 50 to 80. Three-game packages cost 15 to
180 pesos.223
During the 1971 championship, supporters prepared to cheer
on their favorites. For example, Italian immigrants met before the
tournament to make signage and costumes.224 The press showered
attention on Elena Schiavo, considered the world’s most prominent
women’s footballer. Without a doubt El Heraldo de México under-
stood the second world championship as its victory as well. The
editors stated that they were “optimistic and think that the specta-
cle will be enjoyed.” It placed women’s football in the realm of “a
‘show’ . . . of color, beauty, and joy.”225 Indeed, the media played
a major role in creating the excitement around women’s football,
just as it had decades before with the men’s game.226 The symbiotic
relationship between the media and the men’s sport developed in the
early twentieth century and continues to this day. To that end, the
draw to decide the team pools and the first-round games took place
amidst a spectacle befitting a world championship. The draw was
hosted by the sports commentator Ángel Fernandez and included
a marching band. On hand for the draw were the Mexican wom-
en’s team; Marco Rambaudi, vice president of the FIEFF; Jaime de
Haro, head of the championship’s organizing committee; Antonio
Haro Oliva, president of CODEME; José Pérez Mier, head of Acción
The Boom and Bust ofMexican Women’s Football  235

Deportiva; and Efraín Pérez, president of the FMFF. The following

day, the TV show Puertas de Sorpresa asked young women foot-
ballers to be part of the audience, stipulating that they wear uni-
forms and bring balls with them.227
As teams began to arrive in Mexico in early August, newspapers
revved up their coverage of women’s football. Articles on players,
strategies, and off-field activities educated readership on the teams
and their strengths. For example, the day that England and Italy
landed in Mexico City—ten days before the start of the tourna-
ment—Excelsior published an article about the teams, including
their hotel and training sites. England was housed for the length
of their stay in the Hotel Royal Plaza and used the fields of Ciudad
Deportiva to train. Italy, on the other hand, stayed at the Hotel
Beverly and used the facilities of Club América while in Mexico
City. Once in Guadalajara, the Bambinas, as the Italians were called,
practiced at Club Deportivo Providencia, a private athletic facility.228
That Club América allowed practices on its fields suggests that its
president, Guillermo Cañedo, was either unafraid of the FMF sanc-
tion or at least unofficially interested in the women’s tournament. As
the immediate past president of the FMF and a member of the FIFA
executive committee, his role is particularly intriguing. As an exec-
utive for Telesistema, the predecessor to Televisa, which controlled
Channel 2, Channel 4, and Channel 5, his interest in a successful
tournament might have been driven by motives outside his role as a
FIFA executive. At times, Cañedo seemed intent to squash women’s
football, and at others, intrigued by its possible commercial value.
Information on the teams provided interesting insight as well.
The seventeen women who made up the English team, for exam-
ple, ranged in age from fourteen to twenty-four, with an average
age of just over seventeen. Only two players were twenty or older,
and three were fourteen years old.229 El Sol de México provided its
readers with information on team activities. One day after arrival,
both Italy and England had “intensive practices” in Mexico City.
The Italian team worked on technical skills, shooting, and general
exercises for two hours in the morning before playing a scrimmage
in the afternoon against a team of singers and actresses. England,
236FUTBOLERA

for their part, began practice at 7:00 a.m., focusing on shooting and
conditioning.230 Indeed, El Sol de México reported regularly on team
training activities, with articles nearly every day between August
10—when most teams had arrived—and the start of the tournament
on August 15.231 The Mexican media had experience with covering
visiting national teams, as it had covered the 1970 men’s World Cup
in a similar manner.
For its part, Ovaciones began sensitizing its readership to the
women’s world championship in late 1970, but intensified cover-
age of the tournament in July 1971. That month saw articles and
images surrounding women’s football, and especially Mexico’s
South American tour. The “chamacas,” or girls, received regular
coverage of their tour of Peru and Argentina, from the day of de-
parture on July 13 until the team’s return. At the same time, how-
ever, Ovaciones spent more ink on highlighting the novelty of the
tournament, focusing on the spectacle of women’s football and
the bodies of women footballers. Photographs of players resting in
bikinis by the pool, with accompanying articles noting the catcalling
and cheering by the “male public,” highlight the attitude taken by
the paper. Its additional focus on the actresses and singers who made
up two teams that would play preliminary matches suggests that the
newspaper did not take the women’s championship seriously.
Media coverage exploded in the run-up to the tournament and
during play. Six teams—Argentina, Denmark, England, France,
Italy, and Mexico—were divided into two groups. Group A, which
included Mexico, Argentina, and England, played its matches in
Estadio Azteca, while Group B played in the Estadio Jalisco. The
top two teams of each group advanced to the semifinals. All of the
matches, whether in Mexico City or Guadalajara, received press
attention worthy of a world championship event. Over the course
of the two weeks, at least eight journalists covered the teams and re-
ported on games for El Heraldo de México. Not only did the games
receive attention, however, but as with coverage of the men’s World
Cup, correspondents wrote about how teams practiced, what they
did during off days, and who their players were. Alongside Manelich
Quintero’s usual commentating, Nuria Basurto, Hugo Sanmontiel,
The Boom and Bust ofMexican Women’s Football  237

Hebert González, Juan Acevedo, José José (José Luis Jimenez), and
Eduardo Morales, among others, wrote articles, including the fol-
lowing: “¡Golpeadas y cansadas, pero entrenar!” (Kicked and tired,
but training!); “Fue más facil que esperabamos” (It was easier than
we hoped); and “El fútbol femenil no puede ser amateur” (Women’s
football can’t be amateur).232 Photo spreads filled the sports pages as
well, with images of the women both in action and at rest. Excelsior,
Mexico’s paper of record, had four correspondents covering the
tournament, and like El Heraldo de México, it included game reports
from both Mexico City and Guadalajara, reported on team tactics, and
detailed the athletes’ activities on off days.233
The success of the media coverage and promotional efforts could be
seen in the crowd sizes. An estimated eighty-thousand-person crowd
watched the inaugural match and saw Mexico defeat Argentina
3–1 at the Estadio Azteca.234 Denmark played France in Jalisco in
front of twenty thousand. The second match at the Estadio Azteca,
England versus Argentina, drew roughly the same number.235 While
these numbers might not have been those desired by the organizers,
nevertheless they suggest the popularity—or the curiosity—of the
matches. Men’s professional matches in 1971 rarely drew twenty
thousand spectators. Moreover, the Mexican women’s team played
to almost full stadiums. Between eighty and ninety thousand people
watched the England versus Mexico match, while the Denmark ver-
sus Argentina and Mexico versus Italy semifinals drew twenty-five
to thirty thousand and eighty thousand, respectively.236
Not all media coverage was positive. Concern over the physicality
of the games ran throughout the media, focusing particularly on the
French, Italian, and Argentine teams, which were considered to be
too rough. Photos showed French and Italian players kicking their
opponents, while others showed the Argentines trying to slow the
Danes through not-so-subtle arm and shirt grabs.237 The Argentine
coach suggested that his players would need armor to play against
the Italians. 238 Additionally, some news sources stated that the
players appeared like “men disguised as women.”239 Manuel Seyde,
a commentator for Excelsior, regularly gave backhanded compli-
ments to the women’s game. In summarizing the tournament for his
238FUTBOLERA

FIGURE 5.4. Mexico versus Italy at the second women’s world football champi-
onship, 1971. El Sol de México, August 30, 1971.

presumably male audience, Seyde could not contain his paternalism.

It was, he wrote, “obligatory” to write one final column on the wom-
en’s world championship. He noted that women played with more
“imagination, daring, and sincerity” then men. But he could not
keep from criticizing the game—and the players—as well. For Seyde,
the tournament was a “sporting diversion,” a spectacle that only the
women who played took seriously. “You,” he wrote, putting words
in the mouths of his readers, “enjoyed it with sympathetic benevo-
lence.” The games offered “an attractive spectacle” that almost made
men “forget the natural insufficiencies of women playing a man’s
game.”240 In his column, Sánchez Hidalgo explained that what old-
timers didn’t understand was that the crowds were not looking for
an equal display of talent to the men’s game. Instead, they sought a
new spectacle.241
Despite the predictable sexism in much of the reporting on the
second women’s world championship, a few radically different per-
spectives emerged. Lourdes Galaz of El Día emphasized that women
playing football in Mexico was no more exotic than women shop-
ping or voting.242 However nontraditional women’s football was
assumed to be from the outside, the Mexican team itself clung
The Boom and Bust ofMexican Women’s Football  239

to some traditions. Players traveled together to the Basilica de

Guadalupe to ask for God’s blessing and prayed together as a
team.243 The representation of the team as traditionalists temporar-
ily deflated arguments that women’s football could be damaging to
young women.
Nevertheless, girls playing football became considerably more
visible in the city. El Heraldo de México ran a series of photos in
September 1971 of girls in the street, with the title “Girls kick the
ball now too.” Inverting the trope of boys playing while girls watch,
the photographs show boys sitting against a wall while girls play
football in the middle of the street. One of the accompanying cap-
tions read: “In the streets of Mexico, playing in the streets is the
classic game for boys. . . . Did I say boys? Now that girls are playing
in the Estadio Azteca! They’re also playing in the streets.” Moreover,
the author noted that “girls also scream before the game: ‘I’m Peque,’
. . . ‘I’m Alicia Vargas,’” claiming the names of the star Mexican
players.244 That girls had begun playing in the streets highlights the
level to which the sport had reached into the neighborhoods around
Mexico City. Anecdotal evidence suggests that the sport permeated
the countryside as well.
The effervescence of women’s football in Mexico did not dissipate
as a result of the national team’s 3–0 loss to Denmark in the finals
of the women’s world championship. According to press reports,
Mexico played its worst game of the tournament, but it did so in
front of a packed Estadio Azteca. Fans eagerly awaited a Mexican
victory that was not to be. But girls and women remained commit-
ted to the sport and played with as much, if not more, intensity in
the immediate aftermath of the tournament. What changed was the
perception of the sport and the attention it garnered from the press.
If during 1970 and 1971 women’s football had taken up increasing
column space in Mexican newspapers, by the end of 1971 articles
became more sporadic. By 1972 the sport disappeared almost com-
pletely from the media. Why?
One reason might have been the power of the Mexican Football
Federation. Though there is little direct evidence to tie the decreas-
ing visibility of women’s football to FMF efforts, nevertheless the
240FUTBOLERA

FIGURE 5.5. Rough play at the second women’s world football

championship, 1971. El Heraldo de México, August 30, 1971.

federation did seek to take control of the sport after 1971. The sport
received few, if any, resources.245 Comparisons between women’s and
men’s football at the time suggested that perhaps the women’s game
was purer. The Mexican men’s professional game was in a state of
decline and the men’s national team were being called “ratoncitos,”
little mice, in the press. Diverting resources to the women’s sport
would have threatened the traditional structures of the men’s sport.
Another reason, however, might have begun during the tournament.
Elvira Aracén recounted how “strange things happened” in the week
between Mexico’s semifinal victory over Italy and the final clash
with Denmark.246 Though it is not clear who first suggested it, the
Mexican women’s team went public with demands to be paid in
order to play the final.247 Lupita Tovar and Aracén informed the
country that the team wanted 2 million pesos. The logic was simple—
and frighteningly similar to the story of women’s teams today: they
had been training nonstop for the better part of two years and had
received no income for their efforts. Most were juggling work or
studies with team practice, and had not earned what they would
have had they not been playing. For many of the young women and
their families, this represented real sacrifice.248 The team backtracked
two days later, with Elvira Aracén suggesting that “applause was
worth more than . . . pesos.” Yolanda Ramírez agreed, saying that
the team would play “for the public, which has always supported
The Boom and Bust ofMexican Women’s Football  241

us.”249 While the team agreed to play the final for free, they had also
secured promises of a benefit game. The women were to receive gate
receipts and TV rights as compensation, along with “gifts” from
various government agencies.250
The demand for pay turned some against the team. The Danish
women players immediately spoke out against their Mexican coun-
terparts, with Inger Pedersson expressing “total surprise” at the
demand and accusing the mexicanas of “not acting like true am-
ateurs.”251 For some it exposed the injustice of amateurism. Still
others saw the manipulating hands of men behind the demand.
The team “had almost become idols,” wrote Carmen Anderson in
El Heraldo de México, “especially [for] women who see in them
their liberation.” Yet they had betrayed the goodwill by being used
as puppets by men’s interests. Though she could not be sure of it,
Anderson suggested that the women were not smart enough to make
the demand on their own: “these girls . . . have a vocabulary of
no more than 100 or 200 words,” she wrote. Anderson called the
women’s team “pathetic” in its demands, even though she was sure
that “behind them is the intellect of a man.”252
That the women played for the applause, while organizers—from
the international federation to Jaime de Haro and the organizing
committee—earned from the players’ sweat, was too much for
the longtime promoter of women’s football Manelich Quintero.
Quintero, who had pioneered writing on women’s football in the
1960s and who had formed part of the delegation to Italy in 1970,
now turned on the leaders of the sport. An anonymous article in El
Heraldo de México, published on September 21, 1971, criticized
the FMFF in no uncertain terms. The federation “has given no signs
of life, much less expressed any desire to reward its players or even
host a meeting to officially disband the team.” The paper wanted
an answer for the mistreatment of the players, but received none.253
Five days later, Quintero penned an article calling Efraín Pérez and
Victor Manuel Meléndez “operators and gigolos.” He also voiced
the anonymous frustrations of the players, who claimed that the
administration of the team and the FMFF had “exploited” them
and “were making a grand living off of our backs.” The root of the
242FUTBOLERA

problem was that much of the money from the benefit game had
disappeared, presumably into the pockets of the team directors.254
Quintero’s name does not seem to appear as author of any article
on women’s football after that date. He believed that to continue to
promote the game would only benefit the “interests” that exploited
the women’s game, and so he stopped.255

CONCLUSION

The end of the women’s world championship should have signaled

a triumphant start for the FMFF and women’s football in Mexico in
general. The tournament was well marketed and attended. Women’s
football received television airtime and ample coverage in the print
media. Over one hundred thousand spectators witnessed the final of
the event. Instead of a beginning, however, it appears, on the surface,
to have marked an end. Wrangling over money and the future of
the sport caused many players to feel that they were being exploited
by the organizers. And these disputes drove many supporters from
the game. Manelich Quintero was one. He emphasized that “all the
world rejected women’s football, [while] I wanted to support them
because of the respect and admiration I have for the women.”256 He
noted that machismo held the sport back.257 While the press sup-
ported the sport during 1971, with the end of the women’s world
championship and the sport’s devolution into conflict, coverage
slowly ceased.
Women’s football as public spectacle receded into the background.
This did not mean, however, that the 1971 championship was pyr-
rhic. In fact, the sport attained unprecedented publicity and for a
brief moment became wildly popular. Even as the FMF embarked
on a successful campaign to solidify men’s football as Mexico’s
national sport, thereby shutting off official avenues for women to
play, the women’s sport continued to grow. Newspapers in Mexico
City, from Excelsior to El Sol de México, from Ovaciones and Esto
to El Heraldo de México, covered the sport throughout 1971 and
into 1972. In October 1971, the first women’s national champion-
ship took place, pitting seventeen different regional selected teams
The Boom and Bust ofMexican Women’s Football  243

against one another. Women’s teams from around the country, from
Baja California to Veracruz, and from Sonora to Tamaulipas and
Chihuahua, gathered to play at the Ciudad Deportiva in Mexico
City. The first championship saw Guanajuato defeat the Federal
District 1–0 in a game that had to be replayed due to a pitch inva-
sion.258 So too women’s leagues continued to receive press coverage
through 1971, though reporting became more sporadic.
Moreover, the championship spurred a boom in women’s foot-
ball throughout the nation. Mercedes Rodríguez Alemán, a futbolera
from the 1970s and 1980s, recalled that her start in the sport was
spurred by the events of 1971. There was, she explained, exponential
growth in her hometown of Torreón as a result of the 1971 world
championship. “Immediately after the tournament,” she recounted,
“the authorities . . . announced they would organize the first women’s
league in the city.” According to Rodríguez Alemán, the first league
had over sixty teams and formed the basis of a “boom” in the sport.
On game days Avenida Presidente Carranza became clogged with
traffic, and it was difficult to get to the fields since so many “trucks
would pass full of people going to the sports complex to play or
watch” the women’s games.259 “The whole city,” she recalled, “would
pour into the sports complex.” As with most booms, the one in
Torreón, Coahuila, was short lived. Shortly after the league formed,
it split into two due to disagreements, and within a year or two the
sport had almost completely disappeared. What remained, however,
was the regional team of Lagunas, a territory comprising three cit-
ies—Ciudad Lerdo and Gómez Palacio in Durango and Torreón in
Coahuila. That team “kept football alive” in the region. The team,
which averaged in age from thirteen to fifteen years old, “trained and
trained and played against men because there were no women’s teams
at the local level.”260 The Lagunas women’s team participated regu-
larly in the national football tournament, which continued through
the 1970s. In 1976 Rodríguez Alemán was chosen for a team that
played in Costa Rica. This, she recalled, was the final game that the
Mexican national team played internationally until 1991.
Elsewhere in Mexico, too, the sport survived. According to Elvira
Aracén, “there were many leagues after the world championship.”
244FUTBOLERA

The problem was, she says, finding stadiums. Once CODEME no

longer had women’s football under its auspices, fields were harder
to find. “We were like refugees,” Aracén recalled; “you paid for
a field, played, and the league had a record, and that was it.”261
But there were always fields. Aracén, for example, could use the
stadium in Santa Cruz because she worked for the municipality of
Iztapalapa. One group, the Liga de Cabeza de Juárez, was organized
by Araceli Márquez. This league was regularly won by a team called
the Mundialistas, comprising former world championship players
and others (such as Mercedes Rodríguez Alemán) who were brought
in later. The Mundialistas won the regional league from 1973 to
1980.262 And when national tournaments happened, teams would
host each other in their houses. Thus, the women’s football commu-
nity in Mexico became tight-knit and supportive.263
The world championship of 1971 remains a landmark in the his-
tory of Latin American women’s sports. The event, in terms of both
its popularity and its sporting success, disproves paternalist claims
that women’s sports are a recent development. So too it undercuts
the suggestion that women’s sports are unpopular and unmarketable.
Even if they did not create a massive wave of women’s football in
Mexico, the Elvira Aracéns and Alicia Vargases, the Lupita Tovars
and Peque Rubios, cleared a path for the women who came after
them. In the words of Aracén, by continuing to play “as refugees,”
paying for a field, playing, and finding new fields the following week,
they kept women’s football in Mexico alive, so that at least “those
who followed . . . had space” to play the game.264 The generation
who participated in the short boom of Mexican women’s football
continued their advocacy and helped to create the next moment of
effervescence in the 2000s.
EPILOGUE

IN 1967, WHEN SISLEIDE DO AMOR LIMA, BETTER KNOWN AS

Sissi, was born, women’s football was still banned in Brazil. As a
child, Sissi wanted to play for the Brazilian national team, which
was remarkable because, of course, there had never been a Brazilian
national women’s football team. Perhaps her timing was right. Just
as she blossomed into a nearly unstoppable attacking midfielder,
the government repealed the prohibition on the sport, and women’s
football exploded. Representing Brazil in the 1988 FIFA Women’s
Invitation Tournament in China, Sissi recalled, meant “all my dreams
had come true.”1 However, if the 1980s marked a takeoff point for
women’s football in Brazil, by the mid-1990s the sport had stag-
nated. This has been the case throughout the history of women’s
sports in Latin America: brief periods of effervescence followed
by long periods of apparent inactivity. But under the surface, the
women remained active in the sport throughout the region. The
persistence and solidarity of sportswomen around the world helped
to pressure international governing bodies, such as the International
Federation of Association Football (FIFA) and the International
Olympic Committee, to organize tournaments and provide a mini-
mum of support for development. The narrative of women’s football
in Latin America may be on the verge of shifting permanently. New
configurations of capital, advertising, sexism, and corporate spon-
sorship have created fresh challenges. The days of medical warnings
about women’s fragile psyches and bodies have mostly passed, but
gender-verification testing, market measures, corrupt federations,
and patriarchal restrictions on women’s time and leisure continue
to inhibit the growth of women’s sports. At the same time, the emer-
gence of social media and a network of nongovernmental organiza-
tions, many of which have criticized exclusions in sports or sought to

245
246FUTBOLERA

use it as a vehicle for progressive social transformation, offers hope

for longer term development.
The advent of the information society in the early 1990s gave
women athletes and their fans new ways to connect with one an-
other. Social media, cell phones, and widespread internet access
meant that players could contact one another directly, as well as
watch games, or at least highlights. In the 2010s, independent jour-
nalists emerged to fill the void from the lack of coverage provided by
mainstream sports outlets. Today, fans can much more easily follow
tournaments and athletes that they admire. Social media and alter-
native platforms for dissemination have been a boon for women’s
sports, particularly football, in the region, since federations are still
loath to spend resources on broadcasting the sport. YouTube and
other web-based platforms allow for broad diffusion of women’s
games and have helped to build a tighter network of women players
and fans. Twitter has compressed the space between players and
fans, and in some cases forced the hands of federations. The result
has been a veritable explosion of interest in women’s sports, partic-
ularly in women’s football, around the world. This sharp increase
in attention, however, has not been met with equivalent increases in
resources or respect for women athletes. Though more attention is
being paid to the sport by institutions ranging from federations to
the media, more can be done for futboleras, and for women athletes
in general. Perhaps, given the slow pace of change within sporting
bodies, change will again require women athletes’ collective action.

CONTINUED STRUGGLES

Despite large increases in state budgets for sports during the decades
of the 2000s and 2010s, little of that money was allocated to girls’ act-
ivities. Argentine and Chilean girls noted the lack of physical educa-
tion and public programs for their development.2 And perhaps it is
not surprising, then, that in terms of national football teams, the
disparity between the men’s and women’s teams is greatest, perhaps
in the world, in those two countries. In December 2016 the Argentine
men’s team was ranked first in the world, and the Chilean team fourth.
Epilogue 247

The women’s teams, on the other hand, were considered inactive.

They had no ranking because they had not played a competitive match
for at least eighteen months. The men’s national teams received gen-
erous stipends and played a regular slate of events around the world,
all paid for by the respective federations. Women barely practiced
and received the equivalent of less than ten dollars per day for train-
ing. And Argentina and Chile were not anomalies. As of the end of
2016, seven of the ten South American women’s teams, and two of
the ten Latin American teams in the Confederation of North, Central
America and Caribbean Association Football (CONCACAF), were
considered inactive by FIFA. By September 2017, the situation had
improved slightly in South America, with only four member nations
of the South American Football Confederation (CONMEBOL) hav-
ing inactive women’s teams. In CONCACAF, however, the situation
had worsened, with only four active teams out of ten.3 Mainstream
sports journalists and football directors seem uninterested in this
crisis in international women’s football. Until recently, CONMEBOL
and national federations were reluctant to respond to demands, from
both FIFA and grassroots groups, that more resources be spent de-
veloping and promoting women’s football. They did little to explore
the potential of linking promotion and sponsorship of the men’s
game to the women’s. So the sport still relies heavily on the world
governing body for funding.
The lack of adequate media coverage continues to plague the
sport. When FIFA classified the Chilean women’s national team as
inactive, for example, no major sports media outlets reported the
story. Chile’s El Gráfico found space to discuss a sandwich named
for Gonzalo Jara, the men’s national team player, but not to ex-
pose the failure of the Chilean federation to provide the women’s
team with the bare minimum of resources. At the time, the Chilean
women’s team had not played a match in over eighteen months.
CONMEBOL and FIFA representatives said little about the declas-
sification of the women’s team. In this sense, there is a systemic
problem: the press cannot find any football authority to comment
on the record about lack of interest in the women’s game. Even when
teams are active, the media fails. Television coverage for the 2014
248FUTBOLERA

Copa América Femenina began midway through the tournament,

even though rights were free.
Women in sports media have been subjected to harassment, pri-
vately and publicly. Recently Vanessa Vargas Roja analyzed the
coverage of the FIFA Confederations Cup, only to find the objec-
tification of women fans and reporters repeated ad nauseam.4 The
debut of Grace Lazcano in August 2017 as a panelist on the Chilean
television network Canal del Fútbol was announced with pride as
a pioneering move by producers. However, fellow journalist Romai
Ugarte ruined her debut. Sitting to Lazcano’s left, as the panel and
audience greeted her, Ugarte turned toward the cameras and au-
dience, made a face of disgust, and gestured as if putting a penis
in his mouth. Ugarte later apologized, but not before the Chilean
men’s team leaders Claudio Bravo and Gary Medel spoke out against
his blatant sexism. Beyond the fact that Ugarte sought to humiliate
Lazcano and ruin her debut, it is fascinating that he chose to do so
by simulating performing oral sex on another man. Certainly, Ugarte
expected the audience to understand his gesture not as homoerotic
but rather as a “protest” to the inclusion of a woman on the panel.
Despite his apology, Ugarte was fired from the program.
Misogyny is a major part of the sexism facing women’s football and
women’s football players. Historically, homophobia has also been
intimately tied to misogynistic efforts to suppress women’s sports
around the world. Since football has become consecrated as the na-
tional sport in many countries, it is perceived to develop proper mas-
culinity. Thus, it has become a very important site for conversations
around sexuality. Women players, from the early 1900s until today,
have been regularly chastised for their sexuality (real or perceived).
Brazilian and Mexican women players from the 1980s to the early
2000s recall being told that football is a “breeding ground” for
lesbianism, and players continue to be called marimachos and sapa-
tões.5 Coaches have instructed national team players to avoid being
seen with their girlfriends while wearing their jerseys. In men’s foot-
ball, misogyny and homophobia are constant as well: the obsession
with wives and girlfriends of top male athletes reflects this reality.
In Argentina, on the failure of the Boca Juniors women’s team to
Epilogue 249

reach the semifinals of the Copa Libertadores Femenina in 2015,

sportswriters had no comment. Instead, the following day El Gráfico
picked up a story that ranked the “hottest” girlfriends and wives of
male players. In part this stems as much from the need to establish
the heterosexuality of men players—whom we regularly see hugging,
jumping into each other’s arms, smacking butts, and kissing—as it
does from a desire to objectify women.
The funding structure for women’s sports continues to raise ques-
tions. While the men’s game gains hundreds of millions of dollars
through marketing and television rights, the women’s game receives
little. In football, many federations only spend the amount of money
that FIFA gives them, if that, for girls and women, which is a small
portion of the money that it distributes to each federation. From
2004 until 2016, a percentage of the money that FIFA provided to
member associations as part of its Financial Assistance Program has
been earmarked for women’s football.6 This amount has varied, but
after 2008 “at least 15 percent” of disbursements were earmarked
for women’s football. In 2016 FIFA called this expenditure “an
obligatory provision . . . of huge importance to the women’s game.”7
As a result, between 2008 and 2016 FIFA set aside approximately
$10 million per year for the development of women’s football. Per
federation, the program’s requirements for women’s football meant
that roughly $37,500 went to the sport per year—hardly enough to
build national programs on par with men’s. Moreover, the program
had no enforcement mechanism to ensure that federations spent the
money on women’s football. The lack of oversight and the paucity of
audits meant that FIFA had no way of knowing if a federation spent
money appropriately. Strictly speaking, this encouraged the under-
development of the women’s game as funds could be distributed to
the men’s sides without retribution.
In 2017 FIFA altered the way it provided development funds to
member federations. A new program, FIFA Forward, replaced the
Financial Assistance Program. Instead of a $250,000 grant with
15 percent mandated for women’s football, the new development
project offered a guarantee of $100,000, with no requirements on
expenditures, for federation running costs. However, it included an
250FUTBOLERA

“incentivising payments policy” that could raise the amount of fund-

ing to $500,000 per federation.8 Under these guidelines, each federa-
tion could receive an extra $50,000 for projects aimed at one of eight
“essential elements.” In order to be eligible for any of this additional
money, at least two of the proposed elements must be for women’s
football. In other words, the new FIFA requirements mandated at
least $100,000 per federation for women’s-football-related projects—
provided that federations requested the extra funding.9 In addition
to these monies, each federation could receive a further $750,000
for “tailor-made football development projects,” including women’s
football. Alongside this funding, regional zones would be eligible for
$1 million for “regional youth competitions (for girls and boys).”
Importantly, the new program included development of multi-
year strategies and oversight for all projects, including annual local
audits, random selection for a central audit, and other compliance
measures.10 In other words, it appeared as of 2017 that FIFA had
begun to take developing women’s football more seriously.
Still, within CONMEBOL and CONCACAF, the institutional
wheels have moved slowly. During the FIFA Women’s World
Cup of 2015, CONMEBOL scheduled the men’s regional tourna-
ment, the Copa América, at precisely the same times. As of 2018,
CONMEBOL had still held only one international tournament for
women—the Copa América Femenina—which served as the World
Cup, Olympics, and Pan-American Games qualifier. CONCACAF
was only slightly more active, with separate tournaments for quali-
fication to those events. The relative dearth of opportunities to play
has had a clear impact on the teams. It reflected a lack of com-
mitment to the sport, regardless of rhetoric to the contrary. The
common pattern in Latin America is for federations to mobilize
women’s teams for brief moments around tournaments. In com-
parison, though CONMEBOL only organizes one tournament for
men (the Copa América, held every two to four years), its system
of qualifying for the FIFA World Cup ensures that men’s national
teams play on a regular basis during the four-year cycle. In addition,
CONMEBOL organizes four tournaments for men’s professional
teams, as opposed to one for women. It was telling that in the midst
Epilogue 251

of the Copa América Femenina in 2018, the CONMEBOL webpage

had no information about the tournament on its homepage, though
it did have scores for the men’s Copa Libertadores. As the regional
confederations spend few resources on the women’s game, not sur-
prisingly, few of the federations do either.
For the young women who worked for years to climb the world
rankings without compensation or accolades, the lack of institu-
tional support has been heartbreaking. “It hurts to become invisible,
after working so hard to put Chile on the map,” said Iona Rothfeld,
who played for nine years on the Chilean national team.11 Women’s
rankings spike in a qualifying year, then plummet when federa-
tions ignore the sport until the next cycle. Chile felt this effect most
sharply. After organizing the FIFA U-20 Women’s World Cup in
2008 and reaching a ranking of 41 in 2015, the women’s national
team has fallen into total disarray. Some Chilean players point to the
departure of the former federation president Harold Mayne Nicholls
in 2011 as a turning point. According to Christiane Endler, captain
of the national team, women’s football received sustained atten-
tion under Mayne Nicholls. His successor, Sergio Jadue, who later
pled guilty to racketeering as part of the FIFA corruption scandal,
neglected it entirely. The federation’s complete silence on women’s
football continued under Jadue’s successor, Arturo Salah. Between
2015 and 2017, players received no information about plans for
training.
When Chilean players discovered they had been removed from
the FIFA rankings, they decided to act. In the summer of 2016, they
founded the Asociación Nacional de Jugadores de Fútbol Femenino
(National Association of Women Football Players, ANJUFF), in re-
sponse to not only the state of the national team but the extreme
mismanagement of the roughly twenty women’s clubs in the coun-
try. This marked one of the first efforts to unionize women athletes
in Latin America. The goal of the organization, according to Iona
Rothfeld, ANJUFF’s first president, was to help create an environ-
ment of respect for women players. To strengthen its position,
ANJUFF sought and received recognition from Chile’s union of pro-
fessional players and FIFPro, the international players’ union. And
252FUTBOLERA

the women’s football community in South America took notice, as

did the Chilean federation. Fernanda Pinilla and Iona Rothfeld both
felt as though the interventions of ANJUFF played a major role in
Chile deciding to host the 2018 Copa América Femenina. According
to Christiane Endler, it was ANJUFF that proposed hosting the event
in efforts to give Chile a chance at the FIFA World Cup.12 As in the
past, the work of women players themselves has continued to make
changes, and international solidarity can help to shape CONMEBOL
policy. Moreover, this generation of players has circulated around
the region, among the collegiate ranks in the United States, and in
European clubs. Those connections could be valuable when it comes
to demanding accountability from the national federations, regional
confederations, and FIFA.
But there remains little in the way of accountability, and women
throughout the region routinely face both lack of support and out-
right humiliation within their clubs and federations. Directors tell
players that women’s football is an expense and an embarrassment.
Homophobia is rampant, and many players report that coaches ac-
cuse them of being interested in football to meet sexual partners.
South American federations organize women’s football tournaments,
but they do so begrudgingly. Major clubs, including Argentina’s
River Plate, have told players that the club will no longer provide
them with medical insurance. In Chile, women players have been
asked to pay their own transfer fees and travel costs. Corrupt feder-
ations magnify accounting problems for FIFA development monies
earmarked for women. Thus, it’s not surprising that the Argentine,
Brazilian, and Chilean women’s teams have seen such little economic
support. In 2017, the entire women’s team of Club Nacional in
Uruguay accused their coach, Ignacio Chitnisky, of gender discrim-
ination.13 The accusations ranged from the coach making fun of
women’s football and commenting disrespectfully about the players’
bodies, to taking advantage of the innocence of players and promis-
ing them trips abroad and salaries that never materialized. Chitnisky
denied some of the allegations, but the conformity of stories from
each player created a damning picture.
Epilogue 253

Until recently, the picture was much the same with Mexico. A long-
tenured coach with little in-game success on his resume, Leonard
Cuellar ruled over Mexican women’s football for nearly twenty years.
His supporters within the federation defended him, arguing that he
had single-handedly built the support structure for women’s football
within Mexican footballing institutions. As a former Mexican men’s
national team player, and as a successful college coach in the United
States, he had the pedigree to get the attention of the federation
and sponsors. His detractors argued that although he had built the
women’s program, he failed to recognize when it was time to pass
the baton to someone else. Over the course of his nineteen years
in charge of the national team, Cuellar was dogged by accusations
of favoritism for Mexican American players. A number of former
players recalled that they never felt their place on the team was as-
sured until they were on board the flight to a tournament. One ex-
pressed frustration that “we would spend months in training, three
or four to a room,” and then “at the end some fresa would arrive
and be on the team.”14 While it is possible this type of complaint
could be triggered by jealousy, the fact that it was reported multiple
times suggests that the way in which Mexican American players
were brought into the team created conflict. Some players felt that
they were left off of the team for other reasons. Bianca Sierra, who
had been a regular on the national team roster since 2010, was left
off of the team for Olympic qualifying in 2016. In her opinion, this
was because Cuellar disapproved of her romantic relationship with
fellow Mexican national team player Stephany Mayor.15 Whether
coincidence or not, Sierra was called up to the national team in
2017, after Cuellar’s departure. After the 2015 Women’s World Cup,
players began to speak out against Cuellar, suggesting that he was
content to compete for second place in the region and would not in-
vest the resources in trying to surpass the United States. More damn-
ing, perhaps, was the fact that from 1998 to 2016, the Mexican
women’s national team had a losing record. While Cuellar’s teams
had notable successes, including qualifying for the 2004 Olympics
and back-to-back Women’s World Cups, his teams nevertheless lost
254FUTBOLERA

nearly twenty more games than they won, with an unofficial record
of 87–22–104. It is hard to imagine the men’s national team coach
being given more than one year, let alone nearly two decades, to
create a winning team.
In fact, the opportunity to oversee a team for such a long time is
rarely given to women coaches of women’s teams. After decades of
men being in charge of the Brazilian women’s team, for example,
Emily da Cunha Lima was named coach of a seleção (national team)
in November 2016. Like her predecessors, she oversaw a team short
on resources and training opportunities. Even after the women’s stel-
lar performance—and massive popularity—at the 2016 Olympics,
the Brazilian Football Confederation suggested that it would cut
funding to the women’s football program. Nevertheless, in her ten
months on the job, her record was a respectable seven wins, five
losses, and one draw. After her firing, in September 2017, five of the
senior Brazilian women’s team players, Cristiane Rozeiro, Francielle
Manoel Alberto (Fran), Rosana dos Santos Augusto (Rosana),
Maurine Dorneles Gonçalves (Maurine), and Andreia Rosa, retired
in protest, each posting messages to their Instagram accounts exco-
riating the Brazilian federation for moving the women’s program
backward. Former players, led by Sissi and Marcia Tafarel (Tafa)
from the Radar era, signed an open letter to the federation that de-
manded radical changes in governance to incorporate former women
players. The Brazilian Football Confederation opened a commission
in response to evaluate the conditions of women’s football, only to
summarily dismiss the body without explanation months later.16
The deterioration of women’s football in Latin America, in other
words, hurts even the most successful program in the region. Brazil,
as one of the best women’s teams in the world, can find opponents
and travel to play, but has a difficult time finding quality regional
opponents on a regular basis. The rest of the continental squads
have less star power and fewer options. Colombia, Ecuador, and
Venezuela have made strides in the past few years but suffer from the
lack of quality opponents. Still, at least these teams exist. Inactive
teams do not play or practice, and there is minimal communication
between federations and athletes. Chilean and Paraguayan national
Epilogue 255

team players often do not even know who their coaches are. The
Argentine national team had no matches between a disappointing
showing at the 2015 Pan-American Games and 2017. Their play
should not have been surprising; the only preparation the team
had prior to the Pan-American Games was one scrimmage against
a boys’ team. Yet they still have the depth of talent to send stars
abroad to Spain, the United States, Sweden, and beyond to play in
professional and collegiate leagues.
The state of affairs of women’s football in Argentina was thrown
into sharp relief in September 2017. In an open letter to Ricardo
Pinela, head of the Argentine Football Association’s women’s com-
mittee, the national women’s team players announced that they were
going on strike and called attention to the lack of resources given to
the team. Unlike other protests by women football players around
the world, notably the US and Danish women’s national teams,
which threatened strikes over equal pay, the Argentine women high-
lighted the lack of even basic compensation. The women explained
that they had not received the agreed-upon travel costs for the na-
tional team players to reach practice. Over the course of months, the
women did not receive the 150 pesos (about $8.50) that they were
owed for every day of training. They also protested having to play
a friendly match in Uruguay the same day as traveling by bus for
five hours. When they asked Pinela to meet with them, he did not
show up. Only the coach Carlos Borrello appeared to represent the
federation, but he could not give the players any information; he had
been given none by the federation.17 The players’ strike came days
before a scheduled friendly with the Uruguayan women’s team and
forced Borrello to play with the Argentine U-20 squad. Argentina
lost 0–2 at home.18

SIGNS OF CHANGE

There are important exceptions to the mistreatment of women foot-

ball players and the mismanagement of the sport in general. Women
players and their supporters have managed to develop teams in clubs
around Latin America. In Uruguay, there are well over one hundred
256FUTBOLERA

clubs in all age ranges and a new committee on women’s football.

In Argentina, the women’s team of UAI Urquiza, a third-division
Argentine men’s team, won the women’s division three years in a
row between 2015 and 2017 and made it to the semifinals of the
Copa Libertadores Femenina in 2015. The goalkeeper, Gaby Gartón,
who also plays for the Argentine national team when it is active,
explained that UAI Urquiza is unique in helping players to complete
their education, allowing women to train with the men’s side, and
busing them to training facilities.19 Their coach, Carlos Borrello,
had previously directed the women’s national team and was named
coach again in July 2017. When we asked Borrello how UAI Urquiza
achieved its success, he answered pointedly, “by valuing them [the
players] as human beings, offering them opportunities to study and
to work seriously at football.”20 On the subject of the national team,
Borrello concurred with FIFA’s categorization of Argentina as “in-
active.” “The status of the women’s team is very low,” he said. “There
is no work being done and no competition.” After retaking the helm
of the team in 2017, he recognized that there was much work to be
done: “we have to put together all of the teams, especially the youth
squads.” There also needed to be rapid sensitization to women’s
football, as Argentina was selected to host the U-17 South American
Championship. Through developing youth teams, Borrello hoped to
lay the foundation for the future of the senior team, but he was not
blind to the challenges that faced the latter in the present. Borrello
suggested that Argentine senior women’s football needed to address
two deficiencies rapidly: it needed “permanent training” and “lots of
competition.”21 The key was to change the mind-set of the federation
toward women’s football. People like Borrello who are in positions
of authority in the women’s sport suggest that change is possible.
In fact, throughout Latin America there is the sense that change
is possible, if not already afoot. For example, Ecuador’s Vanessa
Arauz represents the face of change there. The head coach of the
Ecuadorean women’s national team has been on the job since 2014.
Hired at age twenty-four, in 2015 at twenty-six she was the young-
est person ever to coach at a FIFA World Cup, men’s or women’s.
Ecuador finished last in the newly expanded tournament, scoring
Epilogue 257

only one goal. While some federations might have fired the coach—
especially a female coach—on the heels of such a performance, the
Ecuadorean federation did not. Rather, the federation retained the
young coach for the women’s national program at all levels. By 2017
Arauz was coaching all women’s teams for the federation and had
been named an official instructor by CONMEBOL. In that posi-
tion, Arauz traveled around South America providing training and
assistance to women’s programs.22 Amelia Valverde took over the
reins of the Costa Rican national team at twenty-eight years old and
achieved notable results in the 2015 Women’s World Cup.
The growth of women’s football leagues, supported by member
federations, is heartening. The Ecuadorean women’s league has
been in operation since 2013 under the auspices of the Ecuadorean
federation’s amateur wing. It has grown from one division with six-
teen teams to two divisions with twelve teams each. Important for
the long-term growth of the game, in November 2017 Servisky, an
Ecuadorian television and communications company, purchased the
television rights to the women’s league for five years and transmit-
ted the games on social media. The stated goal of the Ecuadorean
federation was to “popularize women’s football throughout the
country.”23 The rights package was inexpensive, with Servisky pay-
ing $60,000 annually, to be split between the teams.24 In Uruguay,
FIFA funding is being used to start a professional league “in the me-
dium term.” The Uruguayan federation began using FIFA Forward
money to train a cadre of women’s coaches. CONMEBOL itself
started a girls’ development tournament in 2017, bringing together
girls’ teams from around the continent in U-14 and U-16 categories.
CONMEBOL also passed a resolution in 2017 that requires all clubs
to have a women’s team for their men’s team to compete in the Copa
Libertadores.25 A Paraguayan team won the 2016 Copa Libertadores
Femenina, and a Venezuelan team finished second, marking the first
time that a Brazilian team did not reach the finals. This parity can
only help the game in the region.
Developments in Colombia created even more optimism for the
future of women’s football. Beginning in 2017, the Colombian
Football Federation inaugurated a women’s professional league with
258FUTBOLERA

eighteen teams. From its inception, the women’s league was placed
under the División Mayor del Fútbol Profesional Colombiano, or
Dimayor, Colombia’s professional soccer division. The vast major-
ity of teams were affiliated with men’s clubs. In its second year the
league expanded to twenty-three teams. Plans were in place for a fur-
ther expansion, to thirty-six teams, in 2019. Equally important, as
part of Colombia’s professional division, the league benefited from
sponsors such as Aguila beer, Golty, and Avianca, among others.
After the first season, the women’s league announced that it had
reached a deal with FAN Network TV to broadcast 90 percent of
the league’s games in North America, Europe, and Asia.26 Still, with
all of the success of women’s football in Colombia, much remains to
be done to overcome stereotypes and failures to increase the visibility
of the women’s game in the country. For example, in November
2017, Adidas debuted the new Colombian national team jerseys
with a well-publicized press conference. The former men’s national
team players Faustín Asprilla and Freddy Rincón modeled the new
shirts for men. But instead of having Colombian futboleras introduce
the women’s kit, Adidas used the Colombian winner of the Miss
Universe pageant, Paulina Vega. While the event was organized by
Adidas, it is likely that the Colombian federation was involved in
the kit unveiling. Notwithstanding the question of why the wom-
en’s jerseys have plunging necklines, having women’s national team
players model the new jerseys would have been free publicity for the
sport.27 Adidas apparently failed to get the message: in April 2018,
in the middle of the Copa América Femenina, it debuted the new
Argentina jerseys—with male footballers and female models.
In Mexico, too, the women’s professional league appeared to be
taking hold. The Liga MX Femenil launched with a tournament
called the Copa MX Femenil in 2017 after a failed attempt to in-
sert national team players into the US-based National Women’s
Soccer League (NWSL). Under an agreement with the US league,
the three North American federations (Mexico, the United States,
and Canada) would allocate players to NWSL teams and pay their
salaries. In 2013, the first year of the program, Mexico allocated
sixteen players. In the second year that number was reduced by half,
Epilogue 259

and in 2015 only four Mexican national team players were allocated
to NWSL teams. After that season, in which none of the four saw
playing time, Mexico pulled out of the program.28 Perhaps not coin-
cidentally, in late 2016 the Mexican federation announced plans for
a women’s professional league, the Liga MX Femenil. Twelve teams
competed in the Copa MX Feminil, with sixteen teams entering the
first full season of competition in 2017–2018. All women’s teams
were affiliated with clubs in the men’s game, and by 2018–2019,
eighteen women’s teams comprised the Liga MX Femenil.
Mexico also led in other ways. The creation of nationwide ama-
teur leagues in May 2015 for girls in the U-13 and U-16 categories
was intended to help diffuse the sport and develop talent for the
Mexican national team. These leagues coincided with the hiring of
Lucia Mijares Martínez to became director of sports development
for the amateur wing of the Mexican federation. Mijares Martínez
admitted to being surprised when she was offered the job, as it re-
mained “uncommon that a woman would direct anything within
football.”29 In this role, Mijares Martínez oversaw all development
in amateur football, for women and men and boys and girls. In
its first year of the program, the federation affiliated U-13 and
U-16 leagues and recognized 150 teams in fifteen states through-
out Mexico. Many more teams existed, however, on a grassroots,
unofficial level. “There are so many teams,” Mijares Martínez ad-
mitted, “that we don’t know how many there are.”30 Even with the
support of the federation, creating the leagues was difficult. Due to
the structure of the amateur division, all new projects needed the
approval of the head of each state football association, and “there
were many states that voted against it . . . [and] that said we will
not vote for anything related to women’s football.”31 Part of the
reason might have been, as Mijares Martínez noted, that it would
cut into the business interests of women’s football promoters. Since
the sport had been completely privatized, the creation of a national
league within the Mexican federation threatened the profits of pri-
vate league organizers.
The Clausura (closing tournament) of the Liga MX Femenil in
2018 saw disappointing results in terms of fans, with attendance
260FUTBOLERA

down almost 80,000 from the Apertura (opening tournament). The

latter had average attendance of 4,200 per match in the group stages,
just under 11,000 per match for the semifinals, and over 60,000 total
attendance for the two legs of the finals, won by Chivas. By compari-
son, the Clausura season saw an average of 2,000 fans per game. The
playoffs, however, marked a major milestone in women’s football in
Mexico. Semifinal attendance stood at just over 42,000 for the four
games. The finals however, far exceeded expectations. A total of
nearly 90,000 people attended the two legs, with 51,211 fans at the
last match, a world record for professional women’s football.32 The
creation of both the national youth amateur leagues and the Liga
MX Femenil nevertheless marked an important step in the Mexican
sporting landscape. It also highlighted the strength of the grassroots
work done to keep Mexican women’s football alive. Mexican wom-
en’s football survived on the margins over the years between the
1970s and the 2000s due to the initiative of players themselves as
well as of league organizers. According to Fabiola Vargas, a former
Mexican national team player, fútbol rápido (fútbol sala, or futsal)
leagues, playing six a side, formed the base upon which Mexican
women’s football regrouped in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Just
as Brazilian women embraced futsal, Mexican women’s embrace
of derivations on football helped to keep players active, interested,
and skilled. The survival of women’s football leagues depended on
voluntary support networks.33 As a young teenager, Ruby Campos
Ramírez remembered playing with friends in the street and fantasiz-
ing about starting a team, only to see a woman walk by in a football
uniform. After about a month of seeing the woman walk by at the
same time every week, Campos Ramírez asked where she was going
and if she could join her. In this way she discovered a women’s
league and a sport that would eventually take her to the Mexican
national team.34 The grassroots school and girls’ programs started by
women like Mercedes Rodríguez Alemán, Andrea Rodebaugh, and
others in the 1980s and 1990s laid the groundwork for the growth
of the sport. Mariana Gutiérrez Bernárdez and two friends organized
a fútbol siete (seven a side) tournament in 2008 by finding a field
and putting a call out on Facebook. In the first year the league had
Epilogue 261

twenty teams. It doubled in size the following year. By 2010 over

150 teams participated in the Liga Kotex, which was sponsored that
year by Kotex, Scotiabank, and Zwan.35 Gutiérrez Bernárdez went
on to become the supervisor of national leagues for the Mexican
Football Federation—like Lucia Mijares Martínez, taking over a
position that traditionally would have gone to a man.
In fact, more coaching, refereeing, and administrative positions
seem to be opening up to women in Latin America. A strong cohort
of women licensed by FIFA began to oversee men’s and women’s
matches. The first women received federation training in the 1980s;
however, it was nearly impossible to convince men to allow them
into the programs. Officials denied the system was sexist, imply-
ing that women could not keep up with the pace of male players
to properly do the job. The discrimination also comes from play-
ers. In 2004 Virginia Tovar became the first woman to arbitrate
a first-division men’s match. The legendary player Cuauhtémoc
Blanco (currently mayor of Cuernavaca) yelled at her to go back
to washing dishes.36 The Argentine referee Salome di Iorio has been
verbally abused, spat on, and threatened by players and fans alike.
This hasn’t stopped the interest of women in refereeing, as evidenced
in FIFA’s calculation that there are now over seven hundred women
registered and qualified to referee professional matches.37 Refereeing
may be even more challenging to sexism in sports than playing, since
it implies a combination of physical strength, technical knowledge,
and authority of women on the pitch.
Women coaches, of course, are nothing new. For decades women
have coached football and futsal in private clubs around the region.
Now, however, players from the generation of the 1980s and 1990s
have gone into coaching and have had an impact on the women’s
game both within their nations and internationally. For example,
the former Mexican national team players Andrea Rodebaugh and
Fabiola Vargas, who both represented the country in the 1990s and
2000s, completed their coaching training and have been working
in various capacities. Rodebaugh was an assistant on Cuellar’s staff
and coached Mexico’s U-20 women’s team before becoming a rov-
ing coach for FIFA. In that capacity, she traveled around the world
262FUTBOLERA

giving training and coaching clinics to national federations in order

to better equip them to coach women and girls. For her, this was
a part of a long-term development of women’s football, not only
in Mexico but worldwide. When the Liga MX Femenil formed,
Rodebaugh left FIFA in order to coach Xolos de Tijauna Femenil.
When named as coach, she brought her former teammate Fabiola
Vargas onto the staff. Vargas became head coach of the Nexcaca
women’s team in 2018. Monica Vergara, who played for Mexico
in the 1990s and 2000s, was on Leonard Cuellar’s coaching staff
and became the coach of the U-15 women’s national team in 2014.
Maribel Domínguez also began working with the women’s national
setup in 2017. These are hardly the only ex-players entering coach-
ing. In Mexico alone, Fatima Leyva, Iris Mora, Monica Gonzalez,
and Monica Gerardo have also attained licenses and have begun to
work at different levels within the sport. In the inaugural season of
the Liga MX Femenil, four of the sixteen head coaches were women.
In the second season, the number of women coaches had increased
by one. The rise in the coaching ranks of former players, who expe-
rienced firsthand the struggle for women’s football, bodes well for
the future of the sport.
With reason, women players are wary of the male-dominated
sporting institutions. If the rhetoric from CONMEBOL, CONCACAF,
and the national federations seems to point toward more resources
for the women’s game, the players have been down this road before.
The Brazilian women’s team, for example, experienced a wave of
popularity during the 2016 Olympic Games as it cruised through the
group stages of the tournament. It played a free-flowing, “Brazilian”
style at a time when the men’s team seemed to be playing in quick-
sand. Fans began buying Marta shirts. Political cartoons highlighted
the hype around the women’s team as well. Yet before the dust had
settled after the games ended, the Brazilian federation announced
cuts to the women’s national team program. Brazil was not alone.
Despite promises of more resources, women’s teams—national and
club level—rarely receive sufficient support. What is left for the wom-
en is collective action and grassroots mobilizing.
Epilogue 263

What else can improve the landscape of women’s football? The

history of the sport and its underdevelopment by FIFA, CONMEBOL,
and national associations suggests that the Chilean ANJUFF may
be on to something—a separate federation or a player’s union and
support from FIFPro. Like women players from more developed
women’s programs, Chilean, Argentine, and Brazilian women do
not want to fight their federations. Unlike their peers, however, they
are not fighting for equal treatment—or even equitable treatment.
They merely want the basics: travel money, decent facilities, and
better support networks. Given women’s abuse at the hands of male-
dominated national federations, perhaps they would be better served
by organizing independently, as was done throughout the world
into the 1970s. For example, the Federation of International and
European Women’s Football governed the sport in the late 1960s
and organized the first two women’s world championships (1970
and 1971), while in Mexico, Argentina, and Uruguay, women’s
leagues created their own national governing bodies. Now, how-
ever, players worry that the formation of independent federations
will violate FIFA rules and put participants at risk of sporting exile.
Another way forward for women’s football would be to change
the dynamics of sports journalism. Indeed, a crucial obstacle to
women’s football is the media’s continued objectification of women
athletes and the wives and girlfriends of male players to the neglect
of women athletes as athletes. The increased presence of women
in the commentator booth and in postgame analysis will improve
the place of women within football, though it remains to be seen if
this will increase respect for women’s football. Nevertheless, here
too Mexico showed early leadership, with coverage of the Mexican
women’s national team including analysis and play-by-play from
the former players Andrea Rodebaugh and Fabiola Vargas. Most
Liga MX Femenil teams have television deals to air at least some
games during the season. The spread of the internet has also aided
the growth of grassroots media coverage and analysis of the world of
women’s football. FutFemenilMX, for example, hosts a weekly pod-
cast to discuss the state of affairs of the sport inside (and occasionally
264FUTBOLERA

outside) Mexico. Greater visibility for the sport, its players, and its
history will only help to advance the game.
At the federation level, the directors of the national associa-
tions are almost entirely men. The South American confederation,
CONMEBOL, in 2014 had the lowest percentage of women on
executive committees, at 2 percent, according to a report by Moya
Dodd and Sarai Bareman. Women need to be represented on exec-
utive committees. They should have their own representatives, with
full voting rights, because otherwise women’s football is completely
ignored. So too should federations work with the sports media to
promote women’s football and to televise women’s national team
games. In today’s landscape, the “market” is the actor responsible
for success in sports. Fans and journalists frequently blame sexism
and the lack of resources given to women’s football on the “market.”
The standard justification is that if women’s football sold more tick-
ets or merchandise it would garner greater institutional support. But
this argument is circular. Men’s football did not become the national
sport in much of Latin America on its own. As leagues developed,
the sports media developed along with it in a symbiotic relationship.
The explosion of men’s football and the sports media was furthered
by advertising and promotion in both print and radio. In other
words, football did not grow into the sport it is today organically;
it required support from outside. Moreover, most Latin American
men’s leagues struggle to stay afloat financially, as global football
attention has turned to European leagues. Women’s football has re-
ceived far more scorn than support from the very same sources that
made men’s football—and men’s sports in general—so pervasive.
Furthermore, association directors claim that the women’s game is
new and underdeveloped. As this book has shown, these arguments
lack historical and rational bases. Federations all over the world
support terrible men’s teams with public funds because the sport is
seen as national patrimony, even as good women’s teams languish.
Federations can also be inventive with their marketing and spon-
sorship. Federations can negotiate more money with the require-
ment that additional monies be spent specifically on women’s foot-
ball. Companies can take the lead as well by requiring that a part
Epilogue 265

of sponsorship funds be spent on the women’s game. In the Liga

MX Femenil, sponsorship is club wide. So, for example, Huawei’s
sponsorship of Club América includes both the men’s and wom-
en’s teams. The league itself is sponsored by Coca-Cola, Voit, and
Powerade.38 Match attendance in the Brazilian women’s league is
growing, as is the level of competition and the number of games.
There is not only a national Brazilian women’s competition but also
regional tournaments in Rio and São Paulo. The expansion of the
women’s Brasileiro has been a boon for clubs like EC Iranduba, in
Manaus, which draws more fans than local men’s teams. The team’s
semifinal loss to Santos in the Brazilian championship drew over
twenty-five thousand people to the Arena da Amazônia, more than
many men’s clubs draw.39
In effect, what the history of women’s sports—and particularly
women’s football—in Latin America suggests is that there is still a
long way to go. Linked as it was to questions of national identity
and the growth and development of healthy nations, women’s phys-
ical activity was always going to be the source of vigilance on the
part of families and the state. Thus, sports for women, much more so
than for men, was never just about physical fitness. Rather, because
women were the future mothers of the nation, patriarchal systems
sought to ensure the healthfulness of women’s activities. However,
more often than not the purported experts worked more on the basis
of their own sexism and prejudice than on any actual knowledge of
either physical education or public health. Football, as a team sport
that offered platforms for women’s solidarity, and as the dominant
male sport in the region, came under uniquely harsh criticism. With
the support of public health “experts” who claimed that football
damaged women’s reproductive capacities, sports authorities sys-
tematically closed down options for women to play the game. But
the development of physical education programs eventually opened
the door for women’s athletics.
Throughout the region, from football powers like Brazil to
nations like Costa Rica, women’s involvement in the sport dates
almost back to its arrival. And there is much more to do. Peru and
Colombia had vibrant women’s football in the 1950s and 1960s, as
266FUTBOLERA

recent research has shown. But for the most part, their involvement
has been written out of the dominant history of the sport. Given the
importance of football in Latin America, this is no minor elision: if
the sport is essential to national identity, excluding women’s football
stories means excluding women from a crucial national construct.
Women were not equally discouraged from playing all sports. Track
and field, tennis, golf, basketball, and volleyball have enjoyed greater
state and club support. After a century of playing, women’s football
faces particular scorn because it threatens the same male preserves:
national identity, solidarity, leisure time, physical freedom, and ath-
letic prowess. As shocking as the conditions are for some women
athletes in Latin America when compared to the men’s resources,
sportswomen don’t necessarily experience deprivation or bemoan
their situation. After all of the treatment the Argentine futboleras en-
dured, they still expressed their pride at wearing the national jersey.
One player who made just $150 a month playing for Boca Juniors
beamed when she described what it was like to represent the club
she had adored since childhood.
Today’s feminist movements in Latin America are struggling with
urgent and immediate problems, such as poverty, femicide, work-
place discrimination, and reproductive rights. The #NiUnaMenos
(Not One [Woman] Less) movement in Argentina, originally emerg-
ing in 2015 in response to femicide, has broadened the definition of
gender violence and spread throughout the region. It has organized
successful national strikes, social media campaigns, and legal advo-
cacy. The work of feminists such as the Brazilian politician Marielle
Franco expanded the scope of these movements to include antiracism
and socialism. Franco’s assassination in 2018 was a painful reminder
of the danger facing intersectional grassroots movements. In light
of these struggles, sports equality is understandably lower on the
agenda. Historically, however, sports has been a site of struggle
over women’s supposed inferiority, their rights to leisure and public
spaces, their role in national identity, and their education. Insofar
as gender differences are created and recreated on the pitch, by the
media, and in school gymnasiums, understanding how these spaces
have changed over time deepens our understanding of persistent
Epilogue 267

inequalities. Hopefully, these histories, and the many sure to come,

will be useful to those working to even the playing field. We also
hope they are a testament to the persistence of girls and women in
Latin American sports, and their allies, who have fought for dignity
and recognition for over a century.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

THIS BOOK HAS BEEN A LONG TIME IN THE MAKING. JUST

as the book spans a lot of time and space, over the course of its
creation the authors have too. From seemingly expected places,
like Mexico, Costa Rica, Brazil, Chile, and Argentina, to less likely
locales, like Athens, the complexities of writing while in a constant
state of movement have been both challenging and fun. And there
are many people to thank. First and foremost, Kerry Webb at the
University of Texas Press. She signed on to the project from the
outset and encouraged us at all points along the way. We would
like to thank the Lozano Long Institute for Latin American Studies
at the University of Texas at Austin and the staff at the Nettie Lee
Benson Latin American Collection. Their knowledge and assistance
cannot be overstated. Daniela Alfonsi, director of the Museu do
Futebol, provided immeasurable assistance in the museum’s archives.
The Biblioteca Miguel Lerdo de Tejada is one of the most peaceful
places to do research in Mexico City, and its staff are thoughtful and
funny. Monica de la Vega cannot be thanked enough—not only for
her research assistance, but for her sense of humor and instinct for
great food. Dominik Petermann at the FIFA archive has now worked
with both of us on two projects and for some reason continues to
respond to our emails.
The network of futboleras also made our research much richer
and warmer. To Fabiola Vargas, Andrea Rodebaugh, Elvira Aracén,
Mercedes Rodríguez, and Ruby Campos, abrazos. Monica González
offered information and guidance. Lucia Mijares and Mariana
Bernárdez provided great insight into the workings of the Mexican
football federation and its changes with regard to the women’s
game. Gaby Gartón, Ruth Bravo, “Marina,” and Las Pioneras in
Argentina; Siselaide do Amor Lima and Marcia Tafarel from Brazil;
and Camila García, Fernanda Pinilla, and Iona Rothfeld in Chile

268
Acknowledgments 269

have generously shared their stories with us. So too Fernando Bonilla
Alvarado and Alice Quirós Alvarez deepened our understanding of
the first women’s football team in Costa Rica. Thanks to Xiomara
Cubero, Veronica Bonilla Quirós, and John Henson for putting us
in contact and facilitating our correspondence.
Many friends helped turn drafts of the manuscript into a much
more polished book, in ways both direct and indirect. To Jean
Williams and Shireen Ahmed, sisters-in-arms: your support and
encouragement has meant the world to us both. Matthew Brown
and James Green provided incredible insight on how to broaden
our arguments. The anonymous readers of the manuscript pointed
us toward important sources and helped sharpen our focus. Peter
Alegi, Matt Andrews, Amy Bass, Claire Brewster, Keith Brewster,
Bernardo Buarque, Laurent Dubois, Alex Galarza, Roger Kittleson,
Lindsay Krasnoff, Belinda Monkhouse, Jaime Shultz, Rodrigo Soto,
Shawn Stein, Diego Vilches, Jonathan Weiler, and David Wood all
provided commentary at important moments.

* * *

FROM JOSH: I’d like to thank Brenda. It’s pretty rare to find someone
who is able to keep you more or less on task while still understand-
ing that the vicissitudes of life sometimes create other priorities. I’m
lucky to count you among my friends, and as a colleague you always
make my work better. I’d also like to thank my colleagues at North
Carolina Central University, both inside the history department and
out, but especially Lydia Lindsey, Baiyina Muhammad, and the late
Sylvia Jacobs. In the Triangle, both real and psychic, thanks to Matt
and Lisa, Gustavo and Gracie, Todd and Erika, Ethan and Blain,
Matthew and Leah, Layla and Josh, Claire and Jonathan, Mariola,
Susan, Laura Wagner, the CSL crowd—especially Marc and Drew
(or is it Drew and Marc?) and Ascary Arias—Randall, Lisa, Molly,
Charlie, Jeff and Stephanie, Sam Amago, William Thomas, Sophie
Adamson, Alchemy, and Neal’s Deli. All of you play a big part in
my sanity. The academy of Sporting Clube Portugal in Chalandri,
Greece, gave me a place to work while my kids practiced a game
270ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

they love and learned to swear in Greek. To the administration and

coaches, much appreciation. Special thanks go to Mario Gavalas
and Stavros Raptis. Ευχαριστω, Tzeni, for many great freddo cap-
puccinos. Patriarchy is strong in Greece, and that means that soc-
cer dads are more common than moms. To all of the parents and
friends there (too many to name individually) who patiently listened
to me butcher Greek, thank you. Many went out of their way to
help: Antonis Tzenes, Dino and Penny, Thanos and Ntina, Ariti
and Giannis, Giannis and Dina, and Elias and Roma. Thanks to
Victoria Kalonarou for a great place to live, think, and work, and
to the cats of Kalisperi Sevastis, especially Isaiah, Steph, and Berry.
To Eva’s family in Greece—the Drellas, Zaxaropoulos, and Tiggelis
families: ευχαριστουμε πολυ for taking such good care of us. And of
course, to Evanthia, Sofia Ariadne, and Rafael Nikolaos: you have
kept me focused and helped me to step away when it was time;
without you, all of this would be a lot less fun. I love you. Finally,
to Ginger and Helen: so much love . . . I wish Bill could have been
around for this one.

* * *

FROM BRENDA: I would never have written this book without Josh.
Over the last years, he has always reminded me of the contempo-
rary implications of the work and kept me in it. I’m grateful for
his intelligence, good nature, and friendship. At Hofstra, I would
like to thank all of my colleagues in the history department and
beyond, who have been incredibly supportive. Special acknowledg-
ment to Benita Sampedro and Vimala Pasupathi. Simon Doubleday
and Susan Yohn acted as chairpersons during the writing of this
book and helped me to balance teaching and research whenever
they could. There are so many friends whom I have leaned on and
learned from over the years: Ernie Capello, Chandler Carter, Melissa
Connolly, Enrique Garguín, Paul Gootenberg, Alberto Harambour,
Liz Hutchison, Jorge Iturriaga, Zilkia Janer, Temma Kaplan, Ana
Julia Ramírez, and Angie Thompson. To the shark crew, you know
who you are, keep circling. J. Edward Durrett, thank you for making
Acknowledgments 271

me laugh, almost daily, for so many years. Jessica Stites, for all kinds
of reasons, has been a soul sister. The Bardfield-Mañons, the Kramers,
and the Rose-Cortinas have made the Hudson Valley a beautiful place
to live. Every week, Shireen Ahmed, Lindsay Gibbs, Jessica Luther,
and Amira Rose Davis keep my spirits up and my brain working as
part of the sports and feminism podcast Burn It All Down. I love
you all.
Thanks to my family, the Browns, the Steeles, the Elseys, and their
extensions, especially my mom, Joan, and my sister, Katie—a badass
woman every week.
I can’t say my children helped me write this book. But they brought
me joy and laughter the rest of the time. All my love to Julieta, Luna,
and Maya; three really is a magic number. And to their father, Enrique,
I owe the biggest debt of all for his support. See you in the canoe,
one way or another.
NOTES

INTRODUCTION
1. Marina Y., interview by Brenda Elsey, February 12, 2017.
2. Walter D. Mignolo, The Idea of Latin America (Malden, MA: Blackwell,
2005).
3. Examples include Gabriela Cano, “Género y construcción cultural de
las profesiones en el Porfiriato: Magisterio, medicina, jurisprudencia
y odontología,” Historia y Grafía 14 (2000): 207–243; Mary Kay
Vaughan, Gabriela Cano, and Jocelyn Olcott, eds., Sex in Revolution:
Gender, Power, and Politics in Modern Mexico (Durham, NC: Duke
University Press, 2006); Iana dos Santos Vasconcelos, “Mulher e
mercado de trabalho no Brasil: Notas de uma história em andamento,”
Examãpaku 3, no. 2 (2010): 1–9, http://dx.doi.org/10.18227/1983
-9065ex.v3i2.1497; Donna Guy, Sex and Danger in Buenos Aires:
Prostitution, Family, and Nation in Argentina (Lincoln: University
of Nebraska Press, 1991); Elizabeth Hutchison, Labors Appropriate
to Their Sex: Gender, Labor, and Politics in Urban Chile, 1900–1930
(Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2001); Ann Farnsworth-Alvear,
Dulcinea in the Factory: Myths, Morals, Men, and Women in
Colombia’s Industrial Experiment (Durham, NC: Duke University
Press, 2000); Daniel James and John French, eds., The Gendered Worlds
of Latin American Women Workers: From Household and Factory to
the Union Hall and Ballot Box (Durham, NC: Duke University Press,
1997).
4. Karin Alejandra Rosemblatt, Gendered Compromises: Political Cultures
and the State in Chile, 1920–1950 (Chapel Hill: University of North
Carolina Press, 2000).
5. Heidi Tinsman, Partners in Conflict: The Politics of Gender, Sexuality,
and Labor in the Chilean Agrarian Reform, 1950–1973 (Durham, NC:
Duke University Press, 2000); Mary Kay Vaughan, Cultural Politics in
Revolution: Teachers, Peasants, and Schools in Mexico, 1930–1940
(Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1997).
6. Much of this work is interdisciplinary in nature, and historiography
has been enriched by anthropologists, sociologists, and others. See, for
example, Antonia dos Santos Garcia, Mulheres da cidade d’Oxum:

272
NOTES TO PAGES 4-8 273

Relações de gênero, raça e classe e organização espacial do movimento

de bairro em Salvador (Salvador, Brazil: UFBA Editora, 2006).
7. See, for example, Brenda Elsey, Citizens and Sportsmen: Fútbol and
Politics in Twentieth-Century Chile (Austin: University of Texas Press,
2011); Thomas Miller Klubock, Contested Communities: Class, Gender,
and Politics in Chile’s El Teniente Copper Mine, 1904–1951 (Durham,
NC: Duke University Press, 1998); Matthew C. Gutmann, The
Meanings of Macho: Being a Man in Mexico City (Berkeley: University
of California Press, 2006); Martha Santos, Cleansing Honor with Blood:
Masculinity, Violence, and Power in the Backlands of Northeast Brazil,
1845–1889 (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2012).
8. Kathya Araujo and Mercedes Prieto, eds., Estudios sobre sexualidades
en América Latina (Quito, Ecuador: FLACSO, 2008); James N. Green,
Beyond Carnival: Male Homosexuality in Twentieth-Century Brazil
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000).
9. The field has grown enormously; some of the key volumes include:
Pablo Alabarces, Fútbol y patria: El fútbol y las narrativas de la nación
en la Argentina (Buenos Aires: Prometo, 2003); Matthew Brown, From
Frontiers to Football: An Alternative History of Latin America Since
1800 (London: Reaktion Books, 2014); Bernardo Buarque de Hollanda,
O clube como vontade e representação: O jornalismo esportivo e a
formação das torcidas organizadas de futebol do Rio de Janeiro (Rio de
Janeiro: 7Letras; Faperj, 2010); Brenda Elsey, Citizens and Sportsmen:
Fútbol and Politics in Twentieth-Century Chile (Austin: University of
Texas Press, 2011); Julio Frydenberg, Historia social del fútbol: Del
amateurismo a la profesionalización (Buenos Aires: Siglo XXI, 2011);
Roger Kittleson, The Country of Football: Soccer and the Making of
Modern Brazil (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2014); Roger
Magazine, Golden and Blue Like My Heart: Masculinity, Youth, and
Power among Soccer Fans in Mexico City (Tucson: University of
Arizona Press, 2007); Joshua Nadel, Fútbol! Why Soccer Matters in
Latin America (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2014); David
Sheinin, ed., Sport Culture in Latin American History (Pittsburgh,
PA: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2015); David Wood, Football and
Literature in South America (New York: Routledge, 2017).
10. Andrea Stevenson Allen, Violence and Desire in Brazilian Lesbian
Relationships (New York: Palgrave, 2015); Rosa Maria Oliveira,
“Fronteiras invisíveis: Gêneros, questões identitárias e relações entre
movimento homossexual e estado no Brasil,” Revista Bagoas, no. 4
(2009): 160–172.
11. Anne Rubenstein, “The War on ‘Las Pelonas’: Modern Women and
Their Enemies, Mexico City, 1924,” in Sex in Revolution: Gender,
274 NOTES TO PAGES 9-21

Politics, and Power in Modern Mexico, ed. Jocelyn Olcott, Mary Kay
Vaughan, and Gabriela Cano (Durham, NC: Duke University Press,
2006): 57–80.
12. Valeria Manzano, The Age of Youth in Argentina: Culture, Politics,
and Sexuality from Perón to Videla (Chapel Hill: University of North
Carolina Press, 2014), 98.
13. Some sources list the name of the organization as the Independent
Federation of Women’s Football; see for example Jean Williams, A
Beautiful Game: International Perspectives on Women’s Football
(Oxford, UK: Berg, 2007), 20. However, posters for the first world
championship in Italy list the name as Federazione Internazionale
Europea Football Femminile.

CHAPTER 1

1. Juana Gremler, Monografía de Liceo No. 1 de Niñas (Santiago, Chile:

Imp. Cervantes, 1902).
2. Today the school is named Liceo Javiera Carrera. Chile’s first female
president, Michelle Bachelet; the writer Isabel Allende; and a number
of prominent women attended the school.
3. Carola Sepúlveda Vásquez, “Esencias en fuga: Dime, mi bien, ¿quién me
llorará, si me dan alas y echo a volar?” (thesis, Universidad de Chile,
2007), http://www.tesis.uchile.cl/tesis/uchile/2007/sepulveda_c/html
/index-frames.html.
4. Macarena Ponce de León Sol Serrano and Francisca Rengifo, Historia de
la educación en Chile (1810–2010) (Santiago de Chile: Taurus, 2012),
volume 2.
5. Raúl Blanco, Educación física, un panorama de su historia (Montevideo,
Uruguay: Imp. Adroher, 1948), 158.
6. Beatriz Sarlo, La máquina cultural. Maestras, traductores y vanguardistas
(Buenos Aires: Ariel, 1998).
7. A key early influence was the US educational leader Catharine Beecher,
who in the 1830s advocated for girls’ and women’s physical education.
Beecher was the sister of Harriet Beecher Stowe, author of Uncle Tom’s
Cabin. In 1855, Catharine wrote the textbook Physiology and
Calisthenics for Schools and Families.
8. Sepúlveda Vásquez, “Esencias en fuga.”
9. François Martinez, “¡Que nuestros indios se conviertan en pequeños
suecos! La introducción de la gymnasia en las escuelas bolivianas,”
Andines 28, no. 3 (1999): 364.
10. F. Martinez, “Que nuestros indios,” 361–386, 372.
11. Blanco, Educación física, 118.
NOTES TO PAGES 21-27 275

12. Blanco, Educación física, 119.

13. Roland Naul and Ken Hardman, eds., Sport and Physical Education in
Germany (New York: Routledge, 2002).
14. Naul and Hardman, Sport and Physical Education, 96, 154.
15. “Y.M.C.A. Banned in Lima,” South American, November 1919, p. 34.
16. Senda Berenson Abbott, Spalding’s Official Basketball Guide for Women
(New York: American Sports Publishing Company, 1916).
17. Jess Hopkins, “Basket Ball in South America,” in Spalding’s Official
Basketball Guide (New York: American Sports Publishing Company,
1914), 181.
18. Jorge Iber et al., Latinos in U.S. Sport: A History of Isolation, Cultural
Identity, and Acceptance (Champaign, IL: Human Kinetics, 2011), 95.
19. Jorge Saraví Rivière, Historia de la educación física argentina (Buenos
Aires: Libros de Zorzal, 2012), 25.
20. Santiago Harispe, “Francisco Berra historiador: Aspectos de una bio-
grafía intelectual en el Río de la Plata a finales del siglo XIX,” Historia
de la Educación 16 (2015): 27–36.
21. Saraví Rivière, Historia de la educación física argentina.
22. Pablo Scharagrodsky, “El padre de la educación física argentina:
Fabricando una política corporal generizada (1900–1940), Perspectiva
22 (July–December 2004): 83–119.
23. Scharagrodsky, “El padre de la educación física.”
24. Gisela Kaczan, “La práctica gimnástica y el deporte: La cultura física
y el cuerpo bello en la historia de las mujeres. Argentina 1900–1930,”
Historia Crítica 61 (July 2016): 23–43.
25. Kaczan, “La práctica gimnástica.”
26. Kaczan, “La práctica gimnástica.”
27. El Gráfico, July 12, 1919.
28. El Hogar, January 28, 1929, cover.
29. Kaczan, “La práctica gimnástica”; and Andrés Horacio Reggiani,
“Cultura física, performance atlética e higiene de la nación. El surgi-
miento de la medicina deportiva en Argentina (1930–1940),” Historia
Crítica 61 (July–September 2016): 65–84.
30. Patricia Anderson, “Mens Sana in Corpore Sano: Debating Female Sport
in Argentina: 1900–46,” International Journal of the History of Sport
26, no. 5 (2009): 640–653.
31. Anderson, “Debating Female Sport.”
32. Marcela Nari, Políticas de maternidad y maternalismo político (Buenos
Aires: Biblos, 2004).
33. Arturo Raul Rossi, “La educación física en los canones biotipolo-gicos,”
Anales de biotipologia, eugenesia y medicina social 3, no. 64 (July
1936): 10–12.
276 NOTES TO PAGES 27-35

34. “Dígame doctor,” Eva, April 23, 1948, p. 31.

35. Blanco, Educación física, 107.
36. Blanco, Educación física; María Andrea Feiguin and Ángela Aisestein,
“Diseño de sujetos morales, sanos y patriotas. Formación de profe-
sores de educación física. Argentina, 1938–1967,” Pedagogía y Saberes,
no. 44 (January–June 2016): 12.
37. Congreso Panamericano de Educación Física, Actas y Documentos
Oficiales (Montevideo, Uruguay: 1943).
38. Nikos Zaikos, “Ingeborg Mello: ‘Two Lives’ in Sport,” Nashim 26
(Spring 2014): 5–34.
39. Zaikos, “Ingeborg Mello.”
40. “En Buenos Aires, se practica football femenino,” Fray Mocho, October
2, 1923.
41. See Mirta Zaida Lobato, “Afectos y sexualidad en el mundo de trabajo
entre fines del siglo XIX y la década de 1930,” in Moralidades y com-
portamientos sexuales: Argentina, 1880–2011, ed. Dora Barrancos,
Donna Guy, and Adriana Valobra (Buenos Aires: Biblios, 2014), 155–
174.
42. Biblioteca Nacional de Argentina, digital library, http://trapalanda
.bn.gov.ar/jspui/handle/123456789/9021#prettyPhoto[iframes1]/3/ 1953
Union club of AOT.
43. Karina Ramacciotti and Adriana Valobra, “‘Peor que putas’: Tríbadas,
satisfas y homosexuales en el discurso moral hegemónico del campo
medico, 1936–1945,” in Moralidades y comportamientos sexuales:
Argentina, 1880–2011, ed. Dora Barrancos, Donna Guy, and Adriana
Valobra (Buenos Aires: Biblios, 2014), 195–216.
44. Brenda Elsey, Citizens and Sportsmen: Fútbol and Politics in Twentieth-
Century Chile (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2011).
45. See Sol Serrano and Rengifo, Historia de la educación en Chile, vol-
ume 2.
46. Actividades Femeninas en Chile (Santiago, Chile: Imp. Ilustración,
1928), 261.
47. Pedro Acuña, “Dribbling with the Left and Shooting with the Right:
Soccer, Sports Media, and Populism in Argentina and Chile, 1940s–
1950s” (PhD diss., University of California, Irvine, 2016), particularly
chapter 5.
48. “Siguen los triunfos chilenos,” Estadio, March 20, 1942.
49. Los Sports.
50. “Team Talca de Escuela Normal,” photograph, 1900, Museo Histórico
Nacional de Chile, PFA-240.
51. “Team Santiago de Escuela Normal de Talca,” photograph, 1918, Museo
Histórico Nacional de Chile, PFA-23.
NOTES TO PAGES 36-41 277

52. Josafat Martínez, Historia del fútbol chileno (Santiago, Chile: Nacional,
1961), 12.
53. “A favor de la Estudiantina La Flor de Chile,” El Mercurio, May 11, 1919,
p. 13; and “Asociación Femenina de Football de Chile,” El Mercurio,
May 11, 1919, p. 13.
54. “Asociación Femenina de Football de Chile,” El Mercurio, May 11, 1919,
p. 13.
55. “La Flor de Chile—La Fiesta Sportiva de Hoy,” El Mercurio, May 25,
1919, p. 19; and “El grán festival de las 8,” El Mercurio, May 27, 1919,
p. 7.
56. “Flor de Chile FC Femenino,” El Mercurio, June 27, 1919, p. 19. The
new executive board was: Srta. Carmela Hernández, president; Srta.
Mariana Medina, vice president; Srta. Javiera Cárdenas, secretary; Srta.
Teresa Arellano, vice secretary; Srta. Malvina A. De Escobar, treasurer;
Srta. Emilio [sic(?)] Sepúlveda, vice treasurer; Srta. Quiteria Medina,
“captain of the first team”; Srta. Inés Araneda, vice captain; and Srtas.
Juana Romero, Doria Callardo, Juna Sepúlveda, and Marta Delgado,
directors.
57. Blanco, Educación física, 218.
58. Acuña, “Dribbling with the Left,” 47.
59. “Los deportes femeninos en Valparaíso,” Los Sports, July 8, 1927, p. 2.
60. “Los deportes femeninos en Valparaíso,” Los Sports, July 8, 1927, p. 2.
61. Match 1, no 1 (October 1928): 22.
62. Elcira Poblete, “La gimnasia y la mujer,” Justicia, August 23, 1924, p. 4.
63. Elcira Poblete, “La gimnasia y la mujer,” Justicia, August 23, 1924, p. 4.
64. “Club deportivo ‘Aurora Porteña,’” Memorias del siglo XX, Ministerio
de las Culturas, las Artes y el Patrimonio, Gobierno de Chile, n.d., http://
www.memoriasdelsigloxx.cl/601/w3-article-51889.html.
65. “La mujer, los deportes y . . . el marido,” Match, April 26, 1929, p. 5.
66. “La mujer, los deportes y . . . el marido,” Match, April 26, 1929, p. 5.
67. “La mujer, el gimnasio y el prejuicio,” Los Sports, December 20, 1929,
p. 1.
68. Elcira Poblete, “La gimnasia y la mujer, Justicia, August 23, 1924, p. 4.
69. Elcira Poblete, “La gimnasia y la mujer, Justicia, August 23, 1924, p. 4.
70. “Deportes,” Unión Feminina de Chile, April 1934.
71. “La mujer i los sports,” Sport i Actualidades, May 4, 1913, p. 1.
72. “La mujer moderna y el deporte,” La Gaceta Deportiva, June 14, 1930,
p. 3.
73. “Sobre el lawn tennis,” Pacífico Magazine, January 1916, pp. 25–28.
74. “Sobre el lawn tennis,” Pacífico Magazine, January 1916, pp. 25–28, 26.
75. Susana Lenglen, “Táctica,” Los Sports, June 11, 1926, pp. 6–7.
278 NOTES TO PAGES 41-45

76. Don Pampa, “Nació estrella,” Estadio, June 2, 1951, p. 4.

77. Inelia Casanova, “Síntesis histórica del basket-ball femenino en Chile,”
Revista Chilena de Educación Física 17, no. 67 (January 1951): 42–43.
78. Don Pampa, “Nació estrella,” Estadio, June 2, 1951, p. 4. Marimacho
is a term that can be translated as tomboy or butch lesbian, depending
on the way it is used.
79. “Otro título para el norte,” Estadio, April 21, 1944, p. 24.
80. Don Pampa, “El equipo viajero,” Estadio, April 19, 1947, pp. 4–5, 22,
30, 5.
81. Don Pampa, “El equipo viajero,” Estadio, April 19, 1947.
82. Colo-Colo FC, Historia del Club Colo-Colo (Santiago, Chile: Imprenta
Arvas, 1953).
83. Tatanacho, “Chile doblo a Argentina,” Estadio, May 25, 1946, pp.
16–21.
84. Tatanacho, “Chile doblo a Argentina,” Estadio, May 25, 1946, pp.
16–21, 18.
85. “Confirmo excelencia,” Estadio, May 28, 1949, pp. 8–9.
86. “Confirmo excelencia,” Estadio, May 28, 1949, pp. 8–9.
87. “Natacha Méndez Cash, reina de la Primavera,” Población Pedro Montt,
March 4, 2009, http://poblacionpedromontt.blogspot.com/2009/03
/natacha-mendez-cash-reina-de-la.html.
88. “Ahora, una dama,” Estadio, January 16, 1954, p. 3; Daniel Arellano,
“Seleccionadas de la ‘Época Dorada’ del básquetbol femenino,” El
Deportero, December 5, 2016, https://eldeportero.cl/seleccionadas-de-la
-epoca-dorada-del-basquetbol-femenino-recibieron-un-reconocimiento
-a-su-trayectoria/.
89. José Contreras C., “Las sabrosas historias del dorado básquetbol femenino
nacional,” La Tercera, May 12, 2016, http://www.latercera.com/noticia
/las-sabrosas-historias-del-dorado-basquetbol-femenino-nacional/.
90. “El basquetbol no es un deporte para mujeres,” La Nación, November
22, 1948.
91. “Women in the World Sports Organisations,” Olympic Review, no. 82–83
(September–October 1974): 401–414.
92. “Women in the World Sports Organisations,” Olympic Review, no. 82–83
(September–October 1974): 401–414.
93. Estadio, December 31, 1943.
94. Track and field was one of the most popular sports in the early Pan-American
Games, with the number of athletes doubling from two thousand at the
1951 games to four thousand in 1955.
95. Stephanie Elias, “Las mujeres de oro,” Ya: El Mercurio, July 28, 2015,
pp. 16–20.
NOTES TO PAGES 46-50 279

96. Elias, “Las mujeres de oro”; Alexis Jeldrez, “Marlene Ahrens: Una
ganadora en serie,” Caras, November 27, 2013, http://www.caras.cl
/deportes/marlene-ahrens-una-ganadora-en-serie/.
97. “Migajas,” Estadio, May 14, 1949, p. 30.
98. Pepe Nava, “Cosas de gringos,” Estadio, August 27, 1949, pp. 20–23.
Pepe Nava, which sometimes appeared as Pepe Navas, was the pseu-
donym of José María Navasal.
99. As of this writing, we have been unable to find evidence of these
organizations.
100. Pepe Nava, “Cosas de gringos,” Estadio, August 27, 1949, pp. 20–23.
101. Pepe Nava, “Cosas de gringos,” Estadio, August 27, 1949, pp. 20–23.
102. Pepe Nava, “Cosas de gringos,” Estadio, August 27, 1949, pp. 20–23.
103. Jeldrez, “Marlene Ahrens.”
104. Jeldrez, “Marlene Ahrens.”
105. Elias, “Las mujeres de oro,” 16–20.
106. Zvonimir Ostoic, “Adolescencia y gimnasia,” Revista Chilena de
Educación Física 22, no. 86 (October 1955): 1095–1100.
107. Ostoic, “Adolescencia y gimnasia.”
108. Luis Bisquerit, “Charlas en torno a la II Lingiada,” Revista Chilena de
Educación Física 18, no. 70 (October 1951): 187–193.
109. La Tribuna (La Cisterna), July 23, 1950, p. 6.
110. Gol y Gol, June 19, 1963, p. 20.
111. Gol y Gol, March 6, 1963, p 4.
112. “Migajas,” Estadio, May 24, 1952, p. 32.
113. Don Pampa, “Nació estrella,” Estadio, June 2, 1951, p. 4.
114. Gol y Gol, January 9, 1963, p. 5.
115. Gol y Gol, June 12, 1963, p. 21.
116. Leontina Gallardo, “Iquique,” Gol y Gol, December 11, 1963, p. 21.
117. Juan Aparo, “Vallenar,” Gol y Gol, October 9, 1963, p. 21.
118. Marta Briceño, “Debe preocuparnos la educación física femenina,”
Revista Chilena de Educación Física (January 1951): 40–42.
119. “Partió el voleibol,” Gol y Gol, June 5, 1963, p. 22.
120. “[P]uso un hermoso marco en la inauguración del presente torneo.”
“Partió el voleibol,” Gol y Gol, June 5, 1963, p. 22.
121. “Rostro pálido,” Estadio, February 3, 1966, pp. 16–18.
122. “Minicosas,” Estadio, April 2, 1970, p. 25.
123. “El tesoro atlético,” Estadio, June 4, 1970, pp. 12–13.
124. “De natación femenina entre los colegios extranjeros,” Estadio,
November 28, 1941.
125. “Brillante festival acuatico,” Estadio, February 20, 1942.
280 NOTES TO PAGES 51-54

126. Jaime Drapkin S., Historia de Colo Colo, club de deportes 1925–1952
(Santiago, Chile: 1952), 8.
127. Colo-Colo FC, Estatutos y reglementos 1930 (Santiago, Chile: Electra,
1930), 6.
128. Club de Deportes Green Cross, Estatutos y reglamentos (Santiago, Chile:
Imparcial, 1940).
129. María Graciela Rodríguez, “The Place of Women in Argentinian Football,”
International Journal of the History of Sport 22, no. 2 (March 2005):
231–245.
130. Gabriela Binello et al., “Mujeres y fútbol: ¿Territorio conquistador o a
conquistar?,” in Peligro de gol: Estudios sobre deporte y sociedad en
América Latina, ed. Pablo Alabarces (Buenos Aires: CLACSO, 2000),
33–56.
131. “La Gorda Matosas,” El magazine electrónico del recuerdo 1, no. 5
(February 2005), http://archive.is/20121209180332/jof13.tripod.com
/revista/Latinos_Inolvidables_nro_005.doc.
132. “El Torino femenil jugará en Argentina,” El Heraldo de México,
January 17, 1970, p. 4B. Manuel Corbatto is listed as the head of Boca’s
women’s section. Imagine a female fan chanting the beginning of the
University of Chile’s hymn in 1948: “Ser un romántico viajero y el
sendero continuar, ir más allá del horizonte de remonta la verdad, y en
desnudos de mujer contemplar la realidad.”
133. Mariana Conde and María Graciela Rodríguez, “Mujeres en el fútbol
argentino: Sobre prácticas y representaciones,” Alteridades 12, no 23
(2002): 93–106.
134. Conde and Rodríguez, “Mujeres en el fútbol.”
135. Conde and Rodríguez, “Mujeres en el fútbol.”
136. Pablo Alabarces and María Graciela Rodríguez, “Football and
Fatherland: The Crisis of Representation in Argentinian Football,” in
Football Culture: Local Contests, Global Visions, ed. Gerry Finn and
Richard Giulianotti (London: Frank Cass, 2000), 118–133.
137. Unión Española, Bodas de oro 1897–18 Mayo 1947 (Santiago, Chile:
Imparcial, 1947).
138. Unión Española, Bodas de oro, 13.
139. Unión Española, Bodas de oro.
140. Unión Española, Memoria (Santiago, Chile: El Comercio, 1936), 6.
141. Unión Española, Memoria.
142. Fernando Larraín Mancheño, Fútbol en Chile, 1895–1945 (Santiago,
Chile: Molina y Lackington, 1945).
143. La Voz del Cristalero, May 10, 1944, p. 3.
144. La Opinión de Conchalí 1, no.1 (June 1954): 12.
NOTES TO PAGES 54-57 281

145. La Voz del Poblador, September 15, 1954, p. 4.

146. René Mera Pineda, “Lanco,” Gol y Gol, May 29, 1963, p. 20.
147. Ritmo, September 21, 1965, p. 18.
148. Antonino Vera, El fútbol en Chile (Santiago, Chile: Editora Nacional
Quimantú, 1973).
149. Vera, El fútbol en Chile, 5.
150. Vera, El fútbol en Chile, 43.
151. Sport i Actualidades, June 28, 1912, p. 1.
152. “Mercado Persa,” Estadio, February 11, 1971, p. 50.
153. “Mercado Persa,” Estadio, February 11, 1971, p. 50.
154. Estadio, November 18, 1971, p. 45.
155. “Fútbol femenino,” Estadio, March 11, 1965, p. 7.
156. “Triangular de México, Argentina y Chile?,” El Heraldo de México,
May 21, 1971, p. 2B; “Futbol femenil,” El Heraldo de México, March
16, 1971, p. 4B. A Chilean representative of the Central Association
of Women’s Football, Julio Cazor Arlegui, contacted the Mexican
organizers to express interest. While El Heraldo de México reported on
Brazilian interest, it made no mention of women’s football being illegal
in Brazil.
157. “En definitiva,” El Heraldo de México, June 23, 1971, p. 2B.
158. “Argentina quiere participar en el II Mundial Femenino,” El Mundo
Deportivo (Barcelona), April 12, 1971, p. 15; “Perú quiere ver a la
selección de México,” El Heraldo de México, May 6, 1971, p. 2B;
Marina Y., interview by Brenda Elsey, March 22, 2017.
159. “Las argentinas,” El Heraldo de México, July 3, 1971, p. 3. This
article lists Miguel Harrington and Félix Menaldi as the heads of the
delegation.
160. “Las argentinas,” El Heraldo de México, July 3, 1971, p. 3; the names
mentioned include Maria Fiorelli and Marta Soler. “Son muy solicitados
las mexicanas en radio y TV,” El Heraldo de México, July 18, 1971, p. 4B;
the article mentions Betty Garcia, Angelica Cardoso, and Susana Lopertto.
161. “En Buenos Aires Anunica se jugará el 16,” El Heraldo de Mexico, July
8, 1971, p. 2B.
162. “Perú quiere ver a la selección de México,” El Heraldo de México, May
6, 1971, p. 2B; “Quieren que la selección femenil juegue en Caracas,” El
Heraldo de México, July 15, 1971, p. 3B.
163. “Llegaron a Lima,” El Heraldo de México, July 14, 1971, p. 4B.
164. “México-Perú en fútbol femenil,” El Heraldo de México, July 21, 1971,
p. 2B; “Las mexicanas salieron entre aplausos,” El Heraldo de México,
July 22, 1971, p. 8B. Players listed include Zoila León, Raquel Antaihua,
Rosa Hurtado, Rosario Constantini, Nelly Sánchez, Norma Rodríguez,
282 NOTES TO PAGES 57-63

Ana Proaño, Olga Pinto, Maritza Teresse, Norma Bernal, and Ana
Sánchez. The match was sponsored by the Peruvian Sportswriters
Association.
165. “México-Argentina, suspendido por lluvia,” El Heraldo de México, July
17, 1971, p. 2B.
166. “Argentina venció a México 3–2 en futbol femenil,” El Heraldo de
México, July 19, 1971, p. 2B. The players listed are as follows. Mexico:
Yolanda Ramírez, Irma Chávez, Berta Orduña, Marta Coronado, Paula
Pérez, Guadalupe Tovar, Sandra Tapia, Patricia Hernández, Silvia
Zaragoza, and Maria Eugenia Rubio. Argentina: Marta Soler, Zulma
Gómez, Ofelia Fleitas, Maria Fiorelli, Zunilda Troncoso, Angelica
Cardozo, Virginia Andrade, Eva Lenbesis, Betty García, Elba Selva,
and Blanca Bruccoli. The referee was Guillermo Nimo.
167. Hugo Sanmontiel, “Avanzada Argentina,” El Heraldo de México, August
10, 1971, p. 1B.
168. Manelich Quintero, “Ya están aquí diez argentinas más,” El Heraldo de
México, August 13, 1971, p. 5B.
169. “Mundial (Women) 1971,” Rec.Sport.Soccer Statistics Foundation,
last updated February 29, 2004, http://www.rsssf.com/tablesm/mundo
-women71.html.
170. Facebook page for Las Pioneras del Fútbol Femenino ARG, https://www
.facebook.com/laspionerasdelfutbolfemenino/.

CHAPTER 2

1. See Sueann Caulfield, In Defense of Honor (Durham, NC: Duke University

Press, 2000), 26–33, 80.
2. Caulfield, In Defense of Honor, 27.
3. Alfredo G. Faria Júnior, “Futebol, questões de gênero e co-educação:
Algumas considerações didáticas sob enfoque multicultural,” Pesquisa
de Campo 2 (1995): 21.
4. Faria, “Futebol, questões de gênero.”
5. Lívia Bonafé d’Ávila and Osmar Moreira de Souza Júnior, “Futebol
feminino e sexualidade,” Revista das Facultades Integradas Claretianas
2 (December/January, 2009): 32.
6. O Paiz (Rio), October 10, 1922, p. 3.
7. This comes from a review by the authors of the use of the term “violent
sport” in Jornal dos Sports from the 1930s through the mid-1940s.
8. Mario Filho’s O negro no foot-ball brasileiro was influential in creating
this notion; see Gregg Bocketti, The Invention of the Beautiful Game:
Football and the Making of Modern Brazil (Gainesville: University Press
of Florida, 2016).
NOTES TO PAGES 64-72 283

9. Carmen Lucía Soares, “Da arte e da ciência de movimentar-se: Primeiros

momentos da ginástica no Brasil,” in História do esporte no Brasil, ed.
Mary del Priore and Victor Andrade de Melo (São Paulo: UNESP, 2009),
133–178.
10. Inezil Penna Marinho, Contribuição para a história da educação física
no Brasil (Rio de Janeiro: Imp. Nacional, 1943).
11. Jornal dos Sports, June 21, 1931, p. 1.
12. Jeffrey Dávila, Diploma of Whiteness: Race and Social Policy in Brazil,
1917–1945 (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2003).
13. Lacerda Nogueira, “De como devemos educar as nossas gerações,” O
Fluminense, May 23, 1920, p. 1. Nogueira was a medical doctor who
went on to become a senator from Rio de Janeiro.
14. Madeiros e Albuquerque, “Um Brazil mais forte,” A Noite, November
26, 1929, p. 1.
15. Mônica Raisa Schpun, Beleza em jogo: Cultura física e comportamento
em São Paulo nos anos 20 (São Paulo: SENAC, 1999).
16. Schpun, Beleza em jogo, 35.
17. Schpun, Beleza em jogo, 38.
18. Schpun, Beleza em jogo, 43.
19. Joshua Nadel, Fútbol! Why Soccer Matters in Latin America (Gainesville:
University Press of Florida, 2014), 83.
20. Dávila, Diploma of Whiteness.
21. Dávila, Diploma of Whiteness, 49–50.
22. “Futebol feminino,” A Cigarra, March 1926, p. 36.
23. “Sport Club Mangueiras,” Sport Ilustrado, September 18, 1920, p. 21.
24. See Eriberto José Lessa de Moura, “As relações entre lazer, futebol e
gênero” (MA thesis, Universidade Estadual de Campinhas, December
2003), 9–11, 16–17.
25. James N. Green, Beyond Carnival: Male Homosexuality in Twentieth-
Century Brazil (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2001).
26. “O sport e a mão da mulher,” Sport Ilustrado, August 7, 1920, p. 14.
27. “O sport e a mão da mulher,” Sport Ilustrado, August 7, 1920, p. 5.
28. “O sport e a mão da mulher,” Sport Ilustrado, August 7, 1920.
29. Sport Ilustrado, August 14, 1920, p. 6.
30. Sport Ilustrado, August 14, 1920, p. 17.
31. “Carnet mundano sportivo,” Sport Ilustrado, November 6, 1920, p. 14.
32. Sport Ilustrado, February 26, 1921, p. 13.
33. Sport Ilustrado, September 18, 1920, p. 19.
34. Sport Ilustrado, September 18, 1920, p. 19.
35. Barbara Weinstein, For Social Peace in Brazil: Industrialists and the
Remaking of the Working Class in São Paulo, 1920–1964 (Durham, NC:
Duke University Press, 1997).
284 NOTES TO PAGES 72-79

36. Rachel Soihet, “A conquista do espaço público,” in Novas histórias das

mulheres do Brasil, ed. Carla Bassanezi Pinsky and Joana Maria Pedro
(São Paulo: Editora Contexto, 2012), 219.
37. Hilary Owen, “Discardable Discourses in Patricia Galvão’s Parque
Industrial,” in Brazilian Feminisms, ed. Solange Ribeiro de Oliveira and
Judith Still (Nottingham, UK: University of Nottingham Monographs in
the Humanities, 1999), 68–84, 69.
38. Soihet, “A conquista do espaço público,” 222. Prior to 1922, only private
schools prepared women for university. Public schools were a path to
normal school.
39. Maria Inacia d’Ávila Neto, O autoritarismo e a mulher: O jogo da
admoniação macho-fêmea no Brasil (Rio de Janeiro: Achiamé, 1980), 15.
40. Correio da Manhã, November 23, 1930, p. 16.
41. Diário da Noite, November 26, 1930, p. 16.
42. Luiz Guilherme Veiga de Almeida, Ritual, risco e arte circense (Brasília:
UNB), 2008.
43. Diário da Tarde, January 6, 1934, p. 7.
44. “Os maiores espectaculos circenses que Curityba já,” Correio de Paraná,
January 5, 1934, p. 5.
45. “Futebol no Circo Irmãos Garcia,” O Dia, November 3, 1940, p. 10.
46. O Dia, February 15, 1943, p. 5.
47. Visibilidade por futebol feminino, exhibition, Museu do Futebol, São
Paulo, December 15, 2015.
48. Adriano Wilkson, “1a maria-chuteira do Brasil fez poesia para conquistar
o goleiro da seleção,” Folha, February 10, 2014, http://esporte.uol.com
.br/futebol/ultimas-noticias/2014/10/02/1-maria-chuteira-do-brasil-fez
-poesia-para-conquistar-o-goleiro-da-selecao.htm#fotoNav=1.
49. Anna Amélia de Queiróz Carneiro de Mendonça, Alma (Rio de Janeiro:
Empreza Brasil, 1924).
50. Mendonça, Alma, 156–157.
51. Ronald Hilton, ed., Who’s Who in Latin America (Stanford, CA: Stanford
University Press, 1948).
52. See an excellent analysis of these poems and other women writers on
football by David Wood, Football and Literature in South America
(New York: Routledge, 2017).
53. “Amor e futebol,” O Paiz, January 26, 1920, p. 7.
54. O Globo Esportivo, May 7, 1939, p. 11.
55. Bernardo Buarque de Hollanda, “The Competitive Party: The Formation
and Crisis of Organized Fan Groups in Brazil, 1950–1980,” in Football
and the Boundaries of History, ed. Brenda Elsey and Stanislao Pugliese
(New York: Palgrave, 2016), 295–311.
NOTES TO PAGES 79-85 285

56. FIFA archive, Correspondence with National Associations, Brazil 1935–

1950, folder 1, Federacão Brasileira de Football.
57. Carlos Alberto Cocchi, Cuatro centros del fútbol mundial (Montevideo,
Uruguay: 1963), 91–94.
58. Rush: Revista del Deporte Uruguayo occasionally published articles on
women’s tennis in the 1930s.
59. Green, Beyond Carnival, 26.
60. “O team de Eva,” Revista da Semana, September 1, 1923.
61. “Futebol não é esporte só para homens,” Correio de S. Paulo, May 21,
1935, p. 5.
62. Estadio Gran Parque Central was the original home of the Uruguayan
club Nacional, with a capacity of 26,500. It was one of the stadiums
used in the first men’s World Cup.
63. “O association está empolgando as nossas patricias,” Jornal dos Sports,
November 28, 1931, p. 3.
64. “O association está empolgando as nossas patricias,” Jornal dos Sports,
November 28, 1931, p. 3. The referee named was Sylvio Vinhaes de
Viterbo, who was the secretary of the Asociação Metropolitana de
Esportos Athleticas.
65. “Um sonho dentro da vida,” Sport Ilustrado, May 11, 1938, p. 7.
66. Carmen Lúcia Soares, As roupas nas práticas corporais e esportivas: A
educação do corpo entre o conforto, a elegância e a eficiência (1920–
1940) (São Paulo: Autores Associados, 2017).
67. “Proclamando una verdade,” Sport Ilustrado, May 18, 1938, p. 3.
68. Correio Sportivo, March 9, 1916, p. 6.
69. “Proclamando una verdade,” Sport Ilustrado, May 18, 1938, p. 3.
70. “Proclamando una verdade,” Sport Ilustrado, May 18, 1938, p. 3.
71. “Taça Sport Ilustrado,” Sport Ilustrado, May 18, 1938, p. 7.
72. “Taça Sport Ilustrado,” Sport Ilustrado, May 18, 1938, p. 7.
73. Sport Ilustrado, May 18, 1938, p. 8.
74. Sport Ilustrado, May 18, 1938, p. 9.
75. “Quarto poderosas equipes femininas em desfile,” Diario de Noticias,
May 1, 1940. “N’um match feminino, houve pancada a valer,” Jornal
dos Sports, May 19, 1931.
76. Jornal dos Sports, August 18, 1931. Brasil Suburbano FC was located in
the Piedade neighborhood of Rio. The men’s team began playing in the
second division of the Associação Metropolitana de Esportes Athleticos
in 1931, winning the league title in 1934. See “Rio de Janeiro—Segunda
Divisão—1932,” Rec.Sport.Soccer Statistics Foundation, last updated
August 11, 2007, http://www.rsssfbrasil.com/tablesr/rj1932l2.htm.
286 NOTES TO PAGES 85-89

Ypiranga FC in this case could refer to teams based either in Niterói or

Macaé and should not be confused with the Ypiranga FC still in existence
today, which is based in Erechim, in Rio Grande do Sul. The Niterói team
played in the Asociação Fluminense de Esportes Athleticos (Fluminense
Association of Athletic Sports) and in the Asociação Nitheroyense
Esportes Athleticos (Niteroi Association of Athletic Sports). The Macaé
team joined the Associação Metropolitana de Esportes Athleticos in 1929.
While either is a possibility, the likelihood of a women’s team making
the 181 kilometer trip from Rio to Macaé in 1931 is slim. Thus it is our
conclusion that Ypiranga FC was from Niterói.
77. Jornal dos Sports, September 4, 1931.
78. Jornal dos Sports, February 25, 1940.
79. Jornal dos Sports, February 25, 1940. Cruzeiro FC in Rio was founded
in 1932 and remains in the Carioca league’s third division.
80. Jornal dos Sports, March 3, 1945, p. 6.
81. “Nove annos que apontama conciencia de um dever cumprida,” Jornal
dos Sports, March 13, 1940, pp. 1, 4.
82. Jornal dos Sports, March 13, 1940, p. 4.
83. Jornal dos Sports, March 13, 1940, p. 5.
84. “Football feminino,” A Noite, March 30, 1940, p. 7.
85. Jornal dos Sports, April 27, 1940.
86. “Football feminino no Campo de Bomsuccesso,” Jornal dos Sports, May
1, 1940.
87. “Football feminino no Campo de Bomsuccesso,” Jornal dos Sports, May
1, 1940, p. 6.
88. “Football feminino no Campo de Bomsuccesso,” Jornal dos Sports, May
1, 1940.
89. Jornal dos Sports, May 19, 1940, p. 3.
90. Jornal dos Sports, August 8, 1940, p. 7.
91. Jornal dos Sports, September 7, 1940, p. 6.
92. Jornal dos Sports, September 20, 1940, p. 5
93. Diário de Noticias, November 12, 1940, p. 1.
94. “Minas têm um clube de futebol feminino,” O Momento (Caxias do
Sul), April 15, 1940, p. 1.
95. Jornal dos Sports, May 14, 1940, p. 6.
96. Jornal dos Sports, May 16, 1940, pp. 1, 4.
97. Jornal dos Sports, May 14, 1940, p. 6.
98. A Noite (Rio), April 24, 1940, p. 1.
99. Salathiel Campos, “Ao correr da penna,” Correio Paulistano, May 5,
1940, p. 16.
100. Salathiel Campos, “Ao correr da penna,” Correio Paulistano, May 5,
1940, p. 16.
NOTES TO PAGES 89-94 287

101. “O novo confronto,” Correio Paulistano, May 17, 1940, p. 8.

102. “Futebol feminino em Magé,” A Batalha, August 10, 1940, p. 1.
103. “Quatro poderosas equipes femininas em desfile,” Diário de Noticias,
May 1, 1940.
104. Correio Paulistano, March 31, 1940, p. 14.
105. Correio Paulistano, May 5, 1940, p. 17. The four teams participating
were Casino de Realengo, SC Brasileiro, SC Valqueiro, and Eva FC.
Brasileiro won with goals from Margarida and Zizinha. It is plausible
that Targina’s brother was Alfredo Brilhante da Costa, who played for
Vasco da Gama and Bangu in the 1930s.
106. Jornal dos Sports, September 27, 1940, p. 5.
107. Jornal dos Sports, September 27, 1940, p. 5.
108. Jornal dos Sports, September 27, 1940, p. 5.
109. Jornal dos Sports, October 19, 1940, p. 5.
110. “Ao correr da penna,” Correio Paulistano, March 31, 1940, p. 17.
111. Excellent analyses of this process include: Roger Kittleson, The Country of
Football: Soccer and the Making of Modern Brazil (Berkeley: University
of California Press, 2014); and José Sergio Leite Lopes, “Da usina de
açúcar ao topo do mundo do futebol nacional: Trajetória de um jogador
de origem operária,” Cadernas AEL Esportes e Trabalhadores 16 (2010):
13–40.
112. “Ao correr da penna,” Correio Paulistano, March 31, 1940, p. 17.
113. Sport Ilustrado, May 18, 1938, p. 28.
114. Fernanda Ribeiro Haag, “Mario Filho e O negro no futebol brasileiro:
Uma análise histórica sobre a produção do livro,” Esporte e Sociedade
9, no. 23 (2014): 6, http://www.uff.br/esportesociedade/pf/es2306.pdf.
115. “Ganha terreno,” O Dia Sportiva, April 3, 1940, p. 4.
116. O Dia (Curitiba), April 16, 1940, p. 1.
117. O Dia (Curitiba), April 16, 1940, p. 1.
118. “Ao correr da penna,” Correio Paulistano, March 31, 1940, p. 17.
119. Oliver Dinius, Brazil’s Steel City: Developmentalism, Strategic Power,
and Industrial Relations in Volta Redonda, 1941–1964 (Stanford, CA:
Stanford University Press, 2010).
120. Diário de Noticias, September 6, 1940, p. 1.
121. Jornal dos Sports, May 31, 1940, p. 4. Manufactura Nacional de
Porcelanas FC was founded in 1932 and played in the Federação Atlética
Suburbano until the league was replaced by the Departamento Autônomo
in 1949.
122. Jornal dos Sports, June 16, 1940, p. 4.
123. “A noitada sportiva de Hoie,” Jornal dos Sports, July 18, 1940, p. 4.
124. “Quatro poderosas equipes femininas em desfile,” Diário de Noticias,
May 1, 1940, p. 1.
288 NOTES TO PAGES 94-98

125. Diário de Noticias, December 1940.

126. Ricardo Pinto, “Futebol feminino,” Diário de Noticias, January 22,
1941, sec. 2, p. 1.
127. Ricardo Pinto, “Futebol feminino,” Diário de Noticias, January 22,
1941, sec. 2, p. 1.
128. Moema Toscano and Mirian Goldenberg, A revolução das mulheres: Um
balanço do feminismo no Brasil (Rio de Janeiro: Editora Revan, 1992),
28–29.
129. Caulfield, In Defense of Honor, chapters 2 and 3.
130. Maria Izilda Matos and Andrea Borelli, “Espaço feminino no mercado
produtivo,” in Novas histórias das mulheres do Brasil, ed. Carla Bassanezi
Pinsky and Joana Maria Pedro (São Paulo: Editora Contexto, 2012), 129.
131. Matos and Borelli, “Espaço feminino no mercado produtivo,” 134, 142.
132. Caulfield, In Defense of Honor, 85. Here Caulfield is quoting Roberto
Lira, “a young socialist reformer”; see 241n19.
133. Alcir Lenharo, A sacralização da política (São Paulo: Papirus, 1989).
134. Alfredo G. Faria Júnior, “Futebol, questões de gênero e co-educação:
Algumas considerações didáticas sob enfoque multicultural,” Pesquisa
de Campo 2 (1995): 22–23.
135. Marcelo Moraes e Silva and Mariana Purcote Fontoura, “Educação do
corpo feminino: Um estudo na Revista Brasileira de Educação Física
(1944–1950),” Revista Brasileira de Educação Física 25, no. 2 (April/
June 2011): 264.
136. Silva and Fontoura, “Educação do corpo feminino,” 265.
137. Revista Brasileira de Educação Física 2 (1944), p. 41, quoted in Silva
and Fontoura, “Educação do corpo feminino,” 266.
138. Silva and Fontoura, “Educação do corpo feminino,” 266.
139. Silva and Fontoura, “Educação do corpo feminino,” 267.
140. Silva and Fontoura, “Educação do corpo feminino,” 267.
141. “O futebol é improprio para moças,” O Dia (Curitiba), June 26, 1940,
p. 1.
142. “Basketball,” Sport Ilustrado, May 18, 1938, p. 12.
143. Kittleson, Country of Football.
144. “O futebol é improprio para moças,” O Dia, June 26, 1940, p. 1.
145. “O futebol é improprio para moças,” O Dia, June 26, 1940, p. 1.
146. “De tudo um puoco,” Correio Paulistano, May 9, 1940.
147. “Notas cariocas,” Correio Paulistano, May 11, 1940, p. 12.
148. In the primary and secondary literature on the ban on women’s football,
José Fuzeira’s letter is cited extensively as crucial to the prohibition. But
who was Fuzeira? He is identified as merely a citizen, and apparently
has left no other paper trail.
NOTES TO PAGES 99-102 289

149. “Esplendor e decadencia do futebol feminino,” A Batalha, January 12,

1941, p. 3.
150. “O futebol feminino vai acabar,” Diário de Noticias, February 12, 1941,
p. 1.
151. “Esplendor e decadencia do futebol feminino,” A Batalha, January 12,
1941, p. 3.
152. Idrottsbladet, May 7, 1941, p. 9.
153. Article 54 of Law 3199 reads: “Às mulheres não se permitirá a prática
de desportos incompativeis com as condições de sua natureza, devendo,
para este efeito, o Conselho Nacional de Desportos baixar as necessárias
instruções às entidades desportivas do país.” See http://www.planalto.
gov.br/ccivil_03/decreto-lei/1937-1946/Del3199.htm.
154. “Instalado o Conselho Nacional de Desportos,” Jornal dos Sports, July
8, 1941, pp. 1, 4.
155. “Autorizado O América a contratar mais dois players estrangeiros,”
Jornal dos Sports, August 20, 1941.
156. “A mulher não pode jogar o football nem o box,” Jornal dos Sports,
September 4, 1941, p. 4.
157. “Tomou posse o Sr. Luiz Aranha,” Jornal dos Sports, September 3,
1941, p. 4.
158. “A mulher não pode jogar o football nem o box,” Jornal dos Sports,
September 4, 1941, p. 1. The subtitle of the article is: “Establecidos
pelo Conselho Nacional De Desportos os esportos que as filhas de Eva
podem praticar, restringidas as condições de algumas modalidades
desportivas permitidas ao sexo fragil.”
159. “Esportes que a mulher pode praticar,” Jornal dos Sports, September 26,
1941, p. 6.
160. “Esportes que a mulher pode praticar,” Jornal dos Sports, September 26,
1941, p. 6.
161. “Esportes que a mulher pode praticar,” Jornal dos Sports, September 26,
1941, p. 6.
162. “Esportes que a mulher pode praticar,” Jornal dos Sports, September 26,
1941, p. 6.
163. “Educação física paralelmente à prática desportiva,” Jornal dos Sports,
September 12, 1941, p. 4.
164. Jornal dos Sports, March 14, 1942, p. 6.
165. “Mais um club de football feminino,” Journal dos Sports, May 9, 1940,
p. 6. Meio-Dia ran from 1939 to 1942 and had openly fascist sympathies,
even though figures associated with Brazil’s leftist movements—such
as Jorge Amado and Oswald de Andrade—were affiliated with the
newspaper until the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union. See João Arthur
290 NOTES TO PAGES 102-110

Ciciliato Franzolin, “Joaquím Inojosa e o jornal Meio-Dia” (MA thesis,

Universidade Estadual Paulista, 2012), 1–14. Franzolin calls the paper a
“mouthpiece” for Nazi propaganda.
166. Jornal dos Sports, May 10, 1940, p. 6.
167. Jornal dos Sports, May 10, 1940, p. 6.
168. Jornal dos Sports, May 10, 1940, p. 6.
169. Jornal dos Sports, May 10, 1940, p. 6.
170. “Off-Side,” Jornal dos Sports, May 14, 1940, p. 6.
171. “Esplendor e decadencia do futebol feminino,” A Batalha, January 12,
1941, p. 3.
172. Manuel do Nascimento Vargas Neto was a poet and journalist from
Rio Grande do Sul. He wrote a column for Jornal dos Sports entitled
“A Crónica de Vargas Neto.”
173. “A Crónica de Vargas Neto,” Jornal dos Sports, April 30, 1948, p. 4.
174. “A Crónica de Vargas Neto,” Jornal dos Sports, April 30, 1948, p. 4.
175. “A Crónica de Vargas Neto,” Jornal dos Sports, April 30, 1948, p. 4.
176. Joao Ribeiro, “Comentarios,” O Dia (Curitiba), February 14, 1942,
p. 6.
177. “Espetaculo degradante,” A Tarde (Curitiba), March 21, 1951, p. 1. It
is not clear if the author is Rubeca Padilha Mendes or Rubena Padilha
Mendes.
178. O Dia, December 14, 1950, p. 7.
179. M. Mattoso, A Manhã (Rio), April 14, 1953, p. 1 (esporte amador).
180. Waldemar Areno, “Desportos para a mulher,” Jornal dos Sports,
December 1, 1946, p. 7. The second Pan-American Congress was held
in Montevideo, Mexico, in March 1945. See Journal of Health and
Physical Education 16, no. 2 (1945): 81.
181. Waldemar Areno, “Desportos para a mulher,” Jornal dos Sports,
December 1, 1946, p. 7.
182. Waldemar Areno, “Desportos para a mulher,” Jornal dos Sports,
December 1, 1946, p. 9.
183. Waldemar Areno, “Desportos para a mulher,” Jornal dos Sports,
December 1, 1946, p. 7.
184. “Proibido futebol feminino,” Correio do Paraná, June 13, 1959.
185. “Mosaico da,” Correio do Paraná (Curitiba), September 25, 1959, p. 5.

CHAPTER 3

1. See Tarciso Alex Camargo, “A revista Educação Physica e a eugenia no

Brasil (1932–1945)” (MA thesis, Universidade de Santa Cruz do Sul,
2010), 71–95.
NOTES TO PAGES 111-116 291

2. Silva and Fontoura, “Educação do corpo feminino,” 263–275.

3. Silva and Fontoura, “Educação do corpo feminino,” 263–275.
4. Silva and Fontoura, “Educação do corpo feminino,” 270.
5. Silva and Fontoura, “Educação do corpo feminino,” 263–275.
6. Waldemar Areno, “Considerações médico desportivas sobre atletismo
feminino,” Arquivos de Escola Nacional de Educação Física e Desportos
1, no. 1 (October 1945): 24.
7. Silvana Vilodre Goellner, Bela, maternal e feminina: Imagens da mulher
na revista “Educação Physica” (Ijuí, Brazil: Unijuí, 2003).
8. Waldemar Areno, Revista Brasileira de Educação Física 34 (1947): 32;
quoted in Silva and Fontoura, “Educação do corpo feminino,” 272.
9. Waldemar Areno, Revista Brasileira de Educação Física 34 (1947): 32;
quoted in Silva and Fontoura, “Educação do corpo feminino,” 272.
10. O Dia, November 26, 1950; O Dia, December 10, 1950, p. 11.
11. “Futebol feminino,” Diário da Tarde (Curitiba), December 12, 1950,
p. 3.
12. Diário da Tarde, December 11, 1950.
13. O Dia, March 16, 1951, p. 7.
14. O Dia, March 16, 1951, p. 7.
15. “Notícias de O Dia,” O Globo, October 24, 1956, p. 12.
16. “O futebol feminino na Bahia,” O Globo, October 22, 1956, p. 6. The
games were played in the Estádio Otávio Mangabeira, which is also
known as the Estádio Fonte Nova. It is the main stadium in Salvador da
Bahia.
17. “O futebol feminino na Bahia,” O Globo, October 22, 1956, p. 6.
18. “Futebol feminino,” O Esatado de São Paulo, October 1, 1957, p. 22.
José da Gama Correia da Silva was a Portuguese businessman who
arranged a number of tours of Europe and the Americas by Brazilian
teams in the 1950s and 1960s. He was president of Club Madureira from
1959 to 1960 and helped to organize the team’s tour of Cuba in 1963.
19. “Futebol feminino em Belo Horizonte,” O Estado de São Paulo, May
9, 1959, p. 13.
20. “Futebol feminino,” Correio do Paraná, June 31, 1959.
21. “Futebol feminino em Salvador,” O Globo, 1959.
22. “Futebol feminino em Salvador,” O Globo, 1959.
23. “Providencias contra futebol feminine,” O Estado de São Paulo, June
4, 1959, p. 17.
24. “Poy deverá,” O Estado de São Paulo, June 13, 1959, p. 14.
25. “Poy deverá,” O Estado de São Paulo, June 13, 1959, p. 14.
26. “Menores não poderão integrar equipes de futebol feminino,” Diário
da Tarde, April 29, 1959, p. 1.
292 NOTES TO PAGES 116-120

27. “Proibido futebol feminino,” Correio do Paraná, June 13, 1959.

28. Futebol Feminino, exhibition, Lover Ibaixe collection, Museu do
Futebol, São Paulo, November 2015. The actors’ home received 15
percent of the proceeds from the match and a guaranteed Cr$50.000,00.
29. “Haverá futebol feminino no Pacaembu,” O Estado de São Paulo, July
23, 1959, p. 16.
30. “Futebol feminino só depois da sentence,” O Estado de São Paulo,
August 13, 1959, p. 9.
31. O Estado de São Paulo, August 13, 1959, p. 14.
32. “O CND decidiu,” O Estado de São Paulo, August 16, 1959, p. 23.
33. “Futebol de Vedetas,” O Globo, July 1959.
34. “Evitemos,” O Globo, 1959, Acervo O Globo, Museu do Futebol.
35. “Evitemos,” O Globo, 1959, Acervo O Globo, Museu do Futebol.
36. “Evitemos,” O Globo, 1959, Acervo O Globo, Museu do Futebol.
37. “Evitemos,” O Globo, 1959, Acervo O Globo, Museu do Futebol.
38. O Globo, September 1, 1959.
39. O Globo, September 1, 1959.
40. Silveira, a member of the Brazilian Labour Party, was governor of Rio
from 1959 until his death in a helicopter accident in 1961.
41. “Dos estados,” O Estado de São Paulo, September 10, 1959, p. 15.
42. Folha de São Paulo, July 20, 1960, p. 5. According to Folha, three
players met in the house of Maril Marley: Marley, Taluama, and Irene
Betal. The other players included Mary Jane, Maria Helena, Cirene
Portugal, Belo do Prado, Denise Paiva, Vilma Palmer, and Lurdinha.
43. “Futebol feminino,” Caretas, August 20, 1960.
44. “Futebol feminino,” Caretas, August 20, 1960.
45. Lucas Reis, “Primeiro time feminino brasileiro é reativado em Minas,”
Folha de São Paulo, December 6, 2011, http://www1.folha.uol.com.br
/esporte/2011/06/928856-primeiro-time-feminino-brasileiro-e-reativado
-em-minas.shtml.
46. “Protestos em Araguari,” O Globo, 1959.
47. “Continua em Minas o futebol feminino,” A Luta Democrática, May
26, 1959, p. 7.
48. “Mosaico da,” Correio de Paraná (Curitiba), September 25, 1959, p. 5.
49. José Franco, “‘Glamour’ usa Chuteira,” O Cruzeiro, February 28, 1959,
pp. 124–129.
50. José Franco, “‘Glamour’ usa Chuteira,” O Cruzeiro, February 28, 1959.
51. José Franco, “‘Glamour’ usa Chuteira,” O Cruzeiro, February 28, 1959,
p. 127.
52. “Protestas em Araguari contra a prática do futebol feminino,” 1959,
Acervo O Globo, Museu do Futebol.
NOTES TO PAGES 121-124 293

53. “Protestas em Araguari contra a prática do futebol feminino,” 1959,

Acervo O Globo, Museu do Futebol.
54. “Apesar da proibição: Continua o futebol feminina en Minas,” A Luta
Democrática, May 8, 1959, p. 7.
55. “Futebol feminino em Campinas,” Acervo O Globo, Museu do Futebol.
56. “Futebol feminino em Campinas,” Acervo O Globo, Museu do
Futebol. The article notes that Didi, a defender from Iguaçu, committed
a horrible penalty. It was common that female players adopted the
nicknames of male players. While this could be a tribute to their position
or type of play, at other times it was based on their appearance.
57. “Futebol Feminino em Salvador,” O Globo, Acervo O Globo, Museu do
Futebol.
58. “Futebol feminino em Campinas,” Acervo O Globo, Museu do Futebol.
59. Bernardo Buarque de Hollanda, “The Competitive Party: The Formation
and Crisis of Organized Fan Groups in Brazil, 1950–1980,” in Football
and the Boundaries of History, ed. Brenda Elsey and Stanislau Pugliese
(New York: Palgrave, 2017): 295–311.
60. “Sensação hoje em Campo Largo,” Correio do Paraná, April 5, 1960.
61. Paraná Esportiva, August 28, 1952, p. 5.
62. The confederation preceded the Confederação Brasileiro de Futebol
(Brazilian Football Confederation) as the governing body of football in
the country. Why O Globo would claim that the confederation and not
the CND had jurisdiction at this time is unknown. It might have been
a mistake on the part of the newspaper, showing its unfamiliarity with
the women’s game.
63. “Môças defendem direito de jogar bola,” O Globo, folder 1959–1961,
Acervo O Globo, Museu do Futebol.
64. “Môças defendem direito de jogar bola,” O Globo, folder 1959–1961,
Acervo O Globo, Museu do Futebol.
65. “Futebol de mulhers causa conflito,” O Estado de São Paulo, October
25, 1960, p. 6.
66. Victoria Langland, Speaking of Flowers: Student Movements and the
Making and Remembering of 1968 in Military Brazil (Durham, NC:
Duke University Press, 2013).
67. “Jôgo feminino,” O Estado de São Paulo, March 1, 1965, p. 23. The
stadium holds around five thousand people and was inaugurated in 1958.
68. “Comissão técnica,” O Estado de São Paulo, September 1, 1965, p. 12.
69. “Proibido para mulher,” Diário da Tarde (Curitiba), January 12, 1965,
p. 1.
70. “Proibido futebol feminino em Minas,” Diário da Tarde, May 7, 1966,
p. 6. The phrase translated as “vice squad” is “delegacia de jogos
diversões.”
294 NOTES TO PAGES 124-128

71. “Govêrno agirá contra futebol feminine,” O Estado de São Paulo,

February 4, 1965, p. 18.
72. “Jôgo feminino,” Estado de São Paulo, March 1, 1965, p. 23.
73. “FIFA aplica planes,” O Estado de São Paulo, February 28, 1965, p. 16.
74. Mario Julio, “Cronista de futebol,” September 5, 1964, Fondo Semiramis
Alves, Museu do Futebol.
75. Benjamin Cowan, Securing Sex: Morality and Repression in the Making
of Cold War Brazil (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press,
2016).
76. “Cantanduva terá futebol femenino,” O Estado de São Paulo, June 28,
1969, p. 29.
77. “Cantanduva terá futebol femenino,” O Estado de São Paulo, June 28,
1969, p. 29.
78. Leda Maria da Costa, “O que é uma torcedora? Notas sobre a repre-
sentação e auto-representação do público feminino de futebol,” Esporte
e Sociedade 2, no. 4 (November 2006–February 2007).
79. Bernardo Buarque de Hollanda, “The Competitive Party: The Formation
and Crisis of Organized Fan Groups in Brazil, 1950–1980,” in Football
and the Boundaries of History, ed. Brenda Elsey and Stanislao Pugliese
(New York: Palgrave, 2017).
80. On torcedores and women, see Costa, “O que é uma torcedora?” See
also Mauricio Murad, “Futebol e violência no Brasil,” in Futebol:
Síntese da vida brasileira, ed. Mauricio Murad et al. (Rio de Janeiro:
UERJ, 1996); Bernardo Buarque de Hollanda, “The Competitive Party.”
81. “Em Maio,” folder 1959–1961, Acervo O Globo, Museu de Futebol.
Ashley was the manager of the Manchester Corinthians, which he
organized in 1949. The Manchester Corinthians played a four-team
tournament in Caracas in 1960.
82. Diário da Tarde (Curitiba), May 10, 1962, p. 1.
83. Eliézer Pérez in correspondence with Joshua Nadel, July 10, 2010;
and Eliézer Pérez, “Las inglesas al mando en la Copa Banco de Sangre,”
eliezerperez, March 12, 2016, https://eliezerperez.wordpress.com
/2016/03/12/inglesas-y-ticas-le-dieron-vida-a-la-copa-banco-de-sangre
-en-la-ucv/.
84. “Dinamarca campea,” O Estado de São Paulo, July 16, 1970, p. 30.
85. “Começa o mundial feminine,” O Globo, July 16, 1970, Acervo O
Globo, Museu de Futebol. The newspaper report was incorrect: France
and Czechoslovakia did not participate in the tournament, while
Germany did.
86. “Futebol de qualidade no Mundial Feminino,” Diário da Noite, July
10, 1970, p. 11.
NOTES TO PAGES 128-132 295

87. Diário de Noticias, 1970, Acervo Biblioteca Nacional, Museu de Futebol.

88. “Elas também são boas de bola,” Correio da Manhã, July 8, 1970, p. 15.
89. “Elas também são boas de bola,” Correio da Manhã, July 8, 1970, p. 15.
90. “Quem vence no futebol: As louras ou as morenas?,” Correio da Manhã
(Rio), July 15, 1970, p. 13.
91. “Quem vence no futebol: As louras ou as morenas?,” Correio da Manhã
(Rio), July 15, 1970, p. 13.
92. “Elas também são boas de bola,” Correio da Manhã, July 8, 1970, p. 15.
93. “Elas, as boas de bola no II Mundial,” Diário da Noite, January 16, 1971,
p. 3.
94. “Elas, as boas de bola no II Mundial,” Diário da Noite, January 16,
1971, p. 3. In fact, FIFA had just discussed women’s football at a meeting
of its executive committee in Athens. At the meeting, associations were
encouraged to suggest that clubs create women’s teams. See minutes
of the fifteenth meeting of the Executive Committee, Athens, Greece,
January 10, 1971, Executive Committee, FIFA Archives.
95. “As boas de bola,” Correio da Manhã, June 19, 1971, p. 19.
96. “Ninguém leva a sério o Mundial Feminino de Futebol,” Diário da
Noite (São Paulo), August 12, 1971.
97. “Ninguém leva a sério o Mundial Feminino de Futebol,” Diário da
Noite (São Paulo), August 12, 1971. It should be noted that coverage
of the 1970 men’s World Cup included vast spreads of players lounging
poolside, going on excursions, etc.
98. José Goes, “O jogo do esmalte e do batom,” Diário da Noite, December
29, 1970.
99. Marin served as deputy for São Paulo State and vice governor of São
Paulo. He became president of the Brazilian Football Confederation in
2012, a position he held until his indictment and arrest on corruption
charges related to FIFA in 2015.
100. José Goes, “O jogo do esmalte e do batom,” Diário da Noite, December
29, 1970.
101. José Goes, “O jogo do esmalte e do batom,” Diário da Noite, December
29, 1970.
102. José Goes, “O jogo do esmalte e do batom,” Diário da Noite, December
29, 1970. Walter Abrahão, a television commentator, visited and came
away impressed. The president of the club appears to have been Walter
Maria Laudisio.
103. José Goes, “O jogo do esmalte e do batom,” Diário da Noite, December
29, 1970.
104. “As feras femininas,” Correio da Manhã, June 22, 1970, p. 4.
105. “As feras femininas,” Correio da Manhã, June 22, 1970, p. 4.
296 NOTES TO PAGES 132-135

106. “As feras femininas,” Correio da Manhã, June 22, 1970, p. 4.

107. “As feras femininas,” Correio da Manhã, June 22, 1970, p. 4.
108. “As feras femininas,” Correio da Manhã, June 22, 1970, p. 4.
109. “As feras femininas,” Correio da Manhã, June 22, 1970, p. 4.
110. “As feras femininas,” Correio da Manhã, June 22, 1970, p. 4.
111. “As feras femininas,” Correio da Manhã, June 22, 1970, p. 4.
112. Tribunal da Imprensa, 1970, Acervo Biblioteca Nacional, Museu do
Futebol.
113. “Desportes,” Mulherio, November/December 1981, p. 23.
114. Leonor Amarante, “Gols de placa,” September/October 1982, p. 47, in
folder “Enviado pela Rose,” Acervo Rose do Rio, Museu do Futebol;
“Fora de campo,” Mulherio, November/December 1982, p. 21, Acervo
Radar, Museu do Futebol.
115. “Rio goleia SP,” Jornal do Brasil, October 1982; “Publico vibrou com
as meninas no campo,” Gazeta Esportiva, September 13, 1982, folder
“Enviado pela Rose,” Acervo Rose do Rio, Museu do Futebol. Abreu was
a referee in the 1962 World Cup in Chile. The lawyers who represented
Rose do Rio were Zulate Cobra Fernandez and Fernando Marques.
116. Federação Paulista de Futebol, circular no. 115/82, signed Waldemar
Bauab, Acervo Radar, Museu do Futebol. There is a good deal of debate
surrounding the end of the ban in women’s football. Some suggest that
the ban ended as early as 1976, and others 1979, when Law 3199 was
repealed. However, state federations and the national confederation
continued to uphold the ban until 1983. See Katia Rubio, Helena
Altmann, Ludmila Mourão, and Silvana Vilodre Goellner, “Women and
Sport in Brazil,” in Women and Sport in Latin America, ed. Rosa López
D’Amica, Tansin Benn, and Gertrud Pfister (Abingdon, UK: Routledge,
2016), 69–78; Ludmila Mourão and Marcia Morel, “As narrativas sobre
o futebol feminino,” Revista Brasileira de Ciências do Esporte 26, no. 2
(January 2005).
117. “Futebol feminino,” Notícias Populares, October 29, 1982, p. 17.
Figueiredo Ferraz was the first woman to serve as a minister in the
Brazilian government, from 1982 to 1985.
118. “Fora de campo,” Mulherio, November/December 1982, p. 21, Acervo
Radar, Museu do Futebol.
119. “Mulheres no futebol,” Diário da Tarde (Curitiba), May 13, 1982, p.
7.
120. “Futebol feminine é atração,” Voz de Luziânia, October 1982, p. 16.
121. Sérgio Noronha, “A mulher tem razão,” Ultima Hora, October 1983.
122. Sérgio Noronha, “A mulher tem razão,” Ultima Hora, October 1983.
123. The meeting in which the CND overturned the ban on women’s football
occurred on March 25, but the decision was published on April 11.
NOTES TO PAGES 135-137 297

“Vigora o regulamento do futebol feminino,” Diário da Tarde (Curitiba),

April 14, 1983, folder “Manchete com foto,” Acervo Biblioteca Nacional,
Museu do Futebol.
124. “Mulheres preferem as competições amistosas,” Diário da Tarde
(Curitiba), April 9, 1983, folder “Manchete com foto,” Acervo
Biblioteca Nacional, Museu do Futebol.
125. “Futebol feminino,” A Gazeta Sportiva, May 31, 1983, p. 8. The clubs
were Clube Atlético Paulistano, Clube de Regatas Brasil, Unicos do Burgo
Paulista Feminino, Associação Desportiva da Policia Militar do Estado
de São Paulo, Gremio Esportivo São João do Tatuapé, Esporte Clube
Corinthians Paulista, Café Futebol Feminino, Unidos Futebol Feminino,
AS Cacadors Futebol Feminino, Centro Esportivo [illegible], Clube de
Regatas Juvenil, Vasco da Gama, Cafum Futebol Clube, Internacional
Futebol Clube, União Esportiva Edu Chaves, Centro Educacional e
Esportivo Edson Arantes do Nascimento, Gremio Esportivo Palmeiras,
Brasilhas Tricolor FC, Isis EC, Panterinhas EC, A Seme CEE Mané
Garrincha, São Paulo FC, SE Pameiras, Lacta [illegible], Virgina
FC, Jardim São Bernardo, AS [illegible], EC Nely, FC Estrela da Vila
da Paz, Philco Radio e Telivisão, EC [illegible] Maria, Feminino EC
Jardim Palmira, Venus Spopemba Clube, Linhas Correntes FC, Estrela
da Ilha Futebol Feminino, Sociedade Esportiva Olaria, Clube Atlético
Expedicionários, Gremio Esportivo Malory, Legionarios EC, Nacional
EC, and others.
126. Clipping, Acervo Radar, Museu do Futebol.
127. Adélia Borges, “De Atenas a Los Angeles,” Mulherio, May/June 1984,
pp. 14–15, 15; Ramon Missias Moreira, “A mulher no futebol brasileiro:
Uma ampla visão,” EFDeportes 13, no. 120 (May 2008), http://www
.efdeportes.com/efd120/a-mulher-no-futebol-brasileiro.htm.
128. Maria Elena Araújo, “As Invencíveis,” Placar, February 1, 1985, pp.
26–28.
129. Roughly $28–32 in 1984 US dollars. See https://www.measuringworth
.com/datasets/exchangeglobal/result.php; http://www.historicalstatistics
.org/Currencyconverter.html; and http://documents.worldbank.org
/curated/en/427451468019765396/text/multi-page.txt.
130. Sérgio Noronha, “A mulher tem razão,” Ultima Hora, October 1983.
131. Sérgio Noronha, “A mulher tem razão,” Ultima Hora, October 1983.
132. Sérgio Noronha, “A mulher tem razão,” Ultima Hora, October 1983.
133. Sérgio Noronha, “A mulher tem razão,” Ultima Hora, October 1983.
134. “Feminismo é isso,” Uh Revista (Rio), April 7, 1983, p. 1.
135. “Feminismo é isso,” Uh Revista (Rio), April 7, 1983, p. 1.
136. “Feminismo é isso,” Uh Revista (Rio), April 7, 1983, p. 1.
137. “Feminismo é isso,” Uh Revista (Rio) April 7, 1983, p. 1.
298 NOTES TO PAGES 137-142

138. Sérgio Noronha, “A mulher tem razão,” Ultima Hora, October 1983.
139. Sebastião Votre and Ludmila Mourão, “Women’s Football in Brazil:
Progress and Problems,” in Soccer, Women, Sexual Liberation: Kicking
Off a New Era, ed. Fan Hong and J. A. Mangan (London: Frank Cass,
2004): 254–267. Wellman de Queiroz and Julio Singer were the main
forces in BRJ in favor of sponsoring Radar.
140. Votre and Mourão, “Women’s Football in Brazil.”
141. “Rose do Rio,” Popular da Tarde, April 3, 1984.
142. See clippings and news from Acervo Rose do Rio, Museu do Futebol.
143. “O dono do Radar,” Placar, September 1996, p. 52.
144. Eliane Benicio, “Rose do Rio: O futebol feminino no Brasil,” Teresópolis,
July 13, 1996, p. 12.
145. “Rose do Rio,” O Estado do Paraná, January 4, 1985, p. 16.
146. “Para o experiente Ubiraci,” A Gazeta Sportiva, May 21, 1986.
147. “Futebol feminino agoniza e pede ajuda para Zico.” See Acervo Rose
do Rio, Museu do Futebol.
148. Sissi, interview by Brenda Elsey and Joshua Nadel, June 24, 2015.
149. See clippings and news from Acervo Radar and Acervo Rose do Rio,
Museu do Futebol.
150. “Futebol feminino na Justiça Comum,” A Gazeta Esportiva, October
16, 1982.
151. Maria Elena Araújo, “As Invencíveis,” Placar, February 1, 1985, pp.
26–28.
152. Adélia Borges, “De Atenas a Los Angeles,” Mulherio, May/June 1984,
pp. 14–15.
153. Mulherio, April/May/June 1985.
154. Rosali Figueiredo, “Mulher não entra,” Mulherio, May/June 1987, p. 19.
155. Sérgio Noronha, “A mulher tem razão,” Ultima Hora, October 1983.
156. Adélia Borges, “De Atenas a Los Angeles,” Mulherio, May/June 1984,
pp. 14–15.
157. Adélia Borges, “De Atenas a Los Angeles,” Mulherio, May/June 1984,
pp. 14–15.
158. Votre and Mourão, “Women’s Football in Brazil,” 257.
159. Follow-up in A Gazeta Esportiva, October 1984. Votre and Mourão,
“Women’s Football in Brazil,” 254–267.
160. Votre and Mourão, “Women’s Football in Brazil.”
161. Votre and Mourão, “Women’s Football in Brazil.”
162. The match made the news program Fantástico, https://www.youtube
.com/watch?v=Ao7A-P4A4FY.
163. “‘Margarida’ pode sofrer suspensão,” O Liberal (Belém), January 10,
1989, p. 15. Margarida had something of a history: he had assaulted a
player during a Radar match in 1983 as well.
NOTES TO PAGES 142-151 299

164. “‘Margarida’ se desculpa,” O Liberal, January 12, 1989, p. 12.

165. “Milene: Símbolo do futebol feminino,” Jornal do Futebol, June 1997,
p. 3, in Fondo Juliana Cabral, Museu do Futebol.
166. Carmen Pérez-Lanzac, “Meet Mrs. Ronaldo,” Guardian, February 2,
2003, https://www.theguardian.com/football/2003/feb/02/newsstory
.sport4.
167. Placar, August 1995.
168. Sissi and Tafferal, interview by Brenda Elsey, October 12, 2017.
169. Hollanda Loyola, “Pode a mulher praticar o futebol,” Revista Educação
Physica 46 (1940): 41; Orlando Rangel Sobrinho, Educação Physica
Feminina (Rio de Janeiro: Typografica do Patronato, 1930), 7, quoted
in Silvana Goellner, “‘As mulheres fortes são aquelas que fazem uma
raça forte’: Esporte, eugenia e nacionalismo no Brasil no início do século
XX,” Revista de História do Esporte 1, no. 1 (June 2008): 15.

CHAPTER 4

1. José Díaz Covarrubias, La instrucción pública en México (Mexico City:

Imprenta del Gobierno, 1875), cxviii.
2. Díaz Covarrubias, La instrucción pública, xxxvi.
3. Díaz Covarrubias, La instrucción pública, xxxviii.
4. Díaz Covarrubias, La instrucción pública.
5. Monica Lizbeth Chávez Gónzalez, “Construcción de la nación y el género
desde el cuerpo. La educación física en el México posrevolucionario,”
Desacatos 30 (May–August 2009): 44. By physical culture here, we
mean the various practices that emerged in the late nineteenth and early
twentieth centuries that encouraged physical activity in the service of both
individual and collective healthfulness. Though Chávez Gónzalez was
here discussing the postrevolutionary era, twentieth-century educators
embraced the philosophies of Covarrubias and others from the Porfiriato.
6. Quoted in Georgina Ramírez Hernández, “Educar al cuerpo en el
Porfiriato: Una mirada a través las revistas pedagógicas,” paper given
to XI Congreso Nacional de Investigación Educativa, http://www.comie
.org.mx/congreso/memoriaelectronica/v11/ponencias.htm.
7. David LaFevor, “Prizefighting and Civilization in the Mexican Public
Sphere in the Nineteenth Century,” Radical History Review 125 (May
2016): 137–158.
8. Though the YMCA was (and remains) headquartered in Geneva, the
Mexico branch was under the umbrella of the North American YMCA.
See Glenn Avent, “A Popular and Wholesome Resort: Gender, Class,
and the Young Men’s Christian Association in Porfirian Mexico” (MA
300 NOTES TO PAGES 151-154

thesis, University of British Columbia, 1996); and William Beezley,

Judas at the Jockey Club and Other Episodes of Porfirian Mexico
(Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1987), 47–59. However, David
LaFevor found YMCA centers that held boxing exhibitions by the
1890s. See LaFevor, “Prizefighting.”
9. Avent, “Popular and Wholesome,” 35.
10. Javier Bañuelos Renteria, Crónicas del fútbol mexicano: Balón a tierra
(1896–1932) (Mexico City: Editorial Clio, 1998), 64–65.
11. Bañuelos Renteria, Crónicas del fútbol mexicano, 64–65.
12. Carlos Calderón Cardoso, Crónicas del fútbol mexicano: Por amor de
la camiseta (1933–1950) (Mexico City: Editorial Clio, 1998), 46.
13. Keith Brewster, “Redeeming the ‘Indian’: Sport and Ethnicity in Post-
Revolutionary Mexico,” Patterns of Prejudice 38, no. 3 (2003): 223.
14. Alan Knight, The Mexican Revolution, Volume 1: Porfirians, Liberals
and Peasants (Omaha: University of Nebraska Press, 1990); Robert
McCaa, “The Peopling of Mexico from Origins to Revolution,” in The
Population History of North America, ed. Richard Staeckel and Michael
Haines (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2000).
15. Joanne Hershfeld, Imagining la Chica Moderna: Women, Nation, and
Visual Culture in Mexico, 1917–1936 (Durham, NC: Duke University
Press, 2008), 27.
16. The Cristero Rebellion (1926–1929) pitted the new revolutionary state
against peasants eager to protect traditional relations between church and
community. The constitution of 1917 contained a number of anticlerical
articles, which went unenforced until Plutarco Elías Calles came to power
in 1924. At that point the government began to accelerate efforts to
weaken the clergy, which responded by calling for Catholics to boycott
government institutions. Tensions between Church affiliated groups and
the state continued into 1927, when a rebellion broke out in several
western states. By 1929, nearly one hundred thousand people had died.
17. See Alicia Civera Cerecedo, “Respuestas comunitarias a un proyecto
educativo: El caso de una misión cultural en México de los años
treinta,” Revista Interamericana de Educación de Adultos 4, no. 2 (July–
December 1996); Alicia Civera Cerecedo, La escuela como opción de
vida: La formación de maestros normales rurales en México, 1921–1945
(Mexico City: Secretary of Public Education for Mexico City, 2013); and
Mary Kay Vaughan, “Nationalizing the Countryside: Schools and Rural
Communities in the 1930s,” in The Eagle and the Virgin: Nation and
Cultural Revolution in Mexico, 1920–1940, ed. Mary Kay Vaughan and
Stephen Lewis (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2006).
18. “La importancia de educación física,” Educación Física.
19. “La importancia de educación física,” Educación Física.
NOTES TO PAGES 154-158 301

20. Brewster, “Redeeming the ‘Indian,’” 214.

21. Vaughan, “Nationalizing the Countryside,” 157–158. For more on
rural education and its impact on women, see Mary Kay Vaughan,
Cultural Politics in Revolution: Teachers, Peasants, and Schools in
Mexico, 1930–1940 (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1997); Lucía
Martínez Moctezuma, ed., Formando el cuerpo del ciudadano. Aportes
para una historia de la educación física en Latinoamérica (Cuernavaca:
Universidad Autónoma del Estado de Morelos, 2016); and Jocelyn
Olcott, Revolutionary Women in Postrevolutionary Mexico (Durham,
NC: Duke University Press, 2006).
22. Secretaría de Educación Pública, Las misiones culturales en 1927:
Las escuelas normales rurales (Mexico City: Secretaría de Educación
Pública, 1928), 6.
23. Puig Casauranc was minister of education from late 1924 to 1928, and
again from 1930 to 1931.
24. J. M. Puig Casauranc, “Los caracteres del verdad maestro rural. Sus
virtudes y los peligros que hay que evitar,” speech given February
18, 1928, reprinted in Secretaría de Educación Pública, Las misiones
culturales en 1927, 211–220, 217.
25. Secretaría de Educación Pública, Las misiones culturales en 1927, 268,
270, 320–322.
26. Lucía Martínez Moctezuma, “Desencuentros en el desarrollo de la
escuela rural mexicana en las primeras decadas del siglo XX: El caso
de los institutos de mejoramiento en el estado de Morelos.” Revista
Brasileira de História da Educação 16, no. 2 (2016): 293–295. Martínez
Moctezuma notes that in Morelos, of 111 teachers who attended an
Instituto de Mejoramiento, only 20 had attended normal school for
at least one year. The vast majority of the teachers had only a primary
school education.
27. Olcott, Revolutionary Women, 93–122.
28. Secretaría de Educación Pública, Las misiones culturales en 1927, 34.
29. Secretaría de Educación Pública, Las misiones culturales en 1927, 34.
30. Secretaría de Educación Pública, Las misiones culturales en 1927, 30–31.
31. Secretaría de Educación Pública, Las misiones culturales en 1927, 12–13.
32. Secretaría de Educación Pública, Las misiones culturales en 1927, 47–48.
33. Secretaría de Educación Pública, Las misiones culturales en 1927, 91.
34. Secretaría de Educación Pública, Las misiones culturales en 1927, 78, 75.
35. Secretaría de Educación Pública, Las misiones culturales en 1927, 67–71,
78, 151, 203.
36. Secretaría de Educación Pública, Las misiones culturales en 1927, 95.
37. Secretaría de Educación Pública, Las misiones culturales en 1927, 103,
122.
302 NOTES TO PAGES 158-163

38. Vaughan, “Nationalizing the Countryside,” 160.

39. Vesta Sturges, “Algunas aspectos del trabajo social realizado por las
misiones culturales,” in Secretaría de Educación Pública, Las misiones
culturales en 1927, 442.
40. Secretaría de Educación Pública, Las misiones culturales en 1927, 327–
328. Bonilla also noted, without reference to gender, that the students
played volleyball and football “with little skill.”
41. Anne Rubenstein, “The War on ‘Las Pelonas’: Modern Women and
Their Enemies, 1924,” in Sex in Revolution: Gender, Power, and Politics
in Modern Mexico, ed. Jocelyn Olcott, Mary Kay Vaughan, and Gabriel
Cano (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2007), 57–80.
42. Secretaría de Educación Pública, Las misiones culturales en 1927, 399.
The YWCA first established itself in Mexico in 1921.
43. Secretaría de Educación Pública, Las misiones culturales en 1927, 401.
44. Luís Obregón, “La labor del educador físico en las misiones culturales,”
in Secretaría de Educación Pública, Las misiones culturales en 1927, 451.
45. Manuel J. Ciriza, Manual de educación física para las escuelas federales
de Nuevo León (Monterrey, Mexico: Gobierno del Estado, 1935), 6, 71.
46. Ciriza, Manual de educación física, 7.
47. Ciriza, Manual de educación física, 8.
48. Ciriza, Manual de educación física, 9–10.
49. Ciriza, Manual de educación física, 6–9, 65–68.
50. Ciriza, Manual de educación física, 71.
51. Ciriza, Manual de educación física, 73.
52. Vaughan, “Nationalizing the Countryside,” 165.
53. Secretaría de Educación Pública, Plan de estudios de la escuela de
educación física (Mexico City: Talleres Gráficos de la Nación, 1928), 6.
54. Secretaría de Educación Pública, Plan de estudios de la educación física
(Mexico City: Talleres Gráficos de la Nación, 1929).
55. The founding of CODEME is the subject of some disagreement. Some
scholars put its foundation in 1933 and others in 1932. We fall in the
latter camp, largely as a result of the publication of the regulations
of the Consejo Nacional de Educación Física, which was the council
charged with creating the structure and regulations of CODEME. This
body was created in October 1932 and published its bylaws, in the name
of CODEME, in November 1932.
56. Brewster, “Redeeming the ‘Indian,’” 223.
57. Confederación Deportiva Mexicana, Consejo Nacional de Educación
Física (Mexico City: Imprenta Mundial, 1932), 4.
58. Confederación Deportiva Mexicana, Consejo Nacional de Educación
Física, 5–6.
NOTES TO PAGES 164-171 303

59. Brewster, “Redeeming the ‘Indian,’” 224.

60. “Educación física democrata,” Educación Física 3, no. 22 (October
1938).
61. “Educación física democrata,” Educación Física 3, no. 22 (October
1938).
62. Hershfeld, Imagining la Chica Moderna, 71. On the development of
lighter fabrics for sporting women, see also Jaime Schulz, Qualifying
Times: Points of Change in U.S. Women’s Sports (Champaign:
University of Illinois Press, 2014).
63. Hershfeld, Imagining la Chica Moderna.
64. Ageeth Sluis, “Building Bodies: Creating Urban Landscapes of Athletic
Aesthetics in Postrevolutionary Mexico City,” in Sports Culture in Latin
America, ed. David Sheinin (Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh
Press, 2015), 124.
65. Educación Física 3, no. 23 (November 1938).
66. Educación Física 4, no. 25 (January 1939).
67. César Juarros, “La fatiga, como evitarla,” Educación Física 4, no. 25
(January 1939).
68. Educación Física 4, no. 29 (May 1939).
69. Educación Física 4, no. 32 (August 1939).
70. Sluis, “Building Bodies,” 125.
71. Fernando Bonilla Alvarado, in correspondence with Joshua Nadel, July
12, 2018; and Julieta Muñoz Coto, in Elías Zeledón Cartín, Deportivo
Femenino de Costa Rica, FC: Primer equipo de fútbol femenino en el
mundo (San José, Costa Rica: Ministerio de Cultura, Juventud y Deportes,
1999), 188. Coto is the niece of Nelly Coto, who was an original member
of Deportivo Femenino de Costa Rica.
72. Roxana Hidalgo Xirinachs, Historias de las mujeres en el espacio público
en Costa Rica, ante el cambio del siglo XIX al XX (San José, Costa Rica:
FLACSO, 2004), 23.
73. Steven Palmer and Gladys Rojas Chaves, “Educating Señorita: Teacher
Training, Social Mobility, and the Birth of Costa Rican Feminism, 1885–
1925,” Hispanic American Historical Review 78, no. 1 (February 1988):
56.
74. Hidalgo Xirinachs, Historias de las mujeres, 47.
75. Ronald Díaz Bolaños, “‘Quiero que la gimnástica tome bastante
incremento’: Los orígenes de la gimnasía como actividad física en Costa
Rica (1855–1949),” Diálogos 12, no. 1 (February–August 2011): 6–7.
76. Díaz Bolaños, “Los orígenes de la gimnasía,” 10. The Instituto Nacional
changed its name to the Instituto Universitario in 1883.
304 NOTES TO PAGES 171-173

77. Palmer and Rojas Chaves, “Educating Señorita,” 49–50; Hidalgo

Xirinachs, Historias de las mujeres, 47.
78. Hidalgo Xirinachs, Historia de las mujeres, 47–49; and Teresita Cordero
Cordero, “Mujeres y la Universidad de Costa Rica (1941 a 1950),”
paper given at VIII Congresso Iberoamericano de Ciência, Tecnologia
e Gênero, 3, http://files.dirppg.ct.utfpr.edu.br/ppgte/eventos/cictg
/conteudo_cd/E2_Mujeres_y_Universidad_de_Costa_Rica.pdf.
79. Sara Sharratt, “The Suffragist Movement in Costa Rica, 1889–1949:
Centennial of Democracy?,” in The Costa Rican Women’s Movement:
A Reader, ed. Ilse Abshagen (Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh
Press), 73–76. See also Eugenia Rodríguez S., “Visibilizando las facetas
ocultas del movimiento de mujeres, el feminismo y las luchas por la
ciudadanía femenina en Costa Rica (1890–1953),” Diálogos 5, nos.
1–2 (2005): 36–61, https://revistas.ucr.ac.cr/index.php/dialogos/article
/view/6230/5933; and Eugenia Rodríguez S., “Cronología: Participación
socio-política femenina en Costa Rica (1890–1952),” Diálogos 5, nos.
1–2 (2005): 695–722, https://revistas.ucr.ac.cr/index.php/dialogos/article
/view/6254/5956.
80. Virginia Mora Carvajal, “Moda, belleza y publicidad en Costa Rica
(1920–1930),” Boletín AFEHC 45 (June 2010), http://afehc-historia
-centroamericana.org/index.php?action=fi_aff&id=2445.
81. Iván Molina Jiménez, “Educación y sociedad en Costa Rica: De 1821
al presente (una historia no autorizada),” Diálogos 8, no. 2 (August
2007–February 2008): 246.
82. Hidalgo Xirinachs, Historias de las mujeres, 19.
83. Díaz Bolaños, “Los orígenes de la gimnasía,” 19.
84. “Educación física de las mujeres,” El Manantial 1, no. 3 (July 1915):
1. Gustavo Louis Michaud is credited with introducing basketball to
Costa Rica in 1905. According to Adrián Antonio Echeverría Ramírez,
Michaud was part of a group of foreign physical education teachers who
came to Costa Rica as a result of the educational reform of 1888. He
was also instrumental in creating the first track for athletics events in
the country. See Echeverría Ramírez, “Análisis legal de las federaciones
deportivas de representación nacional e internacional” (thesis, University
of Costa Rica, 2012), 26–27.
85. “Educación física de las mujeres,” El Manantial 1, no. 3 (July 1915): 2.
86. Chester Urbina Gaitán, “Orígenes de la política deportiva en Costa
Rica (1887–1942),” EFDeportes 7, no. 34 (April 2001), http://www.
efdeportes.com/efd34/crica.htm.
87. Urbina Gaitán, “Orígenes de la política”; and “Historia del fútbol
cubana,” http://www.elblogdelfutbolcubano.com/p/historia-del-futbol
-cubano-1_11.html, webpage no longer active.
NOTES TO PAGES 173-178 305

88. Cordero Cordero, “Mujeres y la Universidad de Costa Rica,” 3.

89. See Hidalgo Xirinachs, Historias de las mujeres; and Sharratt, “Suffragist
Movement.”
90. See interviews with players in Zeledón Cartín, Deportivo Femenino,
182–209.
91. Fernando Bonilla Alvarado, correspondence, July 12, 2018.
92. Gaetano Pandolfo, “Las pioneras del fútbol fueron ticas,” Semanario
Universidad, http://163.178.170.36/index.php/mainmenu-deportes/671
-las-pioneras-del-futbol-fueron-ticas.html; and Alejandro Fonseca Hidalgo,
“Que se den su lugar,” Diario Extra, July 9, 2010, http.www.diarioextra
.com/2010/Julio/09/deportes09.php.
93. Irma Castillo Sánchez, in Zeledón Cartín, Deportivo Femenino, 195.
94. Fernando Bonilla Alvarado, correspondence, July 12, 2018.
95. Chester Urbina Gaitán, “El fútbol femenino en Costa Rica (1924–
2015),” EFDeportes 21, no. 221 (October 2016), http://www.efdeportes
.com/efd221/el-futbol-femenino-en-costa-rica.htm.
96. “El foot-ball en el element femenino,” La Prensa, September 22, 1926,
p. 2.
97. Fernando Bonilla Alvarado, correspondence, July 12, 2018. Alice Quirós
married Fernando Bonilla.
98. Zulay Loiza Martínez and Carmen Morales Sequiera, in Zeledón Cartín,
Deportivo Femenino, 204, 185.
99. Fernando Bonilla Alvarado, correspondence, July 12, 2018.
100. Fernando Bonilla Alvarado, correspondence, July 12, 2018.
101. “El domingo veremos futbol femenino en el Estadio Nacional,” La
Prensa Libre, March 24, 1950, p. 8. See also “22 jugadoras de fútbol se
enfrentará mañana en el estadio,” La Prensa Libre, March 25, 1950, p. 8.
102. “Las futbolistas la dieron ayer una gran lección a los futbolistas,” La
Prensa Libre, March 27, 1950, p. 9.
103. “Las futbolistas la dieron ayer una gran lección a los futbolistas,” La
Prensa Libre, March 27, 1950, p. 9.
104. La Nación, March 28, 1950, in Zeledón Cartín, Deportivo Femenino,
22–25.
105 “Brillante result el encuentro de fútbol femenino el domingo,” Diario
de Costa Rica, March 28, 1950, p. 7.
106. La Prensa Libre, April 4, 1950, p. 8.
107. La Nación, June 3, 1950, p. 14.
108. “Deportes del dia,” La Prensa Libre, March 28, 1950, p. 8.
109. “Deportes del dia,” La Prensa Libre, March 28, 1950, p. 8.
110. “Deportes del dia,” La Prensa Libre, March 28, 1950, p. 8.
111. “La mujer costarricense juega al fútbol,” El Mundo Deportivo, January
4, 1954, p. 3.
306 NOTES TO PAGES 178-183

112. Miguel Ángel Ulloa Z., “Si de mi dependiera no permitiría que se llevara
a cabo un partido más de fútbol femenino,” La Prensa Libre, April 12,
1950, p. 6.
113. Miguel Ángel Ulloa Z., “Si de mi dependiera,” La Prensa Libre, April
12, 1950, p. 6.
114. Miguel Ángel Ulloa Z., “Si de mi dependiera,” La Prensa Libre, April
12, 1950, p. 6.
115. Chutador, “Con el mayor respeta, a una futbolista,” La Prensa Libre,
April 14, 1950, p. 8. “Keeds” (Keds) was a common word for sneakers.
116. Julio Mera Carrasco, “La mujer en el atletismo,” AS, June 21, 1952, p.
15.
117. Chutador, “El fútbol femenino y sus consecuencias personales,” La
Prensa Libre, March 29, 1950, p. 5.
118. Luis Cartín Paniagua, La Prensa Libre, April 19, 1950, p. 10.
119. El Mundo Femenino, April 24, 1950, in Zeledón Cartín, Deportivo
Femenino, 34.
120. Fernando Bonilla Alvarado, in correspondence with the author, July 12,
2018.
121. “Las futbolistas gustaron en Panama,” La Prensa Libre, May 2, 1950,
p. 9. According to Fernando Bonilla, chaperones were parents of players
and traveled with the team on all tours. Fernando Bonilla Alvarado,
correspondence, July 12, 2018.
122. “Maginifica fue la segunda presentación que ayer hicieron las señoritas
futbolistas,” La Prensa Libre, June 9, 1950, p. 11.
123. In Zeledón Cartín, Deportivo Femenino, 80.
124. “Invitación a los médicos para que asistan hoy a la conferencia del Dr.
Carballo,” La Nacion, April 4, 1951, p. 14.
125. Universidad de Costa Rica, Consejo Universitario, Acta de la Sesión no.
51, October 9, 1950.
126. “El Femenino Libertad eligió directiva,” Diario de Costa Rica, June 30,
1950, p. 7.
127. “Duelo en las filas del Deportivo Lourdes,” Diario de Costa Rica,
August 22, 1950, p. 7.
128. La Nación, April 19, 1951. The article in La Nación reprints, in its
entirety, an article from the Honduran paper Diario Comercial;
Zeledón Cartín, Deportivo Femenino, 87.
129. “Embajada de belleza deportiva llegó procedente de Costa Rica,” El
Imparcial, May 12, 1951; and “Sensacional match de fut femenino
internacional: Guatemala–Costa Rica,” El Imparcial, May 12, 1951;
in Zeledón Cartín, Deportivo Femenino, 88–91.
130. Chester Urbina Gaitán, “Génesis del fútbol en Guatemala (1902–1921),
EFDeportes 14, no. 135 (August 2009), http://www.efdeportes.com
/efd135/genesis-del-futbol-en-guatemala-1902-1921.htm.
NOTES TO PAGES 184-188 307

131. “La prensa niacarguense y nuestras futbolistas,” Diario de Costa Rica,

June 21, 1951, p. 11.
132. In Zeledón Cartín, Deportivo Femenino, 98.
133. In Zeledón Cartín, Deportivo Femenino, 99–100.
134. In Zeledón Cartín, Deportivo Femenino, 100–103. It is unclear why the
trip to Ecuador failed to materialize.
135. Relator, September 13, 1951; La Patria, September 21, 1951; and
El Colombiano, September 24, 1951; in Zeledón Cartín, Deportivo
Femenino, 105–106, 109–112.
136. Radar Deportivo, October 6, 1951; and El Espectador, September 29,
1951; in Zeledón Cartín, Deportivo Femenino, 112–114.
137. Zeledón Cartín, Deportivo Femenino, 115–126.
138. “Fútbol Femenino,” La Nación, February 14, 1952, p. 20.
139. “Renuncia irrevocable del Sr. Blanco Mendez directivo del fútbol
femenino,” La Nación, October 3, 1958.
140. Eliézer Pérez, correspondence, July 17, 2010; and Eliézer Pérez, “Femenino,”
eliezerperez, https://eliezerperez.wordpress.com/category/femenino/.
141. Eliézer Pérez, correspondence, July 17, 2010; and Eliézer Pérez, “Femenino,”
`https://eliezerperez.wordpress.com/category/femenino/.
142. Fernando Bonilla Alvarado, correspondence, July 12, 2018.
143. La Nación, 1971.
144. Chester Urbina Gaitán, “Origenes del deporte moderno en El Salvador,”
Realidad y Reflexión 17, no. 6 (May–August 2006): 20.
145. Adan Benjamin Cuellar Martínez, Jairo Gerardo Flores Díaz, and José
Saúl Romero Barrera, “Análisis histórico de la educación física en relacion
a sus tendencias pedagogicas, en la República de El Salvador desde el año
1920 al año 2010” (thesis, Universidad de El Salvador, 2011), 40.
146. Aldo Lauria-Santiago and Leigh Binford, “Local History, Politics, and
the State in El Salvador,” in Landscapes of Struggle: Politics, Society,
and Community in El Salvador, ed. Aldo Lauria-Santiago and Leigh
Binford (Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2004), 2.
147. Victor Hugo Acuña Ortega, “The Formation of the Urban Middle
Sectors in El Salvador, 1910–1944,” in Landscapes of Struggle: Politics,
Society, and Community in El Salvador, ed. Aldo Lauria-Santiago and
Leigh Binford (Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2004),
39–49.
148. Mercier would go on to be the first director of France’s National Institute
of Sport, from 1945 to 1948.
149. Elie Mercier, “La mujer y los deportes,” Revista Salvadoreña de Educación
Física 1, nos. 2–3 (February–March 1922): 32.
150. Mercier, “La mujer y los deportes,” 32.
151. Mercier, “La mujer y los deportes,” 32.
308 NOTES TO PAGES 188-193

152. Mercier, “La mujer y los deportes,” 35.

153. Mercier, “La mujer y los deportes,” 35.
154. Mercier, “La mujer y los deportes,” 35.
155. Mercier, “La mujer y los deportes,” 35.
156. Mercier, “La mujer y los deportes,” 36.
157. Cuellar Martínez, Flores Díaz, and Romero Barrera, “Análisis histórico,”
42.
158. There is some debate as to when Push arrived in El Salvador. Some works
suggest 1919, while others cite 1922. See Beatriz Eugenia Avalos Sánchez,
Elba Georgina Berroterán De Rivera, Concepción Del Carmen Cruz De
González, “La educación física y su incidencia en el desarrollo integral
de niños y niñas párvulos del sector público del Distrito 06-01 de la
ciudad de San Salvador” (thesis, Universidad Francisco Gavida, 2003),
9; Atilio Antonio Arévalo Campos, Luis Remberto Hernández Grande,
and Josué Ernesto Recinos, “La practica de juegos tradicionales que
beneficien el desarrollo de las capacidades motrices basicas en la clase
de educación física en los alumnos de segundo ciclo del centro escolar de
Huizúcar, Distrito 0523, Zona 3 del departamento de la libertad, durante
el año lectivo 2010” (thesis, Universidad de El Salvador, 2011), 16; Adan
Benjamin Cuellar Martínez, Jairo Gerardo Flores Díaz, and José Saúl
Romero Barrera, “Análisis histórico de la educación física en relacion a
sus tendencias pedagogicas, en la República de El Salvador desde el año
1920 al año 2010” (thesis, Universidad de El Salvador, 2011), 42.
159. Urbina Gaitán, “Origenes del deporte moderno en El Salvador,”
Realidad y Reflexión 17, no. 6 (May–August 2006): 40.
160. Urbina Gaitán, “Origenes del deporte,” 38.
161. Urbina Gaitán, “Origenes del deporte,” 42.
162. Urbina Gaitán, “Origenes del deporte,” 45.
163. Chester Urbina Gaitán, “Fútbol, estado e identidad nacional en El
Salvador (1897–1943),” Realidad y Reflexión 17, no. 6 (May–August
2006): 60. Urbina Gaitán here cites Diario de El Salvador, August 29,
1923, p. 3.
164. Cuellar Martínez, Flores Díaz, and Romero Barrera, “Análisis histórico,”
43–45.

CHAPTER 5

1. Personal collection of Joshua Nadel.

2. To date, the most exhaustive prior work on the topic is a bachelor’s thesis.
See Maritza Carreño Martínez, “Fútbol femenil en México, 1969–1971”
(thesis, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, 2006).
NOTES TO PAGES 194-196 309

3. “Urban Population (% of Total),” World Bank, https://data.worldbank

.org/indicator/SP.URB.TOTL.IN.ZS?locations=MX.
4. Mujeres y hombres en México (Mexico City: Instituto Nacional de
Estadística, Geografía e Informática, 2007), 322; “Mexico: Social and
Economic Aspects of the Status of Women (1970–2003),” Refworld,
Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada, November 13, 2003, http://
www.refworld.org/docid/403dd20214.html.
5. Mujeres y hombres en México, xxvii.
6. Mujeres y hombres en México, 87.
7. Mary Kay Vaughan, “Introduction,” in Sex in Revolution: Gender,
Power, and Politics in Modern Mexico, ed. Jocelyn Olcott, Mary Kay
Vaughan, and Gabriela Cano (Durham, NC: Duke University Press,
2006), 25.
8. Secretaría de Educación Pública, Plan de estudios de la educación física
(Mexico City: Talleres Gráficos de la Nación, 1929), 5.
9. Brenda Elsey, “Cultural Ambassadorship and the Pan-American Games
of the 1950s,” International Journal of the History of Sport 33, nos.
1–2 (2016): 105–126. Women’s events were included in the Central
American and Caribbean Games beginning in 1938.
10. Eric Zolov, “Showcasing the ‘Land of Tomorrow’: Mexico and the
1968 Olympics,” Americas 61, no. 2 (October 2004): 163. See also
Keith Brewster and Claire Brewster, “Cleaning the Cage: Mexico
City’s Preparations for the Olympic Games,” International Journal
for the History of Sport 26, no. 6 (May 2009): 790–813; and Kevin
B. Witherspoon, Before the Eyes of the World: Mexico and the 1968
Olympic Games (DeKalb: Northern Illinois University Press, 2008).
11. Gilbert Joseph, Anne Rubenstein, and Eric Zolov, eds., Fragments of
a Golden Age: The Politics of Culture in Mexico since 1940 (Durham,
NC: Duke University Press, 2001), particularly Mary Kay Vaughan,
“Transnational Processes and the Rise and Fall of the Mexican Cultural
State: Notes from the Past,” 471–472.
12. “Clases gratuitas,” La Afición, February 17, 1951, p. 3.
13. Anne Rubenstein, Bad Language, Naked Ladies, and Other Threats to
the Nation: A Political History of Comic Books in Mexico (Durham,
NC: Duke University Press, 1998).
14. Marie Sarita Gaytán and Ana G. Valenzuela Zapata, “Mas alla del mito:
Mujeres, tequila y nación,” Mexican Studies 28, no. 1 (Winter 2012):
183–208.
15. Elaine Carey, Plaza of Sacrifices: Gender, Power, and Terror in 1968
Mexico (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2005).
310 NOTES TO PAGES 196-200

16. See, for example, El Heraldo de México, October 10, 1970, pp. 1A,
13A; and Agustín Barrios Gómez, “Comentarios de hoy,” El Heraldo
de México, October 1, 1970, p. 3D.
17. For PRI efforts to co-opt the student movement, see Jaime Pensado,
Rebel Mexico: Student Unrest and Authoritarian Political Culture
during the Long Sixties (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2013).
18. Eli Bartra, Anna M. Fernández Poncela, and Ana Lau, Feminismo en
México: Ayer y hoy (Mexico City: Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana,
2000).
19. Estela Serret, “El feminismo mexicano de cara al siglo XXI,” Cotidiano
16 (March–April 2000), http://www.redalyc.org/articulo.oa.
20. María Patricia Fernández-Kelly, For We Are Sold, I and My People:
Women and Industry in Mexico’s Frontier (Albany, NY: SUNY Press,
1984). For an important analysis on the recent historiography, see also
Fernández-Kelly, “Reading the Signs: The Economics of Gender Twenty-
Five Years Later,” Signs 25, no. 4 (2000): 1107–1112.
21. Alexander Dawson, “Salvador Roquet, María Sabina, and the Trouble
with Jipis,” Hispanic American Historical Review 95, no. 1 (2005):
103–133.
22. “Es casi seguro,” La Afición, March 15, 1951, p. 12.
23. “Es casi seguro,” La Afición, March 15, 1951, p. 12.
24. Guillermo Salas, “México cuenta con lo necesario para celebrar una
Olimpíada,” La Afición, March 27, 1955, p. 6.
25. Alfonso Roldan P., “Estopier jefe de la delegación,” La Afición, March
25, 1955, p. 11.
26. “Llegó el polaco Poburka, entrenador de la selección de volibol
femenil,” El Heraldo de México, January 5, 1966, p. 20.
27. Luis Jordá Galeana, reproduced in “Fútbol femenil,” Fútbol de México
y del Mundo 9, no. 424 (December 13, 1970), 23.
28. “México se batió en grande ante Brasil,” El Heraldo de México, August
4, 1967, p. 2.
29. “La preselección femenil empezará su gira el 22,” El Heraldo de México,
November 19, 1969, p. 8B.
30. Pancho Dorado, “Las ‘Adelas’ esperan con ganas a la preselección,” El
Heraldo de México, November 22, 1969, p. 4B.
31. “Voli en Los Angeles,” El Heraldo de México, January 15, 1966.
32. “Voli en Los Angeles,” El Heraldo de México, January 15, 1966.
33. “Segunda victoria de los cuadros mexicanos,” El Heraldo de México,
March 3, 1970, p. 4B.
34. “Vamos por el primero,” El Heraldo de México, March 12, 1970, p. 4B.
NOTES TO PAGES 200-207 311

35. Jaime Castillo, “Gracia y femeninidad,” El Heraldo de México, July 26,

1970, sports supplement, p. 7.
36. Jaime Castillo, “Extraña a Armida Guerrero,” El Heraldo de México,
September 13, 1970, p. 2B.
37. El Heraldo de México, February 28, 1966, p. 1.
38. Hugo Ceron-Anaya, “Golf, habitus y elites: La historia del golf en
México (1900–1980),” Esporte e Sociedade 5, no. 15 (July–October
2010), http://www.uff.br/esportesociedade/index.html?ed=15.
39. “Al mundial de golf femenil,” El Heraldo de México, January 31, 1970,
p. 2B.
40. “Dos medallas de oro,” El Heraldo de México, August 1, 1967, p. 1.
41. La Afición, February 27, 1951, p. 2.
42. “Una Argentina,” La Afición, February 28, 1951, p. 2.
43. La Afición, March 1, 1951, p. 1.
44. Antonio Pineda, “Joaquín Capilla,” La Afición, March 16, 1951, p. 4.
45. La Afición, March 9, 1951, p. 2.
46. “Se integró ya una liga,” El Heraldo de México, July 10, 1970, p. 2B.
47. “¿Tomará auge el fut femenil?,” Esto, June 2, 1959, p. 8B.
48. “¿Tomará auge el fut femenil?,” Esto, June 2, 1959, p. 8B.
49. Carreño Martínez, “Fútbol femenil en México,” 9.
50. El Sol de México, June 29, 1970, p. A12.
51. “Empieza hoy el torneo de futbol femenil,” El Heraldo de México,
November 16, 1969, p. 2B.
52. “Choque de los 2 Américas,” El Heraldo de México, November 29,
1969, p. 5B.
53. “Fue una fiesta,” El Heraldo de México, October 7, 1970, p. 1B.
54. Se inauguró ayer la liga femenil de fut,” El Heraldo de México,
November 17, 1969, p. 2B.
55. “El América ‘A’ goleó 4–0,” El Heraldo de México, November 30, 1969,
p. 5B.
56. “Golearon,” El Heraldo de México, January 12, 1970, p. 2B.
57. Manelich Quintero, “Equipos cremas hacen el 1–2,” El Heraldo de
México, December 22, 1969, p. 5B.
58. “También en femenil,” El Heraldo de México, December 28, 1969, p. 1B.
59. “Multitud,” El Heraldo de México, March 23, 1970, p. 6B.
60. “¡Va a ser mamá . . . y quiere que la contraten en futbol!,” El Heraldo de
México, November 6, 1969, p. 8B. See also “Calcio femminile: Straniere
in arrivo,” L’Unità, November 6, 1969, p. 11.
61. “¡María Edith quiere jugar con Torino!,” El Heraldo de México,
November 16, 1969, p. 2B.
312 NOTES TO PAGES 207-210

62. “¡María Edith quiere jugar con Torino!,” El Heraldo de México,

November 16, 1969, p. 2B.
63. “¡María Edith quiere jugar con Torino!,” El Heraldo de México,
November 16, 1969, p. 2B.
64. El Sol de México, June 28, 1970, p. A6.
65. Elvira Aracén Sánchez, interview by the author, December 17, 2015; and
Confederación Deportiva Mexicano, Historia (Mexico City: CODEME,
n.d.), 87. Manelich Quintero, in “Futbol femenil,” El Heraldo de
México, January 24, 1970. Aracén played for the team Guadalajara in
the Liga América. She grew up in a small village in Veracruz and moved
to Mexico City when she began high school.
66. Elvira Aracén Sánchez, interview, December 17, 2015.
67. Manelich Quintero, “América, líder en fut femenil,” El Heraldo de
México, December 8, 1969, p. 4B.
68. “Fútbol femenil,” El Heraldo de México, January 5, 1970, p. 2B; and
Elvira Aracén, interview, December 17, 2015.
69. Manelich Quintero, “En medio de una Tolvanera,” El Heraldo de
México, December 29, 1969, p. 2B. The Spanish is “muy coquetas con
sus uniformes nuevas.”
70. “ENEF venció 2–0 a la CFE,” El Heraldo de México, January 12, 1970,
p. 2B.
71. Manelich Quintero, “Hoy la octava jornada femenil,” El Heraldo de
México, January 11, 1970, p. 6B.
72. “Femenil: Reglamentado,” El Heraldo de México, February 25, 1970,
p. 3B.
73. “Carolina Mendoza,” El Heraldo de México, January 14, 1970, p. 5B.
74. El Heraldo de México, January 4, 1970, p. 5B. Also retold in interviews
with Elvira Aracén, December 17, 2015, and Mercedes Rodríguez
Alemán, December 11, 2015. Rodríguez told of a slightly later date,
and both Fabiola Vargas and Andrea Rodebaugh told of playing on dirt
fields in the 1990s.
75. Elvira Aracén, interview, December 17, 2015.
76. El Heraldo de México, January 5, 1970, p. 2B.
77. “Con ‘Chabelo,’” El Heraldo de México, February 6, 1970, p. 1B.
Chabelo (Xavier López Rodríguez) was the padrino for the Chivas
women’s team.
78. “Así fue la fiesta,” El Heraldo de México, February 10, 1970, p. 2B.
79. “Así fue la fiesta,” El Heraldo de México, February 10, 1970, p. 2B.
80. Manelich Quintero, “Un teléfono par alas que deseen jugar en un
equipo,” El Heraldo de México, January 17, 1970, p. 4B.
NOTES TO PAGES 210-214 313

81. Manelich Quintero, “Un teléfono par alas,” El Heraldo de México,

January 17, 1970, p. 4B.
82. Manelich Quintero, “Un teléfono par alas,” El Heraldo de México,
January 17, 1970, p. 4B.
83. “Futbol femenil,” El Heraldo de México, January 26, 1970, p. 2B.
84. “Los poblanas,” El Heraldo de México, February 2, 1970, p. 4B.
85. Manelich Quintero, “Futbol femenil,” El Heraldo de México, January
30, 1970, p. 2B.
86. El Heraldo de México, March 25, 1970, p. 4B.
87. Manelich Quintero, “Futbol femenil,” El Heraldo de México, January
30, 1970, p. 2B.
88. El Heraldo de México, November 18, 1969, p. 2B.
89. El Sol de México, June 29, 1970, p. A1.
90. El Sol de México, June 29, 1970, p. A1.
91. El Sol de México, June 29, 1970, p. A12.
92. “FIFA aplica planes,” O Estado de São Paulo, February 28, 1965, p. 16.
93. In 1970, Cañedo was the vice president of Club América, the president
of the Mexican Football Federation, and the vice president of FIFA.
Ahead of the 1970 World Cup he was also made head of football
broadcasting for Telesistema Mexicana, which would become Televisa in
1972. In 1971, Cañedo was no longer officially president of the Mexican
federation, but retained his other posts. See Keith Brewster and Claire
Brewster, “‘He Hath Not Done This for Any Other Nation’: Mexico’s
1970 and 1986 World Cups,” in The FIFA World Cup, 1930–2010:
Politics, Commerce, Spectacle, and Identities, ed. Stefan Rinke and Kay
Schiller (Gottingen, Germany: Wallstein Verlag, 2014), 199–219.
94. El Sol de México, June 24, 1970, p. C1.
95. “El futbol femenil,” El Heraldo de México, November 22, 1969, p. 3B.
96. The Argentine sports magazine El Gráfico included stories on women’s
football in England and France in the 1920s. For more on the sport in
England, see Jean Williams, A Game for Rough Girls? A History of
Women’s Football in Britain (London: Routledge, 2003).
97. Manelich Quintero, personal correspondence, November 4, 2012. For
the controversy, see El Sol de México, June 30, 1970, p. B3. In what
might have been a journalistic spat over access, El Sol de México took
the masseuse Alma Estela Ramírez’s side. In the end, Elvira Aracén,
the backup goalie and a student at the National School for Physical
Education, took on the role of preparadora física.
98. El Sol de México, June 28, 1970, pp. A1, A6; and Elvira Aracén,
interview, December 17, 2015. Aracén suggested that she was the one
who came up with the idea for the preselection process and then helped
314 NOTES TO PAGES 214-217

with selection. In the end, Morales would not make the trip with the
team; he was replaced by Efraín Pérez. Though he coached a team in the
Liga América, Morales, according to Aracén, was not trained as a coach.
99. Manelich Quintero, “Futbol femenil,” El Heraldo de México, March
25, 1970, p. 4B.
100. El Sol de México, June 28, 1970, p. A6; and Elvira Aracén, interview,
December 17, 2015.
101. Manelich Quintero, “Futbol femenil,” El Heraldo de México, April 15,
1970, p. 5B.
102. Manelich Quintero, “Futbol femenil,” El Heraldo de México, April 15,
1970, p. 5B.
103. El Sol de México, June 28, 1970, p. A6.
104. El Sol de México, June 28, 1970, p. A6.
105. Elvira Aracén, interview, December 17, 2015. It is also possible to
interpret morenitas as pejorative, slang for “little dark ones.” However,
given the context of the article, this use seems unlikely.
106. El Sol de México, June 29, 1970, p. A1.
107. Maria Guadalupe de Santa Cruz M., “El equipo femenino de fútbol,”
El Sol de México, June 30, 1970, p. A1.
108. El Sol de México, June 29, 1970, p. A12.
109. Manelich Quintero, personal correspondence, December 23, 2014;
“Maletas,” El Heraldo de México, June 28, 1970, p. 3B.
110. Manelich Quintero, “Ya tiene equipo,” El Heraldo de México, July 2,
1970, p. 2B.
111. Manelich Quintero, “Ya tiene equipo,” El Heraldo de México, July 2,
1970, p. 2B.
112. El Sol de México, June 29, 1970, p. A12.
113. El Sol de México, June 29, 1970, p. A12.
114. El Sol de México, June 28, 1970, p. A6.
115. Carreño Martínez, “Fútbol femenil en México,” 42, 38, 36.
116. Elvira Aracén, interview, December 17, 2015.
117. El Sol de México, June 28, 1970, p. A6.
118. El Sol de México, June 28, 1970, p. A6.
119. “México en Italia,” El Heraldo de México, July 25, 1970, p. 2B.
120. “Homenaje al once,” El Heraldo de México, July 22, 1970, p. 3B.
121. “Homenaje al once,” El Heraldo de México, July 22, 1970, p. 3B.
122. “En el 1er. Tiempo recibió Austria cinco anotaciones,” El Sol de México,
July 8, 1970, p. B1. Manelich Quintero and Elvira Aracén both give
different scores of the game. Aracén notes that the score was 15–0 but
that six goals were disallowed.
123. “En el 1er. Tiempo recibió Austria cinco anotaciones,” El Sol de México,
July 8, 1970, p. B1.
NOTES TO PAGES 217-221 315

124. “Exito total ha sido el Mundial de fut femenil,” El Sol de México, July
10, 1970, p. B1.
125. “Italia derrotó 2–1 a México en futbol femenil,” El Sol de México, July
12, 1970, p. B6.
126. Manelich Quintero, “México cayó ante Italia, 2–1,” El Heraldo de
México, July 12, 1970, p.1B
127. El Sol de México, July 12, 1970, pp. B1, B6.
128. El Sol de México, July 12, 1970, p. B6.
129. “En buen juego vencieron a Albión 3–2,” El Sol de México, July 14,
1970, p. B1.
130. “En buen juego vencieron a Albión 3–2,” El Sol de México, July 14,
1970, p. B1.
131. El Sol de México, July 14, 1970, p. B6.
132. Manelich Quintero, “México ganaba 3–10,” El Heraldo de México,
July 14, 1970, p. 5B.
133. “Exito total ha sido el Mundial de fut femenil,” El Sol de México, July
10, 1970, p. B1; “Italia derrotó 2–1 a México en futbol femenil,” El Sol
de México, July 12, 1970, p. B6.
134. “Exito total ha sido el Mundial de fut femenil,” El Sol de México, July
10, 1970, pp. B1, B6.
135. El Sol de México, July 10, 1970, p. B1.
136. Manelich Quintero, “Desde Turín,” El Heraldo de México, July 14,
1970, p. 5B.
137. “Exhibición,” El Heraldo de México, July 18, 1970, p. 3B.
138. “Que no debe haber damas futbolistas,” El Sol de Mexico, July 18, 1970,
p. B5.
139. Carreño Martínez, “Fútbol femenil en México,” 68.
140. “Profesor Meléndez uno de los organizadores de la selección femenil
1971,” Liga Premier del Fútbol Femenil Mexicano, YouTube video,
September 6, 2016, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-1vr9gzUZZ8.
141. El Sol de México, June 28, 1970, p. A6.
142. “Futbol femenil,” El Heraldo de México, July 4, 1970, p. 2B.
143. El Sol de México, June 28, 1970, p. A6.
144. El Sol de México, June 28, 1970, p. A6.
145. Manelich Quintero, “Ultimo encuentro,” El Heraldo de México, June
26, 1970, p. 5B; El Sol de México, June 28, 1970, p. A6.
146. “Preparativos para el sábado próximo,” El Heraldo de México, July 15,
1970, p. 4B.
147. Elvira Aracén, interview, December 17, 2015.
148. “Un heraldo,” El Heraldo de México, July 16, 1970, p. 5B.
149. Manelich Quintero, “Darán una cancha,” El Heraldo de México,
August 8, 1970, p. 2B.
316 NOTES TO PAGES 221-225

150. Manelich Quintero, “Inaugura cancha el fut femenil,” El Heraldo de

México, August 23, 1970, p. 4B.
151. “En prinicipio acepta la FMF a elementos del sexo femenino,” El Sol de
México, July 16, 1970, p. B1.
152. El Sol de México, July 16, 1970, p. B1.
153. El Sol de México, July 18, 1970, p. B1.
154. El Sol de México, July 18, 1970, p. B1.
155. “Que no debe haber damas futbolistas,” El Sol de México, July 18, 1970,
p. B5.
156. Elvira Aracén, interview, December 17, 2015.
157. “Que no debe haber damas futbolistas,” El Sol de México, July 18, 1970,
p. B5.
158. Raul Sanchez Hidalgo, “Ogros . . . del futbol,” El Heraldo de México,
July 26, 1970, p. 1B.
159. Club Deportivo Oro was in the first division of Mexican football at the
time.
160. Guillermo Aceves, “También les suspendieron,” El Heraldo de México,
July 26, 1970, p. 1B.
161. Flavio Zavala Millet, “La federación trato de impedir un homenaje a la
selección femenil,” Ovaciones, July 24, 1970, p. 2.
162. Guillermo Aceves, “Sí jugaron en el Estadio Jalisco,” El Heraldo de
México, July 27, 1970, p. 5B. Like the Estadio Azteca, at the time
Estadio Jalisco was administered by the local government, which limited
FMF jurisdiction over its usage.
163. “¡Invitan a México a la selección femenil italiana!,” El Heraldo de
México, August 22, 1970, p. 3B.
164. Manelich Quintero, personal correspondence, November 4, 2012.
165. El Heraldo de México, October 18, 1970, p. 1B.
166. “Magnífica demostración,” El Heraldo de México, October 19, 1970,
p. 1B.
167. Hugo Cisterna, “El fut femenil como platillo,” El Heraldo de México,
October 19, 1970, p. 2B.
168. El Heraldo de México, November 5, 1970, Ocho TV supplement, p. 8.
169. “Italia contra el América,” El Heraldo de México, October 23, 1970, p.
4B. It is unclear what, precisely, the disciplinary reasons were. Officially,
Vargas had issues with members of the team Guadalajara. Some
suggested that she was left off the team for complaining that coaches
earned money off the games, while the players did not even get paid the
travel costs to attend practice. See Ovaciones, October 17, 1970, p. 8.
170. “Italia goleó 4–0,” El Heraldo de México, October 28, 1970, p. 4B.
171. “Que el II Mundial Femenil sea aquí,” El Heraldo de México, October
29, 1970, p. 3B.
NOTES TO PAGES 225-229 317

172. Manelich Quintero, personal correspondence, November 4, 2012.

173. El Heraldo de México, July 25, 1970.
174. “Canal Ocho,” El Heraldo de México, November 5, 1970, Ocho TV
supplement, p. 8; Carreño Martínez, “Fútbol femenil en México,” 80.
175. Elvira Aracén, interview, December 17, 2015.
176. See, for example, El Nacional, August 14, 1970, sec. 2, p. 3; August 21,
1970, sec. 2, p. 3; August 28, 1970, sec. 2, p. 2.
177. Manelich Quintero, “Futbol femenil,” El Heraldo de México, January
24, 1970, p. 4B.
178. “Selección de futbol femenil,” El Heraldo de México, August 7, 1970,
p. 3B.
179. Elvira Aracén, interview, December 17, 2015. Rubio’s brother Sergio
went on to play for Cruz Azul and Chivas in the Mexican professional
leagues and was known as “El Peque.” See also El Heraldo de México,
January 5, 1970, p. 2B.
180. Elvira Aracén, interview, December 17, 2015.
181. Elvira Aracén, interview, December 17, 2015.
182. Elvira Aracén, interview, December 17, 2015.
183. Manelich Quintero, “Ahora se reportan,” El Heraldo de México, August
13, 1970, p. 2B.
184. “Una mujer,” El Heraldo de México, August 27, 1970, p. 4B.
185. Agustin Barrios Gomez, “Comentarios de hoy,” El Heraldo de México,
October 1, 1970, p. 3D.
186. “Se llama Grecia del Angel,” El Heraldo de México, December 13, 1970,
p. 3B; El Heraldo de México, August 29, 1970, p. 3B. Ángel worked in
the Liga Naucalpan de Fútbol Femenil.
187. Teodoro Cano, “Llegará a arbitrar en primera división,” El Heraldo de
México, April 9, 1971, p. 7B.
188. “La mujer que es deportista jamás pierde su femineidad, manifestó
Rosalinda Tripp,” El Nacional, August 7, 1970, sec. 2, p. 2.
189. “La entrevista,” Fútbol de Mexico y del Mundo, December 13, 1970,
p. 18. Zaragoza’s full name was Maria Silvia Zaragoza Herrera.
190. “Mini-entrevista,” Fútbol de Mexico y del Mundo, December 20, 1970,
p. 18.
191. Jose Luis Jimenez, “Las bellas del deporte,” El Heraldo de México,
January 10, 1971, p. 1B.
192. Jose Luis Jimenez, “Las bellas del deporte,” El Heraldo de México,
January 16, 1971, p. 6B.
193. El Heraldo de México, January 16, 1971, p. 6B.
194. El Heraldo de México, January 16, 1971, p. 6B.
195. Jose Luis Jimenez, “Las bellas del deporte,” El Heraldo de México,
January 19, 1971, p. 6B.
318 NOTES TO PAGES 230-233

196. El Heraldo de México, January 19, 1971, p. 6B.

197. El Heraldo de México, January 19, 1971, p. 6B.
198. Jose Luis Jimenez, “Las bellas del deporte,” El Heraldo de México,
January 19, 1971, p. 6B.
199. Jose Luis Jimenez, “Las bellas del deporte,” El Heraldo de México,
February 16, 1971, p. 6B.
200. El Heraldo de México, January 10, 1971, p. 3B.
201. El Heraldo de México, December 20, 1970, p. 4B; December 22,
1970, p. 3B; December 12, 1970, p. 5B; October 13, 1970, p. 4B; and
Manelich Quintero, “Ahora se reportan de Monterrey y Puebla,” El
Heraldo de México, August 13, 1970, p. 2B.
202. FIFA, minutes of meeting no. 15 of the Executive Committee, January
10, 1971, p. 9.
203. Sánchez Hidalgo, “La FIFA . . . y las novias,” El Heraldo de México,
February 25, 1971, p. 5B.
204. FIFA, minutes of meeting no. 15 of the Executive Committee, January
10, 1971, p. 9.
205. José José, “Se formó la federación de futbol femenil,” El Heraldo de
México, February 28, 1971, p. 2. It is unclear why CODEME went
against the FMF on hosting the tournament. It is possible that the two
organizations worked together to bring the championship to Mexico,
seeing the potential economic benefit. Cañedo could not officially go
against FIFA rulings, but CODEME was under no restrictions. As a
television executive, Cañedo stood to benefit personally.
206. The tournament was held from August 15 to September 5.
207. “En Augusto, el Mundial Femenil,” El Heraldo de México, February
28, 1971, p. 5B.
208. El Heraldo de México, February 28, 1971, p. 5B.
209. “Futbol femenil,” El Heraldo de México, March 16, 1971, p. 4B.
210. El Heraldo de México, April 24, 1971, p. 4B.
211. “4 ‘bellos’ prospectos para la preselección,” El Heraldo de México,
March 23, 1971, p. 4B.
212. Juan Acevedo, “‘Vamos, niña, juega como tu sabes,’ dice el Profe
Meléndez,” El Heraldo de México, June 1, 1971, p. 2B.
213. El Heraldo de México, June 1, 1971, p. 2B.
214. El Heraldo de México, July 27, 1970, p. 1B.
215. “En Buenos Aires anuncia se jugará el 16,” El Heraldo de México, July
8, 1971, p. 2B.
216. “México-Argentina, suspendido por lluvia,” El Heraldo de México, July
17, 1971, p. 2B.
217. “México-Perú en futbol femenil,” El Heraldo de México, July 21, 1971,
p. 2B.
NOTES TO PAGES 233-236 319

218. El Heraldo de México, July 23, 1971, p. 3B.

219. El Heraldo de México, August 7, 1971, p. 1B.
220. Personal collection of Joshua Nadel. Brief footage of the women’s world
championship, from the opening ceremonies and the championship
game, can be found online. In his personal collection, Joshua Nadel has
some of this footage along with Mexico’s game with Argentina and the
Mexican team’s trip to Buenos Aires. Televisa reportedly retains footage
of the entire final, but the authors were unable to verify this.
221. El Heraldo de México, July 26, 1971, p. 4B.
222. “A la venta boletos del Mundial Femenil,” El Heraldo de México, July
28, 1971, p. 3B.
223. El Heraldo de México, August 24, 1971, p. 3B. See also Ovaciones,
August 8, 1971, p. 12.
224. El Heraldo de México, August 5, 1971, p. 10B.
225. Sanchez Hidalgo, “Quien creía,” El Heraldo de México, August 15,
1971, p. 1B.
226. For more on this relationship between media and sports, see Eduardo
Archetti, Masculinities: Football, Polo and the Tango in Argentina
(Oxford, UK: Berg, 1999), especially chapter 2; Jeffrey William Richey,
“Playing at Nation: Soccer Institutions, Racial Ideology, and National
Integration in Argentina, 1912–1931” (PhD diss., University of North
Carolina at Chapel Hill, 2013); Matthew Karusch, “National Identity
in the Sports Pages: Football and Mass Media in 1920s Buenos Aires,”
Americas 60, no. 1 (2003): 11–32; Brenda Elsey, “The Independent
Republic of Football: The Politics of Neighborhood Clubs in Santiago,
Chile, 1948–1960,” Journal of Social History 42, no. 3 (Spring 2009):
605–630; and Joshua Nadel, Fútbol! Why Soccer Matters in Latin
America (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2014), 82–84. For
non–Latin American perspectives, see Alan Tomlinson, Christopher
Young, and Richard Holt, eds., Sport and the Transformation of
Modern Europe: States, Media, and Markets, 1950–2010 (Abingdon,
UK: Routledge, 2011); Brian Carrol, The Black Press and Black Baseball,
1915–1955: A Devil’s Bargain (New York: Routledge, 2015); Michael
Oriard, King Football: Sport and Spectacle in the Golden Age of Radio
and Newsreels, Movies and Magazines, the Weekly and the Daily Press
(Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2001).
227. El Heraldo de México, July 27, 1971, p. 1B; July 28, 1970, p. 3B.
228. Excelsior, August 5, 1971, p. 3D.
229. Excelsior, August 6, 1971, p. 6D.
230. “Prácticas intensivas de Italas e Ingleses,” El Sol de México, August 7,
1971, p. B12.
320 NOTES TO PAGES 236-240

231. See El Sol de México, August 10, 1971, p. B7; August 11, 1971, p. B9;
August 12, 1971, p. B9; August 13, 1971, p. B10; August 14, 1971, p.
B9.
232. El Heraldo de México, August 28, 1971, p. 2B; September 6, 1971, p.
5B; September 5, 1971, p. 3B.
233. Correspondents for Excelsior were José Garduño, José Barrenechea,
Rose Maria Roffiel, and Jorge Escobosa.
234. “Ahora ya hay ¡Idolos femeniles de fútbol!,” El Heraldo de México,
August 16, 1971, p. 3B. Other newspapers placed the attendance at just
under eighty thousand. See, for example, José Barrenechea Jr., “México
derrotó a Argentina 3–1 al iniciarse el Mundial Femenil,” Excelsior,
August 16, 1971, p. 1D.
235. El Sol de México, August 18, 1971, p. B1.
236. Excelsior and El Heraldo de México had slightly different numbers for
the Denmark-Argentina match. Excelsior estimated the crowd at thirty
thousand while El Heraldo de México went to press with the number of
fans at twenty-five thousand. Teodoro Cano, “México goleó . . . ¡Pero
tiene que mejorar!,” El Heraldo de México, August 23, 1971, p. 2B;
Teodoro Cano, “5–0 . . . ¡Dinamarca es gran campeón!,” El Heraldo
de México, August 29, 1971, p. 2B; José Barrenechea Jr., “Dinamarca
clasificó ayer para la final: Goleó a Argentina 5–0,” Excelsior, August
29, 1971, p. 29A; and Teodoro Cano, “¡Las italianas perdieron la cabeza
y el partido!,” El Heraldo de México, August 30, 1971, p. 2B.
237. El Heraldo de México, August 22, 1971, pp. 1B, 6B; “La violencia
amenaza al fútbol femenil,” El Heraldo de México, August 23, 1971,
pp. 3B, 4B; and El Heraldo de México, August 29, 1971, p. 1B.
238. Nuria Basurto, “Quieren armaduras para jugar contra las bambinas,”
El Heraldo de México, September 1, 1971, p. 3B.
239. Manuel Seyde, “Temas del día,” Excelsior, September 6, 1971, p. 1D.
240. Manuel Seyde, “Temas del día,” Excelsior, September 7, 1971, p. 1D.
241. “Era el fin y no se iban,” El Heraldo de México, August 16, 1971, p.
1B.
242. Fausta Gantús and Martha Santillán Esqueda, “Fútbol femenil en
México: Una percepción de género a través de la prensa al inicio de los
años setenta,” Esporte e Sociedad 5, no. 15 (July–October 2010), http://
www.uff.br/esportesociedade/index.html?ed=15.
243. El Heraldo de México, August 15, 1971, p. 1B.
244. “Las niñas patean ahora el balón,” El Heraldo de México, September
1, 1971, p. 1B.
245. Unfortunately, all FMF records from this era were destroyed in a fire.
246. Elvira Aracén, interview, December 17, 2015.
NOTES TO PAGES 240-242 321

247. See, for example, “En caso contrario, México no jugará contra
Dinamarca,” Excelsior, September 2, 1971, p. 1D; “O les dan dinero
o no se presentan a jugar,” El Sol de México, September 2, 1971, p.
B1; “¡Dos millones de pesos o no juegan!,” El Heraldo de México,
September 3, 1971, p. 1B; Eduardo Morales, “El fútbol femenil no puede
ser amateur,” El Heraldo de México, September 3, 1971, p. 3B.
248. Eduardo Morales, “El fútbol femenil no puede ser amateur,” El Heraldo
de México, September 3, 1971, p. 3B.
249. Carlos Trapaga, “¡Vale mas un aplauso que dos millones de pesos!,”
Esto, September 4, 1971, p. 5. See also José Barrenechea Jr. and Jorge
Escobosa, “Accedió la selección a jugar mañana en la final,” Excelsior,
September 4, 1971, p. 1D; Enrique Valencia, “El domingo; México
contra Dinamarca,” El Sol de México, September 4, 1971, p. B2; and
Eduardo Morales, “¡Valen mas los aplausos que millones!,” El Heraldo
de México, September 4, 1971, pp. 3B, 5B.
250. Jorge Escobosa and José Barrenechea Jr., “El comité ofreció un juego
de beneficio a las mexicanas, ayer,” Excelsior, September 4, 1971, p.
1D; Eduardo Morales, “Ganen o pierdan, ¡Inundarán de regalos a las
mexicanas!,” El Heraldo de México, September 5, 1971, p. 1B. Among
those offering gifts were the governor of the state of Mexico, Carlos
Hank González; the president of the municipality of Toluca, Alfonzo
Gómez de Orozco; and a group of actors and actresses. On TV rights
and the benefit game, see José José, “¡Recibieron 245 mil pesos las
futbolistas mexicanas!,” El Heraldo de México, September 13, 1971, p.
3B; Excelsior, September 9, 1971, p. 1D; José José, “Hasta placas para
taxi obsequió Hank González, a las mexicanas,” El Heraldo de México,
September 14, 1971, p. 2B.
251. Rosa Maria Roffiel, “Las danesas reprueban la actitud de las mexicanas,”
Excelsior, September 3, 1971, p. 1D.
252. Carmen Anderson, “El diario acontecer,” El Heraldo de México,
September 4, 1971, p. 5C.
253. “Despues de una cena en su honor, se disintegra hoy la seleccíon
femenil,” El Heraldo de México, September 21, 1971, p. 6B.
254. There is some debate as to how much money the benefit game raised.
Quintero says 415,000 pesos, while other sources cite 245,000. Manelich
Quintero, “Contra sus ‘explotadores,’ las futbolistas pedirán ayuda al
jefe del DDF,” El Heraldo de México, September 26, 1971, p. 2B. See
also José José, “¡Recibieron 245 mil pesos las futbolistas mexicanas!,” El
Heraldo de México, September 13, 1971, p. 3B; Arturo A. del Castillo,
“El profesor Meléndez Trinqueteó a las futbolistas con treinta mil pesos,”
Ovaciones, September 25, 1971, p. 4; and “Las seleccionadas dicen que
les ‘birlaron’ 55 mil pesos,” Esto, September 25, 1971, p. 7.
322 NOTES TO PAGES 242-250

255. Manelich Quintero, personal correspondence, December 26, 2014.

256. Manelich Quintero, personal correspondence, December 26, 2014.
257. Manelich Quintero, personal correspondence with Joshua Nadel, July 2,
2010.
258. El Heraldo de México, November 1, 1971, p. 5B; Excelsior, October
24, 1971, p. 3D; and El Sol de México, November 2, 1971, p. B1. All
of these newspapers had complete coverage of the tournament.
259. Mercedes Rodríguez Alemán, interview, December 11, 2015.
260. Mercedes Rodríguez Alemán, interview, December 11, 2015.
261. Elvira Aracén, interview, December 17, 2015.
262. Mercedes Rodríguez Alemán, interview, December 11, 2015.
263. Elvira Aracén, interview, December 17, 2015.
264. Elvira Aracén, interview, December 17, 2015.

EPILOGUE

1. Sisleide do Amor Lima, personal interview with Brenda Elsey and

Joshua Nadel, April 2016. The team that represented Brazil at the 1988
Women’s Invitational was actually the women’s team Radar, of which
Sissi was a member.
2. Elisa Araya Cortez and Karin Lofstrom, “Women and Sport in Chile,”
in Women and Sport in Latin America, ed. Rosa López de D’Amico,
Tansin Benn, and Gertrud Pfister (London: Routledge, 2016), 79–92.
3. In 2016 the South American nations with inactive women’s teams were
Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Ecuador, Paraguay, Peru, and Uruguay. The
Central American and Caribbean teams were Panama and Honduras. By
2017, Chile and Peru had “active” women’s teams, according to FIFA,
while Guatemala, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, and Puerto Rico
had joined the ranks of the inactive squads. See http://www.fifa.com/
fifa-world-ranking/ranking-table/women/.
4. Vanessa Vargas Roja, “Sexismo y cosificación: Cómo trata la prensa
deportiva las mujeres en la cobertura de la Copa Confederaciones,” El
Desconcierto, www.eldesconcierto.cl/2017/06/22/sexismo-y-cosificacion
-como-trata-la-prensa-deportiva-a-las-mujeres-en-la-cobertura-de-la-copa
-confederaciones/; Fernanda Pinilla, interview, August 2017.
5. Ruby Campos Ramírez, interview, December 12, 2015; Fabiola Vargas
Curiel, interview, December 14, 2015; Sisleide do Amor Lima, interview,
April 2016; Andrea Rodebaugh, correspondence, March 11, 2010.
6. FIFA circular no. 1246.
7. FIFA circular no. 1512, November 25, 2015.
8. FIFA circular no. 1541, May 31, 2016.
NOTES TO PAGES 250-257 323

9. FIFA circular no. 1545, June 8, 2016. This circular includes the FIFA
Forward regulations.
10. FIFA circular no. 1545, June 8, 2016. At the time this book went to
press, no annual audits had been released. The first round of audits were
due by June 30, 2018.
11. Iona Rothfeld, personal interview with the authors, August 2016.
12. Fernanda Pinilla, personal correspondence, March 2018; Iona Rothfeld,
personal correspondence, March 2018.
13. “Escandalo en el femenino de Nacional,” Referi, January 21, 2017,
http://www.referi.uy/escandalo-el-femenino-nacional-n1022566.
14. Ruby Campos Ramírez, interview, December 12, 2015. This story was
confirmed by other observers of women’s football in Mexico. Fresa—
literally “strawberry”—is slang for elite, although in this context it
carries the additional connotation of American born or raised.
15. Raúl Vilchis, “For Teammates in Love, an Island Oasis,” New York
Times, July 6, 2017, https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/06/sports/soccer
/iceland-soccer-stars-in-love-find-acceptance.html?mcubz=1&_r=0.
16. Silvana Goellner, interview, March 2018.
17. Olivia Díaz Ugalde, “La crisis de la selección femenina de fútbol: De la
ilusión de volver a entrenar a un paro por falta de pago,” La Nación,
September 21, 2017, https://www.lanacion.com.ar/2065217-seleccion
-femenina-de-futbol-de-la-ilusion-de-volver-a-entrenar-al-paro-acordado
-por-falta-de-pago.
18. “Uruguay le ganó 2:0 a Argentina,” Tenfield.com, September 27, 2017,
http://www.tenfield.com.uy/uruguay-le-gano-20-a-argentina/.
19. Gaby Gartón, personal interview with Brenda Elsey and Joshua Nadel,
July 2016.
20. Gaby Gartón, interview, July 2016.
21. Deborah Puebla, “Carlos Borrello, el regreso que trae esperanza al fútbol
femenino,” MDZ, July 20, 2017, http://www.mdzol.com/nota/745011
-carlos-borrello-el-regreso-que-trae-esperanza-al-futbol-femenino/.
22. “DT Vanessa Aráuz será nueva instructora en la CONMEBOL,”
El Telégrafo, September 18, 2017, http://www.eltelegrafo.com.ec/noticias
/futbol-nacional/23/dt-vanessa-arauz-sera-nueva-instructora-en-la
-conmebol.
23. “27,000 aficionados observaron el inicio del torneo nacional de fútbol
femenino,” Federación Ecuatoriana de Fútbol, December 6, 2017, http://
ecuafutbol.org/web/noticia.php?idn=41990&idc=.
24. “Servisky adquirió los derechos de televisón del torneo femenino,” El
Telégrafo, December 1, 2017. For comparison, Servisky’s losing bid for
the rights to the men’s professional league was for at least $21 million
per year.
324 NOTES TO PAGES 257-260

25. Martín Fernandez, “Clube sem futebol feminino ficará fora da

Libertadores a partir de 2019,” Globoesporte, January 26, 2017, http://
globoesporte.globo.com/futebol/noticia/2017/01/clube-sem-futebol
-feminino-ficara-fora-da-libertadores-partir-de-2019.html; “A partir de
2019, time sem futebol feminino não joga Libertadores,” Catracalivre,
January 28, 2017, https://catracalivre.com.br/geral/cidadania/indicacao/
partir-de-2019-time-sem-futebol-feminino-nao-joga-libertadores/. In
commenting on the development, however, Marco Cunha—head of
women’s football for the Brazilian Football Confederation—said that
“with just 5 percent of the resources of a men’s team, it is possible to
start a women’s team.”
26. “La Liga Femenina de Colombia será transmitida en Norteamérica,
Europa y Asia,” FeminasdeTacon.com, May 24, 2017, http://
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29. Lucia Mijares Martínez, interview, December 14, 2015.
30. Lucia Mijares Martínez, interview, December 14, 2015.
31. Lucia Mijares Martínez, interview, December 14, 2015.
32. Jorge González, “Liga MX Femenil, con 40% menos de asistencia en el
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“Liga MX Femenil revela impresionantes números de asistencia,”
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NOTES TO PAGES 260-265 325

33. Fabiola Vargas Curiel, interview, December 14, 2015.

34. Ruby Campos Ramirez, interview, December 12, 2015.
35. Mariana Gutiérrez Bernárdez, interview, December 14, 2015.
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37. AFP, “The dangers of being a female referee in Latin America,” May 6,
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INDEX

Adyragram, 102–103 Associação de Futebol Feminino do

Ahrens, Marlene, 45–47 Estado do Rio de Janeiro, 138
Alves do Nascimento, Elisa, 126 athleticism, 3, 9, 65, 77, 88; and
amateurism, 8, 48, 63, 78, 89, 193, beauty, 168
241; futboleras as amateurs, Audax Italiano (Chile), 37
129, 193, 204, 237, 241, 257, Azevedo, Fernando de, 65, 110
259–260
amateur sports, 14, 28, 31, 43, Badminton Football Club (Chile),
50, 100–101, 198, 203, 205 35, 41–42
Amazona, 34 Bahia, 114–115, 139
América Azul (Mexico), 203 Bahia Sport Club (SC Bahia,
América Crema (Mexico), 203 Brazil), 114–115
Aracén, Elvira, 208–209, 215–217, basketball, 9, 11, 29–31, 67, 81,
220, 225, 227, 240, 243–244, 98, 132, 197–200; as accept-
312n65, 313n97, 314n98 able for women, 21–22, 30–31,
Araguari Athletic Club (Brazil), 83–84, 101, 104, 106, 188–190,
107, 115, 119–121 266; in Argentina, 29; in Brazil,
Arauz, Vanessa, 256–257 62, 83–84, 93–94, 106, 109,
Areno, Waldemar, 106, 111 141; in Chile, 37, 40–45, 48–50,
Argentine Association of Women’s 54, 59; in Costa Rica, 174; in El
Football, 56 Salvador, 188–190; in Mexico,
Argentine Football Association 13–14, 152, 155, 157, 159–160,
(AFA), and poor treatment 162–163, 165–168, 195, 228,
of women players, 255 230; role of YMCA in diffusion
Asociación Deportiva Femenina of, 21–22, 29
(ADF), 37 beauty, 8, 15, 23, 25, 27, 33, 40,
Asociación Mexicana de Fútbol 44, 50, 67, 71–72, 77, 82,
Femenil (AMFF), 203, 209, 96–98, 104, 106, 111–112, 123,
213–214, 220, 224, 231 141–142, 149–150, 165, 168,
Asociación Nacional de Jugadores 171–172, 176–177, 179, 185,
de Fútbol Femenino (ANJUFF), 211, 229, 234
251–252, 263 beauty contests, 44, 54, 71
Asociación Santiago de Basket-Ball Belo Horizonte, 98; women’s foot-
Femenino, 42. See also Santiago ball in, 85, 88, 93, 107, 115,
Basketball Association 120–121, 123–124
Blankers-Koen, Fanny, 46

348
Index 349

Bolivia, 18, 20–21, 43, 59, 133, Ciudad Deportiva Magdalena

322n3 Mixhuca, 204, 221
Bonilla, Fernando, 170, Ciudad Juárez, 202;
173–176, 180, 186 women’s basketball in, 199;
Bonilla, Manuel, 170, 173, 174, women’s football in, 231
175–176, 180 class, 2, 4–6, 8, 11–12, 24, 26, 31,
Borrello, Carlos, 255–256 40–41, 43–44, 46, 48, 54, 61–63,
boxing, 48, 63, 92, 100, 115, 70, 73, 77, 84, 86, 91, 93, 108,
140, 150, 163, 168, 188, 195 110, 112–113, 118–119, 122,
Briceño Vásquez, Marta, 49 126, 141, 175, 215, 229, 234
Club América (Mexico), 203, 205,
Calles, Plutarco Elías, 151, 153– 207, 212, 224–225, 235, 265,
154, 300n16 313n93
Cañedo (de la Bárcena), Guillermo, Club Cabrera Gana (Chile), 42–43
186, 212, 216, 224, 231, 235, Club Cibeles (Guatemala), 183
313n93, 318n205 Club Colo Colo of Iquique
Cárdenas, Lázaro, 151–152, 160 (Chile), 48
Cariola, Ida de, 50–51 Club Deportivo Femenino
Catholicism, 7, 38, 68, 100, 154, (Guatemala), 183
158, 162, 170, 172; Catholic Clube Atletico Indiano (Brazil),
Church and education 154–155; 13, 130
and conservatism, 7, 100, 162, Club Gath y Chaves (Chile), 41
300n16; and opposition to Club Independiente (Mexico), 204,
women’s football, 38; and sup- 209–210
port of women’s football, 123; Club Universitario (Argentina), 56
Cavalcanti, Newton, 100–101, coaching, by women, 137,
104–105 138, 228, 232, 257, 261–262;
charity events, football matches as, informal, 227; women being
12, 116–117, 121–122, 130 pushed out of, 49
Chihuahua, 151, 158, 201; Colegio Superior de Señoritas
women’s basketball in, 199–200; (Costa Rica), 171–172
women’s football in, 243 Colo Colo (Santiago, Chile), 43,
Chilean Olympic Committee, 50–51
41, 46 Colombia, 6, 180, 184–186, 212,
Chilean Women’s Basketball 254, 257–258, 265
Association, 44 Compañía Chilena de Tabacos
circuses (Circo Irmãos Quierolo/ (Chile), 36
Circo Nerino/Circo Irmãos competition, international, 9, 15,
Garcia), 12, 69, 73–76, 80 59, 83 (tennis), 94, 183–185,
Cisneiros, José Augusto Cavalcânti, 192, 198–202, 213–219, 231;
117 governance, 45, 55, 197–198;
Ciudad Deportiva, 204, 209, 221, rivalries, 42; support and media
235, 243. See also Ciudad attention due to success in, 31,
Deportiva Magdalena Mixhuca 42–43, 45, 201–202, 233–234
350FUTBOLERA

Confederação Brasileiro de Cristero Rebellion, 153, 159, 194,

Desportos, 123, 293n62 300n16
Confederação Brasileira de Futebol Cristeros, 154. See also Cristero
(CBF, Brazilian Football Rebellion
Confederation), 13, 110, 134, Cuba, 45, 185, 216, 322n3
142, 144–145 Cuernavaca, women’s teams in,
Confederación Deportiva 211, 227, 231
Mexicana (CODEME, Mexican cultural missions, 13, 152, 154–
Confederation of Sports), 14, 160, 163
163–164, 168, 198, 209, 232, Curitiba, 74, 105, 114, 116, 134–
234, 244, 302n55 135; women’s football in, 107,
Confederation of North, Central 113–114, 116, 120, 122, 134
America, and Caribbean
Association Football da Gama Correia da Silva, José,
(CONCACAF), 247, 250, 262 115, 127, 291n18
Congreso Internacional de Mujeres damage, physical, as a result of
Interesadas en la Educación sport, 27, 47, 66, 97–98, 106,
Física Femenina, 49 112, 132, 164, 176–178, 180
CONMEBOL, 247, 250–252, 257, dance: as appropriate activity for
262–263; and low percentage girls and women, 12, 21–22, 24,
of women on committees, 264. 62, 65, 160–161, 163, 188;
See also South American classical, 66; in honor of
Football Confederation Deportivo Femenino de Costa
Consejo Nacional de Educación Rica, 177; in honor of Mexican
Física, 163, 302n55 women’s team, 221; in physical
Conselho Nacional de Desportos education teachers’ curriculum,
(CND), 13, 99–101, 107, 110– 49; as social activity in and
111, 114–118, 121, 124, 127, means of support for sports
130, 132–134, 140–141, 146 clubs, 53–54, 71, 79, 126
Copa América, 250 defeminization, 179, 228
Copa América Femenina, 248, Delicias del Sport (Chile), 36
250–252, 258; as qualifier for Deportivo Femenino de Costa Rica,
Pan-American Games, Olympics, 169–170, 174–178, 180–186;
and Women’s World Cup, 250 and tour of Mexico, 186
Copa Femenil Mexicano, 203 Díaz, Porifirio, 149–150. See also
Copa Libertadores, 251, 257 Porfiriato
Copa Libertadores Femenina, 249, Díaz Covarrubias, José, 149, 299n5
256–257 dictatorship, 37, 72, 123, 125–126,
Cordeiro, Antonio, 132 132, 171, 190
Corinthians (England), in do Amor Lima, Sisleide. See Sissi
Venezuela, 186 Domingues, Milene, 143–144
Costa Rican Women’s Association Duffau, María Esther (“La
of Football, 185 Raulito”), 51–52
Index 351

fans of women’s football, 79, 87,

Ecuador, 18, 184, 254, 256–257, 93, 114–115, 128, 142, 181,
307n, 322n3 192, 209–210, 213, 219, 222,
Educação Physica, 110 224, 231, 233, 239, 259–260,
El Gráfico, 19, 24–25, 39, 59, 71, 262, 264–265; hostility of,
247, 249 toward players, 34, 48; objec-
El Heraldo de México, 205–211, tification of players by, 248;
213, 216, 218, 220, 222, and social media, 246; women,
224–232, 234, 236–237, 239, 48, 50–55, 59, 62–63, 71, 76,
241–242 78–79, 126, 203, 211–212
El Mercurio, 36 fan violence, 51–52, 55, 91, 122,
El Sol de México, 212, 215, 217– 142; against women players, 123;
219, 221, 235–236, 242 jokes about, against women, 34
Endler, Christine, 251–252 Federação Goiana de Futebol, 121
Escuela Nacional de Educación Federação Mineira de Futebol, 121
Física, 204, 208; and football Federação Paranaense de Futebol,
league of, 203, 209 113–114, 138
Esporte Clube Emabaré (Brazil), 124 Federação Paulista de Futebol,
Esporte Clube Radar (Brazil). See 126, 134
Radar Federación Chilena de Basket-Ball
Estadio, 19, 33, 42–43, 45, 48, Femenino, 42
50, 55 Federación Mexicana de Fútbol
Estadio Azecta, 129, 192, 209, (FMF, Mexican Football
224, 231–233, 236–237, 239, Federation), 193, 203–204,
316n162 212, 216, 219, 223–224, 235,
Estadio Jalisco, 222, 224, 232–233, 318n205; and efforts to grow
236–237, 316n162 women’s football, 258–259, 261;
Estádio Pacaembu, 61, 88, 98, 118 and efforts to suppress women’s
Esto, 202, 225, 242 football, 15, 221–222, 231–232,
Estrella Polar (Brazil), 42 239–240, 242
eugenics, 11, 20, 64–65, 67–68, 110 Federación Mexicana de Fútbol
Eva de Perón (Costa Rica), 182, Femenil (Mexican Federation of
184–185 Women's Football, FMFF), 232,
Excelsior, 235, 237, 242 235, 241–242
exclusion of women and girls Federation Internationale
from sports, 1, 15, 19, 63, 66, de Football Association
100–101, 103–107, 109–110, (International Federation of
113–117, 119–121, 133, 162 Association Football, FIFA), 10,
13, 55, 124, 129, 138, 143–144,
Fábrica y Maestranza del Ejército 186, 204, 213, 219, 221–224,
(Famae), 43–44 235, 247, 256, 261, 263; bars
factories and sports, 29, 36, 43, FMF from organizing 1971
50, 92–93 Women’s World Championship,
352FUTBOLERA

231–232; corruption in, 251– Financial Assistance Program,

252; and funding of women’s 249–250
football, 249–250; and meetings Flapper, 8, 34, 82, 159, 167, 171
about women’s football, 212, Flor de Chile, 36
221, 231 Flor del Sport, 36
Federazione Internazionale Europea fragility, women’s supposed, 12,
Football Femminile (FIEFF, 33, 48, 150, 245; as a quality of
Federation of International and beauty, 71
European Women's Football), Fray Mocho, 28–29
15, 192, 213, 224–225, 231– Fuzeira, José, 98, 102–105,
232, 234 288n148
femininity, 3, 5, 11, 38, 78, 96,
130, 145, 168, 172, 229; Gaete, Eliana, 45, 47
changes in ideal of, 8; as critique Gartón, Gaby, 256
of male football, 110; doubts gender, 2–4, 7–8, 29, 32, 41, 48,
about women athletes’, 30, 143, 61–62, 72, 82, 91, 94, 96,
176–177; “protection” of, 82; 108, 110–112, 116, 125, 141,
sports to enhance, 65, 112, 150; 146–147, 195, 204; differences,
sports and damage to, 21, 104, 2–3, 23, 66, 125, 150, 170, 191,
143, 159, 179 232, 266; equality, discussion of,
feminism, 7, 9, 37–38, 40–41, 54, 38, 142, 146, 164, 229; history
70, 95, 141, 146, 171, 191, 194, of, 4, 10; and mixed sports, 91,
196–197, 209, 227, 266. See 157, 159; norms, 59, 70, 103,
also feminists 116, 120, 140, 147, 156, 159,
feminist(s), 39–40, 72, 133, 140; 173, 191, 206–207, 228–230,
and interest in sport, 40, 133, 266; and physical education,
140–141, 146, 175; organiza- 47–48
tions, 5, 40, 95, 146, 266; gender-differentiated physical
magazines, 13; scholarships, 4 education curriculum, 109, 111,
FIFA Forward, 249–250, 257 150, 155, 157, 161–162, 191
FIFA Women’s Invitation gender verification testing, 245
Tournament, 138, 143, 245 Genst, Henri, 21
FIFPro, 251, 263 godmothers, 50–51, 53, 145, 205
Filardo, Roseli Cordeiro. See Rose Gol y Gol, 48, 50
do Rio grassroots development of sports,
finances: exploitation of women’s 101, 108, 163, 193, 202–203,
football, 117, 193, 204, 241– 234, 247, 260; and media, 263;
242; and lack of support for organizing, 262
women’s football, 1, 56, 58, Gremler, Juana, 17, 20, 32, 58
100, 128, 216, 255, 264; and Guanajuato: and women’s football,
potential of women’s football, 243; Costa Rican tour in, 186
89, 93, 114–115, 118, 121, 128, Guatemala, 180, 322n3; Costa
135, 265 Rican teams Deportivo
Index 353

Femenino and La Libertad International Equestrian

travel to, 183–184 Association, 34, 198
Gutiérrez Bernárdez, Mariana, International Olympic Committee
260–261 (IOC), 10, 198, 245
gymnastics, 12, 20, 22, 24, 49, Isis POP, 140
62–65, 74, 82, 106, 110, 149–
150, 156–157, 160–164, 166, Jornal dos Sports, 65, 81, 85–91,
170–172, 187, 189, 197; as 93, 100–104
appropriate activity for women Junta Nacional de Cultura
and girls, 12, 20, 22, 24, 62, Física, 173
65, 106, 110, 150, 163–164;
Prussian, 21–22; rhythmic, 64– Korte, Clara, 17, 64
65, 157, 160, 163, 172; in school Kretschmer, Betty, 46–47
curriculum, 22, 49, 64, 149–150,
156, 161–162, 170–172, 187; La Gorda Matosas, 52. See also
Swedish, 20, 22, 32, 65, 172 Luján, Haydée
La Libertad, 174, 182–185
Haro, Jaime de, 234, 241 La Nación, 177, 181, 185–186
Haro Oliva, Antonio, 234 La Prensa Libre, 177–180
Havelange, João, 137, 226 La Raulito, 51–52. See also Duffau,
Heilborn, Cecilia, 89 María Esther
heterosexuality, 3, 30–31, 78, 96, La Raulito (film), 52
130, 211, 249; assumed, of male Las Atómicas, 48
athletes, 30, 71, 211; defense of, Las Dinamítas, 48
141, 144; women athletes Las Pioneras, 58
and threats to, 99, 112, 248 Leite de Castro, Dr., 97–98, 106
homophobia, 4, 30, 52, 139, Lenk, Maria, 83, 89, 101
248, 252 lesbianism, 7, 30–31, 78, 99, 141,
homosexuality, 70–71, 82, 96, 139; 176; football as a “breeding
assumed, of women and girl ground” for, 248
athletes, 30, 112, 128, 252. Ley Fundamental de Educación, 170
See also lesbianism Ley General de Educación Común,
Honduras, 183, 322n3 170–171
horseback riding, 34, 62, 101, 158 Liga América, 192, 203, 205, 209,
212, 214, 216, 231
Independiente (Costa Rica), 186 Liga de Cabeza de Juárez, 244
injury. See damage, physical, as Liga de Xochimilco, 203
a result of sport Liga Escolar de Deportes, 42
Instituto de Educação Barão do Liga Femenil de Fútbol
Rio Branco, 125 Mexicana, 212
Instituto de Educação Physica Liga Feminista, 171
das Mulheres, 64 Liga Iztaccíhuatl, 203–204, 221,
International Basketball Federation 229, 231
(FIBA), 45 Liga Kotex, 261
354FUTBOLERA

Liga MX Femenil, 258–260, 262– exercise, 25, 39, 65; and women’s
263, 265 football, 32, 47, 55, 89–90, 104,
Ling, Henrik, 20–21, 32 106, 121, 129, 140, 145, 175–
Lira, Eurico, 136–139, 143 176, 185, 204, 206, 213–214,
López, Hortensia, 202, 215 219, 223, 230, 233–234, 239
López Ramírez, Sara, 42 medicine, 82, 216; and displace-
Los Sports 33, 37, 39, 41, 71 ment of women, 58–59; experts
Luján, Haydée, 51–52. See also in, and lack of knowledge of,
La Gorda Matosas women’s bodies, 18, 23, 27, 66,
140; experts in, and physical
Madame Lessa Alves, 85 education, 18, 64; experts in,
madrinas, 50. See also godmothers and sexuality, 31, 78, 82, 245;
Manoel Pereira, 81, 85 and opposition to women’s
manuals, physical education, 19, sport, 26–28, 66, 97–98, 105–
48, 160–162; lack of gender 106, 132; professionalization
differentiation in, 161–162; and of sports, 9, 23, 26, 65; sports,
suggestions of fragility, 48 and maternal health, 23, 27;
Marimacho, 41, 176, 248, 278n78. and women doctors, 62.
See also lesbianism See also public health
masculinity, 31, 82, 93; football as Meléndez, Victor Manuel, 232, 241
way to create, 34, 67, 91, 194, Méndez, Natacha, 44
248; as marker of true fandom, Mello, Ingeborg, 28
52; and national identity, 8, 91, Mexican Olympic Committee, 199
194, 198; and nature of sports, migration, 147, 153, 197, 210
67, 176 Mijares Martínez, Lucia, 259, 261
masculinization and sports, 31, 41, military: and gender, 10, 19–21,
66–67, 103, 105, 111–112, 132, 23, 100, 111, 124–125, 130,
179; efforts to debunk myth of, 187; and increasing violence of
137, 143, 228 torcidas, 125–127; and physical
Match, 37 education, 7, 19–20, 32, 64, 68,
Mayne Nicholls, Harold, 251 111, 124, 150, 152, 187, 190;
media, 12, 15, 31, 37, 44–45, and sports, 10, 19, 37, 63–64,
52–53, 63, 82, 87, 99, 108, 123, 100, 111, 124, 132, 150
166, 196, 264; covering Second Millard, Adriana, 46
Women’s World Championship, Minas Gerais, 76, 100; women’s
236–237, 242; and femininity, football in, 85, 90, 107, 115,
33, 67, 109, 126–127, 167, 171; 116, 118–121, 123–124
images of sportswomen in, 24, Montañao, Olga, 229–230
59, 144, 167, 200–201, 227, Montaño, Patricia, 229–230
246, 247, 263; male domination Morales, José, 214–215, 314n98
of, 59, 141; objectification of
women in, 144, 263; sports, National Institute of Physical
women in, 248; and women’s Education (Argentina), 22, 27
Index 355

National Institute of Physical Partido Revolucionario

Education (Chile), 49 Institucional (PRI), 147,
National Women’s Soccer League 194–196
(United States), 258–259 Pérez, Efraín, 204, 212–215, 224,
Nava, Pepe (José Maria Navasal), 235, 241, 314n98
46–47 Peru, 6, 17, 19, 57, 265, 322n3;
neighborhood clubs, 29, 41, 43, 86, and Famae in, 43; Mexican
122, 143 football team in, 233, 236
Nicaragua, 183–184 physical education, 3, 7, 9, 14,
normal schools, 32, 157, 159–160, 17–24, 47, 49, 58, 62–63, 64,
191, 284n38, 301n26; curricula 74, 83, 96, 99, 101, 106, 111,
and activities in, segregated by 140, 150, 154, 156, 158–159,
sex, 49, 155; sports and physical 161–162, 164, 166, 171–173,
education in, 34, 120, 155, 159, 186, 193, 195, 208, 265, 274n7,
173, 187, 189 304n84; and basketball, 41–42,
Northern Nomads, 127, 186 45, 165–166; and beauty, 15,
27, 39–40, 59, 66–67, 96,
objectification of women, 33, 44, 112, 150, 165, 168, 188; and
106, 122, 129, 144, 248, 263 differences across countries, 2;
Obregón, Álvaro, 151–152, 154; and eugenics, 20, 58, 64, 68,
and creation of SEP, 153–154 110–111, 149, 154, 157, 163,
ODECA, 182; in Venezuela, 186 173, 187, 189; and expansion of
O Estado de São Paulo, 65, state, 2–3, 8, 13–15, 17, 21–22,
115, 124 32, 68, 99, 110, 150–154,
Ovaciones, 225, 236, 242 190–191; and football for girls,
Oyarzún, Georgina, 44 34, 49, 66, 112, 117; girls’ and
women’s ideas about, 3, 32, 40;
Panama, 180–181, 322n3 and misconceptions of girls and
Pan-American Conference on women, 21, 23–24, 47, 66, 111,
Physical Education, 106, 150, 164, 179; and monitoring
290n180 of girls’, 11, 23–24; and rein-
Pan-American Congress on forcement of gender differences,
Physical Education, 28. See also 3, 10–12, 17, 18, 23, 34, 47,
Pan-American Conference on 58–59, 64–65, 82, 108–109,
Physical Education 111–112, 150, 155, 157, 159–
Pan-American Games, 28, 45, 141, 160, 164, 191; relationship of,
144, 195, 198–199, 201, 250, with organized sports, 19; and
255, 278n94 training of teachers, 21, 27, 32,
Paraguay, 19, 254, 257, 322n3 49, 111, 155–156, 162, 189,
Paraná, women’s football in, 113– 191, 195; and transnational
116, 120, 122, 134 relationships, 18–19, 22–23,
Paraná Esporte Clube 27, 49, 59, 65, 147; and volley-
(Curitiba), 134 ball, 84; and the YMCA, 22
356FUTBOLERA

Piñeiro, Haydée, 42 referees for women’s football,

political cartoons, images of 134, 218; scarcity of, 203;
women in, 34, 262 and violence, 142
Porfiriato, 149–150, 299n5 Retamal, Osvaldo, 45
professionalization of men’s foot- Revista Brasileira de Educação
ball, 28, 37, 66; and violence, 91 Física, 96, 112
Progresso Femenino, 36 Reyes Pinto, Amelia, 45
public health, 157, 160, 173, 182; Rio, Rose do, 134, 136–140, 146,
and debates about women’s 296n115
physical activity, 12, 30, 58, 62, Rio de Janeiro, 12, 17, 65, 81, 90,
150, 160; as a field dominated 97–98, 100, 140, 144; women’s
by men, 59; and lack of knowl- football in, 74, 85, 87–90, 121,
edge of women’s physiology, 11, 124, 136, 138, 139, 142–143,
83, 178, 265; and need to super- 265
vise women’s activities, 97, 108, Rodebaugh, Andrea, 260–263
178; women’s football as threat Rodríguez Alemán, Mercedes,
to, 15, 61, 79, 99, 145, 178–179 243–244, 260
Puebla, women’s football in, 227, Romero Brest, Enrique, 23
231; Club Universidad de, 204; Rothfeld, Iona, 251–252
Costa Rican tour in, 186 rough sports, 13, 100, 109; as
appropriate for men’s develop-
Queiróz, Anna Amélia de, 76–77 ment, 65; basketball as, 45
Quintero, Manelich, 205, 211, 213, rowing, 62, 69, 78,101, 188
216, 224–225, 236, 241–242 Rubio, Maria Eugenia “La Peque,”
Quiróz Alvarez, Alice, 175, 305n97 217, 220, 224, 226, 282n166,
317n179
race, 2, 4, 6, 11, 23, 39–40, 63–64, rural schools, 153–157, 161
84, 91, 108, 110, 112–113, 117,
148–149, 154; and mexicanidad, Salvador, 65, 139; women’s
202, 215 football in, 114–115, 118, 122.
racism, 4, 107, 148, 266 See also Bahia
Radar (Esporte Clube Radar), 136– samba schools, 65
140, 142–143, 145, 254 Santiago Basketball Association, 45
radio, 8, 33, 64, 177, 264; São Paulo, 65, 68, 95, 98, 116,
broadcasting women’s football, 118, 133–134, 137, 143;
140; and exercises for women, women’s football in, 80, 83,
24; interviewing women 88–90, 93, 98, 115, 122,
players, 227 124–125, 130, 135, 146, 265
Rambaudi, Marco, 225, 231, 234 SC Feminino Vasco da Gama, 80,
Ramos, Hilda, 44 90, 297n
Recife, 65, 132 Secretaría de Educación Pública
referees, women, 228; and (SEP), 13, 153–155, 158, 160
sexism, 261 sensory mobility, 64
Index 357

sexism, 4, 30, 59, 109, 139, 141, swimming, 8, 11, 19, 22, 28, 31,
245, 248; in basketball, 45, 50; 37, 40, 49–50, 59, 62, 83, 92,
and coaching, 252; in football, 97–98, 101, 103, 109–110, 150,
133, 142, 145, 232, 253; and 158, 162, 177, 188, 190, 195,
foundations of physical educa- 197–198
tion, 63, 111; and media, 142,
238, 248; in sporting institutions, Tafarel, Marcia, 254
45–46, 133, 222 Tamaulipas, 210, 243
sexuality, 14–15, 30–31, 52, Team Talca, 34–35
70, 77–78, 82, 96, 112, 128, Teixeira, Semiramis Alves,
130, 141, 144, 158, 197, 211, 127, 146
248–249 tennis, 8, 11, 21, 25, 31, 40,
sexualization, 105, 128, 211 59, 62, 64, 67, 81–84, 92,
Sissi, 139, 145, 245, 254 101, 106–107, 155, 157, 177,
“social question,” 20, 65 188, 190, 195, 197, 229, 266;
socios, 53, 175. See also sports and class, 40–41, 109–110;
clubs, women in and mixed-gender competition,
Sonora, 157; women’s football 41, 91
in, 243 Tovar, Guadalupe (Lupita), 220,
Soria Terrazas, Joaquín, 221–222 240, 244; in “Beauties
South American Congress of of Sports,” 229–230
Women’s Basketball, 43 track and field, 45–47, 49, 59, 62,
South American Football 81, 83, 89, 100, 106, 161, 165–
Confederation. See 166, 179, 190, 195, 197, 201,
CONMEBOL 209, 216, 228, 266
spectacle, 14–15, 66, 74, 90, transgression, 10; carnival and
114, 117, 122, 134, 147, 153; circus as form of, 69, 73, 75;
women’s sports as, 12, 36, 75, of gender norms, 59; of moral
80, 82, 86, 106, 112, 127, 178, norms, 128; of sexual norms,
186, 213, 234, 236, 238 78, 128; women’s athletic
sponsorship, 137, 222, 225, activity as, 10, 91, 212–213
245, 247, 253, 257–258, 261, Turin, 15, 58, 128, 207, 213,
264–265 219, 223
sports clubs, women in, 36–37,
40–41, 50–54, 62, 64, 66, UAI Urquiza, 256
69, 71, 79–81; and erasure of, Unión Española, 37, 53
from record, 53; used to combat United States, 137, 169, 172, 196,
feminism, 40–41. See also socios 200, 215, 229, 253; track and
sports medicine, 9, 23, 26–27, 65, field in, 45; women’s basket-
97. See also medicine; physical ball in, 44, 162, 199; women’s
education; public health football in, 22, 55, 139, 252,
sportswear, 42, 83, 114, 197, 216 255, 258
358FUTBOLERA

Universitario Tabú, 41–42 World Championships of Women’s

Uruguay, 10, 21, 23, 27, 43, 65, Football (1971), 55–58, 129,
66, 79–81, 118, 132, 252, 192–193, 204, 227, 231–242;
255, 257, 263 and debates about compensa-
tion, 240–241; impact of, 242–
Vargas, Alicia “La Pele,” 216, 243; play after, 243–244
224, 226, 239, 244
Vargas, Fabiola, 260–263 Young Men’s Christian Association
Vargas, Gétulio, 61, 68, 72, 88, (YMCA), 20–22, 29, 84, 151,
91, 95, 98–100, 104, 110 199, 299n8, 300n8
Vargas Neto, Manoel do Young Women’s Christian
Nascimento, 104–105 Association (YWCA), 84, 160,
Vasconcelos, José, 153 302n42
Venezuela, 57, 127, 184; women’s
football in, 186, 257, 265
Vera, Antonio, 54–55
Veracruz, 312n65; Costa Rican
tour in, 186; women’s football
in, 227, 231, 243
Villanueva, Azucena, 37
volleyball, 9, 13–14, 31, 37, 48, 49,
62, 81, 83, 84, 93, 94, 101, 104,
106, 152, 155, 157, 160, 161,
162, 166, 188, 195, 197–200,
209, 266

whiteness, 33, 67, 72, 107, 128

women’s football leagues:
in Argentina, 56, 232, 256, 263;
in Brazil, 83, 90, 92–93, 265;
in Colombia, 257–258;
in Costa Rica, 185;
in Ecuador, 257;
in Mexico, 192–193, 202–213,
223–226, 231–232, 243–244,
258–260;
in Panama, 181
women’s national championship,
Mexico, 242–243
World Championships of Women’s
Football (1970), 13, 128, 213–
223, 227
Index 359
360FUTBOLERA