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Women in Soccer: Europe & North America

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Women in Soccer: Europe & North America
Soccer, or football as it is known in Europe, is renowned for being the world’s most popular and fastest growing sport. Across the world multiple cultures engage in the participation of soccer. It has become a globally enjoyed activity, whether it is being played in the streets or on a pitch everyone in some way has taken to the phenomenon of soccer. Within any sport there are always areas to which improvement is needed, one area that this paper will shine light on is the opportunities women have within soccer. Women have come far in making developments in equality in most parts of the world. However there is still a visible distinction in equality, especially when looked at within sport. Sport develops differently dependant on the culture it is situated in and the same goes for the equality and opportunity given to women. Different cultures have progressed differently and many maintain different viewpoints on women’s participation within sport. Using the structure of soccer this paper will look into how two different cultures view and carry out gender, specifically related to how their culture previously developed ideas of gender.
In order to look specifically at how gender roles are a creation of culture I will contrast women’s soccer in North America versus Europe, and how the roles of females are created differently within each culture. This framework allows me to divulge into the much deeper issues of what influences gender practice, how it is performed and how ideas of gender are culturally dependant. The culture we live in influences our views and experiences of life which will be discussed further in more detail throughout the paper. Issues that I will focus on and draw examples from based on how the gender differences are created are economically, socially, and demographically. The ideas surrounding gender in women’s soccer differ in Europe to North America based on individual cultural, economical, and social influences. These influences feed into



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