Gender Violence in Football: Shared Stories by Women Referees from Sinaloa

Abstract

The growing incorporation of women into the Mexican sports sphere has revealed a panorama of gender violence where athletes experience violence directed and sustained in their conditions as women with the purpose of excluding and limiting their participation in this social sphere. This research aims to know the experiences of gender violence that women referees from Sinaloa, Mexico have suffered during their entry, promotion and permanence. This research has a qualitative approach and an exploratory-descriptive scope, applied to the analysis of the case study of Sinaloan women who professionally practice soccer refereeing, the instrument used was the in-depth interview applied to ten participants. The results obtained express that female referees in Sinaloa have experienced gender violence verbally through insults and sexist comments, as well as workplace discrimination and sexual harassment that serve as patriarchal mechanisms of exclusion, subjugation and limitation in the sports field.