In the Mirror of the Past: A History of Women’s Football in the Republic of Turkey

Football in Turkey has a framework that, by the discourses it generates in the social and cultural spheres, creates, and reinforces hegemonic masculinity. In Turkey, newspapers and magazines have produced discourses aimed at alienating women from football. Since the establishment of the Republic of Turkey in 1923, very few news articles about women playing football have been published in the newspapers and magazines, and those that have been published work to distance women from football. However, from 1960 onward, news about women’s football slowly began to find its place more frequently in newspapers. In this study, we assess the history of women’s football in the Republic of Turkey, which has a 100-year history, considering developments that ensued from the past to the present. Newspapers and magazines were analyzed to offer an interpretation of the development of women’s football in Turkey, as these media serve as important sources to comprehend how women were distanced from a field perceived as a bastion of hegemonic masculinity, such as football, in traditional societies. Despite the number of news articles about women’s football in Turkish newspapers increasing over the years, we conclude that women’s football did not progress over the course of a century in Turkey and still remains very much in the background.