Saving Women from Themselves: The Prohibition of Women's Football in Brazil, 1941-1981

The Brazilian ban on women’s soccer, implemented in 1941 and lifted completely in 1981, represents one of the few examples of official prohibition of women’s sport in the twentieth century.  Today, Brazilian journalists and soccer fans do not place importance on the legal prohibition of women’s soccer, assuming that it affected very few women or attracted little notice.  However, recent research suggests that the ban was a reaction to the rapid diffusion of women’s soccer in the 1930s. This presentation explores the long-term significance of the ban on gender relations and women’s lives.  It also examines the role of racial and class hierarchies in shaping women’s opportunities in Brazilian sport during the mid-twentieth century.

Prominent doctors, journalists, and local government officials railed against the perceived sexual promiscuity of women soccer players, as well as the supposed damage they inflicted on their fertility.  They framed the prohibition of soccer as necessary to protect women from self-inflicted moral and physical destruction. Women athletes confronted the police in their club headquarters and on the field. Despite their resistance, women athletes were effectively forced to disband their teams throughout the 1940s and 50s. This presentation will suggest ways in which the prohibition further excluded women from union and local politics.  Moreover, it argues that the ban sent a powerful message to women athletes that the male establishment, both in the national sports organization and in government, would use military force if necessary to circumscribe their leisure activities.