Extensionist interventions between children and football: the experience in a Peña of Boca

Abstract

The following poster aims to share the experiences carried out in the Extension Project “Deconstructing masculinities. Soccer as a scenario of dispute. ”, Developed in a Peña de Boca, with the participation of different academic units of the UNLP and with the co-participation of the gender area of ​​said platense institution. We set out to generate conditions of possibility to denature gender stereotypes that produce androcentrist, discriminatory and violent practices in the field of football in order to contribute to the production of non-violent and egalitarian senses.              

The gender area, called the Women's Secretariat, was created in 2017 within the Peña as a proposal to promote the active participation of women and the empowerment of a meeting space that summons all members. Promoting meeting places that enable the sharing of thoughts and affectations led to the visibility of the daily violence suffered in the field of football. Progressively, members of the Secretariat identified themselves with the postulates of feminism. From there, the Women's Secretariat became a space that seeks to make interventions aimed at the deconstruction of naturalized violent practices and speeches and the promotion of new ways of inhabiting the Peña, contemplating that football is the organizer of hegemonic masculinity and field from which women have been materially and symbolically excluded throughout history (Tajer, 1998).            On this occasion we share a series of interventions carried out within the framework of the Extension Project under the slogan “Stereotype-Free Children”. In La Peña, historically there are two or three events for boys and girls per year: "Christmas Bostera", "Children's Day", "Easter Forest". However, the novelty that the intervention introduced from the Project consisted of mainstreaming the gender perspective to institutional dynamics.              

In this case, we will describe how the slogan “Free Children” has impacted in the planning of these children's events. First, it was proposed not to make a binary division in activities, gift deliveries and games. There was a marked gender division: gifts with yellow paper, space for paintings, drawings and makeup for girls; and gifts with blue paper, competition for penalties and football match for children. On the other hand, the actions carried out within the framework of the Project promoted: mixed penalties, artistic make-up for children, drawing space that includes cartoons of women.