The online edition of Australia’s paper, The Age, reports on research inspired by Australian sociologist R. W. Connell, examining why some women are drawn to ‘footballers’ — otherwise known as soccer players to those of us stateside. The article proposes that women’s attraction to footballers is “far deeper than the mere lure of sinew and tiny shorts” suggesting a link to the Freudian concept of cathexis. Freud’s idea was adapted to explain gender order by Connell and has inspired another Australian researcher, Nikki Wedgewood, to investigate this concept in her work on sports. This recent research from Wedgewood, who works as a research fellow in the University of Syney’s health sciences program, will be published in the upcoming issue of the Journal of Sport & Social Issues. In this article, Wedgewood argues that “it is the embodiment of male power and ‘hegemonic masculinity’ that sexually attracts some women to elite footballers.”
It’s not accidental who we fall in love with and who we’re attracted to, and especially where you’re talking about elite athletes,” [Wedgewood] said. “It’s not as simple as women wanting to be associated with glamour and money and get that vicarious fame, although that can play a role as well, but there’s something even deeper than that.”
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