Comments from the editor-in-chief

Abstract

In this issue’s Forum section, in Gender Bias in Sport Media, Mueller and Grace assess national Football League media content, from a gendered perspective, through an examination of Twitter posts from the NFL’s Carolina Panthers. The initial data suggests a stereotypical approach and a possible failure of sports bodies to engage with their diverse audience. In our regular articles, in Being women in a male preserve, Pitti looks at the gendered characteristics of contemporary sports audiences, focusing on the phenomenon of female ultras or ‘professional’ football fans. Drawing on research conducted on Italian football, this paper offers an analysis of female participation in communities of organised supporters. The paper pays particular attention to their perception of the existing gender differences and how female ultras explain inequalities on the basis of ‘natural’ differences between men and women. Existing patterns of male dominance are supported by female fans’ own discourses and performance of their gender identity in the ‘male preserve’. Rather than questioning male dominance and gender hierarchies, female supporters’ efforts appear aimed at being recognized as ultras ‘despite being women’. In Gender Trouble on the German Soccer Field, Kaelberer studies soccer as a social sphere for the expression of masculinity and ideological battles over gender roles in Germany. This paper discusses whether the growth of women’s soccer can challenge hegemonic masculinity in an area that represents an important economic aspect of consumer culture and social identity. There are reasons to remain skeptical about the subversive potential of women’s soccer and the author argues that the unholy trinity of the sports-media-business alliance is the root cause of the limitations women’s soccer faces in challenging hegemonic masculinity. In When two become one, Karioris and Allan seek to examine the limits of men and masculinity studies and the questions currently disregarded in this research field. In particular they are struck by the volume of ‘sex negative’ research and this paper seeks to think about ‘sex positive’ visions of men’s studies. In Masculinities and emotional expression in UK servicemen, McAllister, Callaghan and Fellin look at the discourses of military servicemen which position them as more prone to psychological damage but reluctant to seek assistance, because of the culture of ‘toughness’, which excludes ‘feminine’ characteristics like emotionality. This is seen as a barrier to military personnel seeking help and this article presents interviews with military and ex-military personnel. The authors argue that the construct of military masculinity is more complex than a simple exclusion of the ‘feminine’ and the ‘emotional’ and explore how the masculine notions of military solidarity and ‘brotherhood’ create a ‘safe’ masculine space within which men could share their emotional experiences while recognising its constraints. InMigrant women breadwinners in Italy during the crisis, De Rosa studies gender gaps and the labour market in Europe after the economic crisis during which the number of families with a single wageearner, in particular female-headed households, rose. The differential impact of the crisis on the male and female labour force was an effect of the ‘gendered’ and ‘racialized’ structure of the labour market. Occupational concentration in care and reproductive work, and the public sector, protected women from unemployment. Adopting an intersectional approach this paper assesses how the structure of the Italian labour market has changed, and to what extent the increase in female breadwinner families, especially among migrants, hides intersectional inequalities by gender and citizenship. JOURNAL OF GENDER STUDIES 2019, VOL. 28, NO. 3, 245–246 https://doi.org/10.1080/09589236.2019.1580024