Football and Hegemonic Masculinity
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The National Football Legacy: How American Football Embodies Hegemonic Masculinity
Alexander Kim
Department of Sociology, Grinnell College
SOC-111: Introduction to Sociology
Dr. Jennifer Snook
October 11, 2022
Football and Hegemonic Masculinity
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Abstract
“Winning isn’t everything, it’s the only thing.” - Vince Lombardi
Vince Lombardi is widely regarded as one of the greatest coaches in the history of the
National Football League (NFL), if not the greatest, for his historic winning record and
leadership abilities. His legacy in American football has been permanently enshrined through the
naming of the Super Bowl trophy (the Vince Lombardi Trophy), which is the ultimate prize for
any NFL team during a given season. However, as his quote on winning and the iconization of
his legacy for his ability to win suggest, the game of football1 possesses an inherent nature of
winning and, more importantly, dominating. Therefore, analysis of football, which is rife with
examples of toxic formulations of masculinity and how to be a man, presents a lens in which one
can examine the greater society in question. The desire for physical and mental domination
intrinsic to football perfectly defines hegemonic masculinity, and a sociological examination of
the culture of football further establishes how these men have been socialized to perform their
gender in such violent manners.
Keywords:
Hegemony,
Hegemonic,
Masculinity,
Patriarchy,
Homophobia,
Heterocentrism, Heterosexism, Sexuality, Gender as Performative
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While football has a global connotation of “soccer,” here it exclusively refers to American football.
Football and Hegemonic Masculinity
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The National Football Legacy: How American Football Embodies Hegemonic Masculinity
On October 10, 2022, in a divisional rivalry game between the Kansas City Chiefs and
the Las Vegas Raiders, star wide receiver Davante Adams attempted to catch a pass from the
edge of the sideline, just barely failing to maintain control of the ball before going out of bounds.
The play, which would have put the Raiders in an advantageous field position and potentially
won them the game, was overruled and the game ended up going in favor of the Chiefs by a
single point. Adams, despite his stellar performance on the night, refused to partake in the typical
sportsmanship gesture of greeting the opposing team in the middle of the field, instead heading
towards his locker room. On the way, a frustrated Adams pushed an authorized cameraman on
his left to the ground. Just an hour before, in the first half of the game, Troy Aikman, a Hall of
Fame quarterback with three Super Bowl titles turned color commentator, reacted on primetime
television to a highly controversial penalty call against the Chiefs, stating, “My hope is the
competition committee looks at this in the next set of meetings and we take the dresses off”
(Aikman).
History
Such events are commonplace in the NFL, where every member of the organization tries
to emulate the expected machismo, which stems from the deep-seeded tradition of masculinity
linked to football, dating back to the 19th century. In addition to the prevalence of war during the
nascent ages of football and the similarity in ages of those who would be conscripted and those
who played football, media coverage utilized, and continues to utilize, buzz words, where
sportswriters would parallel the gridiron to the battlefield. Terms include “dropping bombs” for
long passes, “blitz” - which comes directly from the German term “blitzcrieg” from World War
Football and Hegemonic Masculinity
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II, meaning highly concentrated bursts of force to break an opponent’s defenses - for utilizing
extra players (concentrated bursts of force) to break an opponent’s offensive line (their defenses),
and “trenches” for the area where offensive and defensive linemen tackle each other.
The constant portrayal of football as a simulation of war, where pundits and journalists
would glamorize the strategizing of opposing teams and the violence of the sport, provides the
foundation for the hegemonic masculine undertones to the sport of football. Beginning with the
labeling process of football jargon, the media’s conceptualization of football as an allegory for
war created an image of the NFL: violent and parallel to the hegemonic, militaristic identity of
the United States. Domination was and is the end goal of any successful football team, which
directly contributes to the dominance that hegemony implies. The creation of this hegemonic
identity for the NFL organization undoubtedly influenced individuals by constantly exposing
them to NFL players: physically dominant men who often engaged in homophobic and
promiscuous behavior. This form of socialization through media and entertainment contributes to
a cycle of reinforcing toxic masculinity and upholding the performance of hyper-masculinity.
The NFL continues to influence the behaviors of individuals across U.S. society, where
football is the most viewed sport with more than 17.1 million weekly viewers in the United
States alone. With a staggering five percent of all Americans consuming football on a weekly
basis, the NFL has become ritualistic for many Americans. The traditions associated with
football - alcohol and tailgates, parties often filled with barbeque and more alcohol - all reinforce
this patriarchal American identity where football is a fundamental part of life for its
representation of highly regarded “masculine” values and domination. Further, the behaviors that
football provokes - debauchery, its accompanying raucousness, and violence - all provide
credence to the amount of leeway society provides to men under the pretense of ideologies like
Football and Hegemonic Masculinity
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“boys will be boys,” which uphold the structural hierarchy of gender and allow men to retain
their place at the top.
Key Figures
Adams and Aikman, two of the most recognizable names in football, further consolidate
the modern existence of hegemonic masculinity and patriarchal conceptions within the NFL. As
members of the NFL organization, both possess significant prestige and status. Adams, who
boasts the eighth highest jersey sales across the NFL, is a modern-day superstar with a
significantly likely presence in youth consumption of the NFL. The wide receiver position,
arguably the most flashy and publicity-garnering besides quarterback, further adds to the
popularity of Adams. Having children and fans of the sport consume portrayals of violence on
and off the field, where Adams at one point slammed his helmet multiple times against a bench,
certainly plays into the narrative that football and violence go hand-in-hand. Although Adams
tweeted an apology shortly thereafter, he managed to place some of the blame on the cameraman,
as well as the disingenuousness of a 280-character message in response to documented assault.
While the NFL is currently discussing possible repercussions, these patriarchal
conceptions of domination are fortified through explicit messaging - footage of Adam’s reaction
to the game - and more implicit messaging - the tolerated behavior within the NFL. Harkening
back to Lombardi, not only must football players dominate on the field, they must do it in all
facets of life; if they exceed a certain threshold of acceptable behavior, their status as a football
player provides certain levels of immunity. For impressionable viewers, both children and
general sports consumers, these formulations of what a football player, a paragon of manhood,
should be in relationship to violence instills certain beliefs of the NFL organization’s identity, as
Football and Hegemonic Masculinity
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well as subconsciously reinforcing and desensitizing people to what behavior qualifies as
acceptable - a significant socializing mechanism.
The primary connotation of Aikman’s comment, for the NFL’s bureaucratic heads to
“take the dresses off,” is sexist, drawing on the gendering of fashion to misogynistically suggest
that the competition committee’s perceived softness is feminine. Aikman is one of the most
decorated NFL players of all-time, hailing from one of the largest markets in the NFL: the Dallas
Cowboys. The prestige of his name, the large number of fans from his time in Dallas, and his
place in the upper echelons of commentators, provide more gravity to the situation. Without any
provocation, Aikman decided to make a sexist remark, which has led to dissent on social media
and by traditional media. However, no players have commented against Aikman and others have
even defended him, with one news source stating that the “PC mob [tried] to rip Aikman as a
“misogynist”...over a nothing burger of a remark” (OutKick). The comments under the article
referred to those negatively reacting to Aikman as “pansy’s,” “woke losers,” “Libtard,” and
“pussies.” The deviant labeling of advocates for feminist principles proves that there are
misogynistic norms that regulate people’s behaviors, especially in the world of football. Those
attempting to counteract the patriarchal forces in society, especially in football, experience
backlash from people who have been socialized to perform their gender in ways deemed
masculine by the people and structures around them (West and Zimmerman, 1987). This includes
feminizing labels, which leads to emasculation, and disregard through culture, where attempting
to resist the social order means you become labeled as deviant through other indicators, such as
political ideology, hence “Libtard.”
The lack of a response by the NFL and its members indicates that the issue is not deemed
worthy of repercussions and that such behavior falls within the window of acceptable behavior,
Football and Hegemonic Masculinity
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reinforcing misogynistic conceptions. As spectators witness this unfold, watching their favorite
players and personalities get away with behaviors that embody hegemonic masculinity reinforces
existing social messages that attempt to maintain the patriarchal order that our society
perpetuates.
Homophobia
There is currently only one openly gay NFL player of 1696 actively-rostered players:
Carl Nassib. Despite more than 23,000 men having participated in the NFL, only 16 players have
come out as gay, with everyone but Nassib coming out well after their careers had ended.
However, the reason for qualifying NFL players with their presence on an active roster relates to
the unfortunate story of Michael Sam, a member of the 2014 draft class. In celebration of his
selection, he kissed his boyfriend on national television. After being drafted, he participated on
the Cowboys practice squad before being cut without ever playing a snap in a professional
football game. Despite teams refuting allegations of the video influencing his eventual dismissal,
for the NFL and its fanbase, which has a long history of upholding forms of hegemonic
masculinity through the perpetuation of toxic masculinity and heterocentrist views, there is
undeniably a correlation between the two events. When the NFL released a tweet in response to
Nassib coming out, the comments section was flooded with reactions embodying the message of
one user: “football is for men” (Twitter). Even though gay men are men, the heterocentric view
of masculinity demarcates gender within the additional confines of sexual orientation. A true
man is heterosexual. And football is for those men, the heterosexual men. This further adds to
the deviance of people outside the dominant group: heterosexual men.
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Even though Nassib was openly received by the media, only a handful of players
congratulated him for his bravery. He placed his career on the line and, for the deeply rooted
homophobia that has been socialized into the players, as men, he did not receive the support he
deserved.
While gender and sexuality are distinct, people conflate the two in order to further
perpetuate existing power hierarchies. Gender is the classification of self-expression and
personal identification and sexuality is the classification of sexual attraction. However, because
of the ways in which the dominant groups - those who uphold gender binaries, male/female, and
heterosexism - influence the socialization of others, gender often influences the specific label of
a person’s sexuality dependent on their gender identity and the gender identities of those they are
attracted to. Similar to Gagnon and Simon’s “sexual scripts,” where social and cultural blueprints
dictate how we create and express the experience of the deeply personal and intimate, there are
scripts for gender, where our actions are perceived through blueprints dictating how our
behaviors embody certain labels (Kimmel, 62). While much of the information about players’
reactions is speculative due to their silence, their silence is loud and suggestive of the social
forces inhibiting support for Nassib’s bravery. One can only hope that the future of the NFL is
one of more inclusivity and understanding. However, there is much to be done as the socialized
behaviors and structural forces at play run deep.
Football and Hegemonic Masculinity
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