Visions of Gender Justice: Untested Feasibility on the Football Fields of Brazil

From 1941 to 1979 women in Brazil were forbidden by law to play the national sport of football and continue to struggle to participate this major aspect of the country’s social life. This paper focuses on the political ideas of Juliana Cabral, the captain of the Brazilian women’s football team that won the silver medal at the Athens Olympics in 2004. Against a background of organized political contestation of the gender structure in Brazilian sports, I use Paulo Freire’s concept of untested feasibility to chronical Juliana Cabral’s vision of gender justice in football as well as her actions to promote gender equality within football. This is a particularly important moment of contestation to document given that Brazil is scheduled to host two major world sports events this decade—the 2014 FIFA World Cup and the 2016 Rio Olympics, which will highlight to the world once again the tensions within the gender social order in the country.