Marta past Messi: (re)definitions of gender and masculinity, patriarchal structures and female agency in international soccer

This essay analyses Marta’s embodied subjectivity and performativity of both gender and athleticism within a sport traditionally controlled by men, and shows how perceptions continue to be shaped and controlled by patriarchal structures promulgated by an anti-feminist media. Via comparisons of both Marta and Lionel Messi’s body schemas, performances of sexuality and relevant statistics, this article blurs the lines of segregation between male and female soccer, and opens the discussion as to whether a player of the calibre of Marta could/should play alongside men. Finally, this essay explores Marta’s contestation of compulsory sexuality and her (re)definition of gender in the space she has created via her agency and superior performativity on the soccer field.