Fair to Swear?

Abstract

This article focuses on swearing in football chants in Turkey to demonstrate that fans construct a specifically masculine notion of fairness that diverges from the universalizing ideal of fair play. I argue that the Turkish Football Federation’s (TFF) clubs’ and mainstream media’s antiswearing campaigns and policies, ostensibly to uphold fair play, miss how fans gender fairness by referring to the masculine ideal of the crazy/hot-blooded young man (delikanlı). In keeping with theorization on “ordinary ethics” in anthropology, this analysis illuminates how fairness and gender are conegotiated in football in Turkey. In addition, this article critiques the mission the TFF ascribes to women fans, delineating them as naturally polite guardians of an imposed sense of fair play. I show that women fans have a complex relation with “hegemonic masculinity” whereby they simultaneously take part in the specific masculine construction of fairness and oppose normative gender expectations, specifically in relation to language.

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