Glitter (Foot)ball Tactics: Negotiating Mainstream Gender Equality in Iceland

Sterken are an Icelandic gay football team, whose practices fit with a wider discourse of gender mainstreaming. Iceland provides an exceptional context to investigate gender mainstreaming: it has been rated first for gender equality by the World Economic Forum and until recently had a lesbian Prime Minister dedicated to introducing gender equality-led policy; but Iceland has long maintained a commitment to neoliberal ideology. In this article, we present field data collected with Sterken, and introduce the analytic of “glitter(foot)ball tactics:” the glitter representing gay identity politics, while the original shape of the football maintaining hegemonic concepts of masculinity. Drawing on the metaphor of glitter(foot)ball tactics, our analysis shows how masculinity in homonormative cultures was able to uphold male gender power through reconciling both sides of the glitter(foot)ball. Gender mainstreaming here acts as a depoliticized discursive tool in constructing these versions of gay male identities in the context of neoliberal politics.