About Samoa:
It’s safe to say that without rugby, Samoa Greeve would not exist. Her parents met at the local rugby club in Delft (The Netherlands). This is the same city she was born and raised in with her three siblings – who all play rugby. On the rugby field she prefers to be number 8. Off the pitch she is a feminist, aunt, plant mom and cat person. Samoa pursued her education at Leiden University and Utrecht University in cultural anthropology. This book is her first published work.
About the book:
Rugby is a high-intensity, high-impact sport and thus it is popularly perceived as a violent game within a hyper-masculine social environment. Despite its history as a male dominated sport, women’s participation in rugby is increasing rapidly on a global scale, as well as in the Netherlands. World Rugby – the international governing body of rugby – has, however, signalled that women’s advancement in rugby is obstructed by a lack of visibility, elite level opportunities, financial sustainability and representation in governing bodies. This implies that challenges and obstacles for gender inclusivity in rugby can be found at a societal, inter-personal, individual, and organisational level.
The trajectory of rugby is not dissimilar to that of many other sports: from heteronormative and dominated by men, to being somewhat more gender inclusive. Considering the progress that has been made, many people are inclined to trivialise the continuing demands for equal treatment of men’s and women’s sport.
The ethnographic stories that I share in this book are derived from interviews and texts, as well as from my own participation, observations and personal experiences as a queer woman playing rugby. As a result, this book only offers a partial view into the process of creating queer spaces in Dutch rugby and does not discount the validity of other experiences. Nonetheless, these real-life accounts are testament to the benefits women and queer people can derive from their participation in rugby, but also expose the inequalities that they can face within the rugby culture. There is still a long way to go for rugby to be truly ‘a sport for all’ and my aim is that this book will contribute to achieving this goal.
