Institutional gaslighting and affective strategic rationality in women’s football
the 2023 Women’s World Cup
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.22456/1982-8918.147695Keywords:
Women’s football, Affective strategic rationality, Institutional gaslighting, Sports mediaAbstract
The 2023 Women’s Football World Cup highlighted symbolic advances in the visibility of the sport while exposing persistent structural asymmetries in global sports governance. This article aims to analyze this scenario through the lens of Jürgen Habermas’s Theory of Communicative Action, in dialogue with the sociology of affects and feminist theory. It proposes the concept of affective strategic rationality, understood as the institutional mobilization of affects to manage dissent, neutralize criticism, and reproduce inequalities under the appearance of empathy and inclusion. Methodologically, the study combines qualitative analysis of institutional cases and framing analysis of international media coverage of the 2023 World Cup, identifying discursive patterns in the construction of gender inequalities in sport. The findings suggest that increased media visibility does not necessarily lead to structural change, but may instead be incorporated into symbolic strategies of legitimation. As a contribution, the article introduces the notion of Deliberative Social Audit as an analytical and normative possibility to strengthen accountability and the democratization of sports institutions.
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