The cultural value of Aotearoa women’s rugby

Research on news and sports media texts has an extensive history, much of which is based on indepth case studies of single events or moments in time.

Grounded in cultural studies theorising, this case study takes a long view of women’s rugby in Aotearoa New Zealand from 1891 to 2023 to consider how media and public understandings have shifted over time from utter rejection to widespread public embrace of women playing the ‘national game’. I extend the cultural studies concept of articulation (Hall, 1985), which is the process by which different discursive connections—such as rugby and masculinity—are renewed so often that they appear almost impossible to uncouple. Each specific articulation is the form taken by a “connection that can make a unity of two different elements, under certain conditions” (Hall, 1986b, p. 53). In a sports media context, articulations act as the default settings or taken-for-granted understandings that frame media and public understandings of sport. I introduce the concept of rearticulation to consider the processes by which the articulation of rugby to masculinity has been disarticulated or weakened in ways that enable new connections—such as rugby and women—to occur.

Jennifer Slack (1996) explains that “Articulation describes the process of forging connection and theconnection forged. Disarticulation describes the process of breaking a connection. Rearticulation describes the process of connecting elements differently” (p. 881, emphasis added).

The findings derive from analysis of New Zealand news coverage of women’s rugby in three time periods (1890s, 1920s, 2020s), and fieldwork during the 2022 women’s Rugby World Cup in Aotearoa, including over 600 responses to an anonymous online survey adapted from previous research on public reactions to men’s rugby world cups (e.g., Bruce, 2017, 2014, 2013; Desmarais & Bruce, 2018, 2010; Krawec & Bruce, 2020).

Not in their wildest dreams could the 1891 women’s rugby pioneers have imagined the rearticulation of women’s rugby in 2022 to national identity, financial success and cultural importance. Until very recently, women’s rugby remained so invisible in the media that it constituted symbolic annihilation, gaining only 0.01% of rugby images in 2007 (Scott-Chapman, 2012), and 1% of all rugby news in 2008 (Bruce et al., 2009). In stark contrast, the 2022 Rugby World Cup featured packed stadia, paid professional athletes, and claims that the women’s game was now better to watch than the men’s.

The women’s proportion of rugby coverage rose to 21.9%, and women’s rugby gained 25% of all women’s sports coverage in 2022 (Insentia and Sport NZ, 2023). I conclude that the recent recognition and normalisation of women’s rugby as worthy of media attention has taken place—both within Aotearoa and globally—as a result of broad cultural shifts that represent investment in, and commitment to, the sport across media, economic, cultural, institutional and political domains. What remains unclear is how sustained this rearticulation will be: no articulation comes with a long-term guarantee, and research has shown that previous boom times in women’s sport have not been sustained (McLachlan, 2019).