CSB graduate studies impact of Women’s World Cup in Chile

Can play make a better day?

“You just got beat by a girl!”

The laughter from the bench stuck with Ali Ryan-Mosley ’18 as she and the soccer ball dribbled on, leaving the defender behind. It was her fifth-grade co-ed team and it was the first time Ali remembers questioning “the socially constructed underpinnings of the human condition.” 

“Why is getting beat by a girl such a bad thing?” “Is being a girl a bad thing?” “Am I not supposed to be better than the boys?” “Will the boys still like me if I am better than them?” 

Those questions, and the imbalance they represent, have troubled Ali for years. During her time at CSB/SJU, they led the political science major/Hispanic studies minor to explore them in her senior thesis, “The Economic Incentives to Women’s Empowerment.” 

She used primary research and a mixed-methods approach to explore how women’s political representation, women’s access to civil liberties and women’s health influenced changes in the Human Development Index and the gross domestic product per capita in Latin America. “Evidence suggested that although women’s political representation is the most influential factor in achieving a positive economic outcome, each variable has great potential to make measurable improvements in human and economic development,” Ali explains.

Today she’s continuing that exploration in Valparaiso, Chile. She’s launched The Crescendo Project, a non-profit that seeks to elevate women’s voices around the world through small-scale research ventures. And she’s embarked on her first research project – #ellasjuegan – exploring the question, “What is the role of soccer in the economic and social empowerment of women in Chile?”

“Challenging social norms and assumptions can be a powerful experience, beneficial to human progress,” says Ali. “I want to explore if soccer has the potential to increase access of Chilean women and aid in the fight for social equality.”

Will the World Cup matter?

This week the Chilean Women’s National Soccer Team has qualified to take part in their first-ever FIFA Women’s World Cup in France. “Female participation in sports in Chile has dramatically increased since the end of the President Pinochet era and the transition to democracy in 1990,” says Ali. “Given the complexities and the paradoxical relationship between the growth and success of female soccer and the deeply rooted machismo norms in Chilean culture, Chile is an ideal location to conduct my project.

“So far, anecdotally, I have found the machismo to be much more embedded than I expected,” Ali continues. “Just as noteworthy, though, I’ve found the women to be much more ‘feminist’ than I expected.”

Women’s rights t-shirts, signs, street art and more are common in Valparaiso and everywhere Ali travels. “I know this is a global movement, but I feel it here more than I did in the U.S., and it feels as if more women here identify as feminists than they do in the U.S.”

She’s curious to discover in the next few weeks what kind of influence the Women’s World Cup will have.

Step by step

The #ellasjuegan project is currently in the plausibility probe and literature review stages. In practice, that means casual conversations with women soccer players about their experiences, to test the questions Ali will ask in her official interviews.

She will begin conducting those official interviews in July, hoping to conduct 30-40 interviews over three to four months. During that time, she will be posting a blog update every other week or so, highlighting the stories of the women she meets. Between November and January, Ali will transcribe and code those interviews. “Depending on how all that goes, I eventually hope to publish my findings,” she says, confidently.

A call for help

As with any quality research project, finances are critical to the success of #ellasjuegan and all of The Crescendo Project. The official launch of the 501(c)(3) charitable organization is underway now and donations can be made online.