ABSTRACT
Football has historically been practiced very little by girls in schools and leisure spaces during childhood. Nevertheless, there have always been girls who cross the "gender borders" - understood as the thin lines that divide culturally established, so-called appropriate behaviors for each sex - and join soccer practice with the boys. In order to understand how this process took place in the experience of some athletes, the following guiding questions were formulated: How do women, who followed professional career paths in football, narrate their childhood memories of the sport? How did the boys treat them from the moment they showed an interest in playing? In order to answer these questions, Oral History methodology was used. Some aspects found in the narratives of the athletes reveal that none of their trajectories were free of attempts to impede or restrict their practice of football, either due to family discouragement, offenses, or the initial exclusion from playing with the boys. However, the interviews allowed for the insight that impediments to the girls are not necessarily or exclusively because of their sex, but because of difference in the technical skill displayed in relation to the majority of the boys.
Keywords:
Memories; Women; Football; Gender borders