**Note** While all referenced events and players are realistic in nature, they are merely representative of the social experience. All names and events have been changed and/or composited in order to protect the anonymity of teams, players, and locations.
Introduction
While previous posts have attempted to capture the experience of a rugby social, this post will be the culmination of previous research, blog posts, and continued investigation. What a typical women’s rugby player experiences after eighty minutes of grueling physical contact is called a rugby social. One of the most succinct descriptions of a social was that “you play rugby, you beat each other up for eighty minutes, you grab a beer, you sing songs, and be merry”. While this may be the simple definition, there are more layers within the rugby culture, especially during the socials, than are evident at first glance.
The rugby social culture, as recognized by Elizabeth Wheatley (1990), can manifest different social significance based on which gender is performing the social. She notes, and I agree, that although the sport was originally played by men, and social songs demonstrated a masculine superiority, in present day women’s leagues, female players perform similar-to-identical songs to men’s which counter the traditional cultural assumption of male domination. Tradition itself, however is not absent from socials, as will be explained later.
Methodology
This study was researched using the ethnographic methods of both participation and observation. For the purposes of this piece, I used my membership on the North Shore team to be a nonthreatening observer while studying and discussing rugby social “performances” with my teammates. As a freshman on the team, I have an insider’s perspective into the world of rugby socials in that I am becoming acclimated to the rituals and team songs that we normally sing. However, this unique cultural ritual also depends on the team with which one is socialing. A social can take on varying dynamics depending upon the customs of each team as well as the personalities of individual opposing players. In this way, even veteran ruggers can be surprised at the events that take place, and especially the lyrics that are sung, at every social. My experiences are then neither more, nor less valid than those of an upperclassman.
While I have found many sources which analyze the lyrical content of rugby songs, the North Shore team holds true to a strict policy of oral tradition. To respect this tradition, I will refrain from reprinting any of the song’s lyrics in this forum, instead referring readers to a few websites and including some video that will illustrate the crude nature of the rugby “drink up” song.
“Veteran” Songs
It was the end of the match. Players from both sides looked exhausted and hurt. Bruised limbs and aching muscles abounded. As we boarded the bus, a captain pulled out her cell phone and began to speak, repeating whatever was said on the other end of the line to the bus driver. We soon pulled over to the side of a road and followed the captain. “It’s a yellow house with green shutters,” she told us. We scanned the block until we found our destination. An opposing player, still in uniform, was walking toward the side of the house, and we followed. Food and Gatorade awaited us on a few patio tables set up in the yard. A freshman from the other team was pumping the keg, handing beers around the already forming circle. As beer was passed along, the other team began their opening number.
Although each individual rugby team has a specific rugby canon all its own, there tends to be great overlap in a few of the numbers. Shared songs are generally ones that have a chorus and follow a pattern that singers can fill in. These songs are generally sung early in the social, as they are all-inclusive, allowing all players and visitors a chance to participate in verse writing. Although there is a call-and-response aspect present, there is no designated song leader. The leader of the song “If I Were the Marrying Kind”, for example, varies by verse. A player who has another verse in mind will hold her cup up to her forehead while the song is being sung. Players, still singing, will acknowledge that she is the next to sing by pointing their elbows at the girl with her cup raised. This player then becomes the song leader for the duration of her verse, and so on.
The North Shore team participates in the traditional fill-in verse writing, however, they also have a canon of songs that are led by some of the veteran players. These songs have a leader for the entire song who will stand in the center of the circle and lead a call-and-response.
Each of these songs is a traditional rugby song, but on the North Shore team, there is only one player who sings this designated call-and-response song throughout her career on the team. When a senior graduates, she chooses the next player to whom she will charge with the responsibility of singing of the song at future socials.
The designation of certain song leaders establishes a sort of hierarchy within the team by identifying which ruggers have been playing the longest (to have gotten close to a player that graduated), and by imbuing them with the subcultural capital of “owning” a song (See Thornton 1996 on subcultural capital). The system of hierarchy is not one that fosters animosity, however. It is simply a system that emphasizes which players are more experienced in the rugby culture, both in their friendships with other teammates, and in their knowledge of the socialing community.
Additionally, those who receive a song from past players will add her own spin to it, whether it be a new verse or a slight change in words. This act allows the new “owner” to take the place of the old singer in a way that does not replace the former player’s legacy, but rather transforms it. These ruggers maintain the tradition of social songs by passing down songs, but modify them to keep them as their own. These songs keep the social culture alive. The act of passing along the tradition accentuates the strong roots rugby has and the value that tradition (with innovation) plays in the rugby canon.
Performing Femininity in a Male-Dominated Tradition
As Wheatley puts it, “[r]egardless of their degree of feminist consciousness, these women have constructed an alternative to male, heterosexually dominated sport and sexuality. We must understand how their practices can be liberating and empowering while being fun and pleasurable” (1996). The lyrics of rugby songs are meant to be crude. They were historically sung by men, whose lyrics were amusing because of their images of the subordination of women (Dunning 1990). Wheatley says that female ruggers, however, have turned this notion around. Using the same methods as men’s songs, females sensationalize the act of sex, especially that of homosexuality, in order to amuse themselves and their audiences, and to assert their female identities.
Songs that I have witnessed, such as “Dick Dyke” (a sort of “song battle” between those who “like dicks” and those who “like dykes”), celebrate the act of sex regardless of sexual preference. Players can sing verses with the “dick” leaders, the “dyke” leaders, or with both, as they sing about the advantages of one choice over the other. The socialing space is one in which players can comfortably joke about sexuality knowing that they will not be judged for their choices. By openly addressing a socially controversial issue and celebrating it, the rugby musical culture allows players to actively refuse the patriarchal ideals of the men’s rugby culture (See Dunning for a discussion of male distaste for homosexuality), and to value themselves as human beings.
Despite the masculine roots associated with rugby, female athletes use their social activity to express their identities as women. Their socialing allows them to assert their personalities as females within the greater rugby culture generally associated with masculinity.
Conclusion
Rugby players use socials as an opportunity to be a part of a unique tradition. While there exists a certain hierarchy within the culture, it is primarily based on player experience. The practice of passing down songs from one rugger to another emphasizes the tradition of the sport more than the player’s status within the group. By navigating the rugby repertoire in a conscientious way, female players can assert their identity and defy the male rugby subordination of women historically found in the men’s socialing culture.
(1389 Words)
Works Cited
Dunning, Eric. 1990. “Sport as a Male Preserve: Notes on the Social Sources of Masculine Identity and its Transformations.” In Women, Sport, and Culture, eds. Susan Birrel and Cheryl L. Cole. Champaign, IL: Human Kinetics. pps. 163-179.
Ezzel, Matthew B. 2009. “Barbie Dolls” on the Pitch: Identity Work, Defensive Othering, and Inequality in Women’s Rugby. In Social Problems, 56(1): 111–131.
Schacht, Steven P. 1996. “Misogyny on and off the "Pitch": The Gendered World of Male Rugby Players.” In Gender and Society, 10(5):550-565.
Thornton, Sarah. 1996. Club Cultures: Music, Media and Subcultural Capital. Hanover, NH: Wesleyan University Press.
Wheatley, Elizabeth E. 1990. “Subcultural Subversions: Comparing Discourses on Sexuality inn Men’s and Women’s Rugby Songs.” In Women, Sport, and Culture, eds. Susan Birrel and Cheryl L. Cole. Champaign, IL: Human Kinetics. pps. 193-211.
