Análisis de la autoestima, la resiliencia, la inteligencia emocional y el acoso sexual de las mujeres en el fútbol profesional en España

Abstract

Women's soccer has undergone significant changes in recent years, reaching the highest number of licenses for players, coaches, and referees in history. However, women's soccer has met various difficulties in making its way into the sports world without reaching the level of men's soccer. The cause of this delay lies in social factors because a gender code has been created concerning soccer and sports in general, considering it a masculine environment. In addition, a series of gender stereotypes have been created in women's soccer, through which women suffer unequal, discriminatory, and offensive treatment. These aspects have generated situations of stress, violence, harassment, intimidation, and abuse of power, among others, thus distressing the psychosocial aspects of these women who play soccer. Scientific studies conducted so far are scarce, and due to the interest that women's soccer is awakening, they need to increase. This study aims to examine three representative figures of women's soccer: female players, coaches, and referees, in this case, the elite of Spanish women's soccer. For this purpose, the main objective is to analyze some psychosocial variables such as self-esteem, emotional intelligence, and resilience, as well as an aspect that is present in sports and that interferes with the lives of male and female athletes, that is, sexual harassment. First, a descriptive analysis was performed, observing the values of the variables, and the percentages and frequencies in the variable of sexual harassment and each of its factors, in the three profiles of the sample. Then, the relationships and trends between the different variables were analyzed. Next, the differences between the three profiles in the levels of the study variables were observed. Finally, possible differences in the psychosocial variables between women who have suffered sexual harassment and those who have not were analyzed. Among the results found, the following stand out: The referees obtained higher scores in all the variables analyzed (self-esteem, emotional intelligence, resilience, and sexual harassment), whereas the players presented lower values, except for self-esteem, where the coaches had lower scores. It was also observed that the variables correlated positively, except for sexual harassment, which correlated negatively. On the other hand, the prediction of one variable by another was analyzed, finding that resilience predicts self-esteem and emotional intelligence, and emotional intelligence predicts resilience. Similar to the differences between the three profiles of the sample (players, coaches, and referees) in the levels of the different variables, significant differences were also observed between the three profiles in the variables of resilience and the sociability factor (from the Emotional Intelligence scale), with referees scoring the highest in resilience and coaches in sociability. Other results of the study show that some women have suffered sexual harassment and others have not, also observing that the group of women who have not suffered sexual harassment have higher levels of emotional intelligence. The results reveal cases of sexual harassment in players, coaches, and referees of Spanish women's soccer. These results are discussed considering the scientific literature about the variables of self-esteem, emotional intelligence, resilience, and sexual harassment, the values and relationships established among them in other research, and the percentages of sexual harassment. In conclusion, it is crucial to analyze these psychosocial variables in women's soccer to develop intervention programs that help female athletes improve their selfesteem, emotional intelligence, and resilience, as well as to detect and act in the face of sexual harassment. Finally, some of the study's limitations are presented, as well as possible didactic implications and future prospects to which this doctoral thesis can contribute.