Les Décisives
A speculactivist endeavour imagining preferable futures for women in sports
Les Décisives (The Decisive Ones) is an initiative born from the meeting with former international footballer Mélissa Plaza, who holds a PhD in sports psychology focusing on gender stereotypes in a sporting context. The author of the book « Pas pour les filles? » (“Not for girls” – Robert Laffont, 2019), she recounts her experience of sexism as a woman in the professional football world, a journey that inspired Les Décisives.
This self-commissioned project by our studio asserts our advocacy for a militant form of Design Fiction: the speculactivism. Indeed, Les Décisives aims to promote visions of futures seen as preferable for women in sports environments. The scenarios and their speculative artefacts are designed to open up imagination, even if they must break through sexist thought patterns. Les Décisives also serves as a catalyst for debate about why these fictional futures are not already present realities.
The three scenarios address a series of ongoing and emerging frictions within the football sphere:
- The need for equipment that truly considers women’s bodies and metabolism,
- Vigilance and prevention of toxic behaviours, particularly harassment, within clubs,
- The essential media coverage of professional female athletes to inspire ambition and aspiration in younger generations.
↑ The Moi, Footballeuse kit by the equipment manufacturer Nettie facilitates the practice for those who wish to start playing football, while asserting their legitimacy in a sport still too often labelled as masculine.
↑ The publisher Panina has released a collection of “Play It Like” prism cards featuring iconic female footballers from history, offering a way to see life through their eyes.
In the spirit of the guerrilla futures method (Stuart Candy, 2013), a set of speculactivist posters accompany the approach. Each poster visualises a fantasised preferable future and commemorates the eradication of sexist behaviours or systems. Women footballers and athletes, as well as their allies, are invited to print and freely display them in the streets and in their clubs to infuse the present with these fragments of desirable futures, subtly shaking up the status quo!
Although the Les Décisives pilot is rooted in amateur and professional football, the initiative welcomes contributions and collaborations to imagine new desirable perspectives for a variety of sporting disciplines, with inclusion and equality at the core.
↑ Blobbie is an endearing mascot that promotes kindness, discussion, and conflict resolution within a sports team, helping to foster bonds of sisterhood.
↑ These speculactvisit posters invite us to sow the seeds of futures that deserve to emerge in the real world, celebrating the end of sexism in football.
