http://blogs.lse.ac.

uk/gender/2012/02/23/womens-soccer-in-crisis-a-voice-from-the-pitch/
Step #1 - Paraphrase
Both the Santos FC womens team and the WPS league was terminated due to lack of funding.
In order to keep Neymar on the Brazils mens team, they had to increase his salary by making
cuts somewhere-- the womens team. Now all the players must scramble to find a different
source of income. Reason for the womens game not being able to sustain itself with a wide
enough fan base has to do with its lack of visibility in the media. Referred to as underwater
soccer. As long as womens soccer is viewed as the worse and less exciting version of the
mens game, more people will opt to watch them. The shift in view should be rather that they are
imbuing the game with different meaning through different embodied movements and style,
making the game unique in itself and not a lesser version of the male. People from Brazil
suggested that womens game now is more similar to the mens game of the 1960s-- style
characterized by accuracy, grace, precision, and team harmony.
Step #2: Explicating
1. The writer wants to change the public's overall perspective towards womens
soccer.
2. She believes that the women shouldnt be compared directly to the men because
they will always remain inferior. Instead, it should be looked at as a different
interpretation of the sport.
3. A lot of times in society we can be discouraged by comparing ourselves to one
another and feeling like we dont meet standards when in actuality we should be putting
ourselves on our own separate scale. This is a common cause for self-esteem issues,
especially among women.
4.

Step #3: Analyzing the Logic of What we are Reading

1. The main purpose of this article is to change the readers attitude towards
womens soccer.
2. Why hasnt the womens game been able to generate enough popular support
nor build an an extensive fan base to feed its sustainability anywhere?
3. The most important information in this article is
___________________________. (You want to identify the key information the author
used, or presupposed, in the article to support his/her main arguments. Here you are
looking for facts, experiences, data the author is using to support her/his conclusions).
4. The main inferences/conclusions in this article are ________________. (You
want to identify the most important conclusions that the author comes to and presents in
the article).
5. The key idea(s) we need to understand in this article is there is a lack of visibility
of womens soccer on the media. By these ideas the author means more media
coverage would surely increase their fan base.
6. The main assumption(s) underlying the authors thinking is she only used two
different teams as her examples.
7. If a) we take this line of reasoning seriously, the implications are the the womens
game will thrive. If b) we fail to take this line of reasoning seriously, the implications are
womens soccer will remain in a crisis.
8. The author sees the potential that the womens game can achieve one day and
shes trying to harness the movement towards that.