Soccer Mom - History

History

The phrase soccer mom generally refers to a married middle-class woman who lives in the suburbs and has school age children. She is sometimes portrayed in the media as busy or overburdened and driving a minivan or SUV. She is also portrayed as putting the interests of her family, and most importantly her children, ahead of her own. The phrase derives from the literal, specific description of a mother who transports and watches her children play soccer. It was also used in names of organizations of mothers who raised money to support their children's soccer teams. The first reference to the phrase soccer mom in the US national media has been traced to 1982. In that year, Joseph Decosta, the husband of the treasurer of the "Soccer Moms booster club" of Ludlow, Massachusetts, stole $3,150 raised for the benefit of a local soccer league.

Indices of American magazines and newspapers show relatively little usage of the term until 1995 when, during an election for Denver city council, Susan B. Casey ran with the slogan "A Soccer Mom for City Council." Casey, who had a PhD and managed presidential election campaigns, used the slogan as a way of assuring voters they could trust her to be "just like them," denoting herself as "everyneighbor." The phrase addressed anxiety about women's achievements, and the stereotype that smart, accomplished women were not able to manage professional careers and still show love for their family. Casey won the election with 51% of the vote.

The term came into widespread use near the time of the 1996 Republican National Convention. The first use of the term in a news article about that election appeared in the July 21, 1996 edition of The Washington Post. E. J. Dionne, the article's author, quoted Alex Castellanos (at the time a senior media advisor to Bob Dole) suggesting that Bill Clinton was targeting a voting demographic whom Castellanos called the "soccer mom." The soccer mom was described in the article as "the overburdened middle income working mother who ferries her kids from soccer practice to scouts to school." The article suggested that the term soccer mom was a creation of political consultants. Castellanos was later quoted in The Wall Street Journal as saying "She's the key swing consumer in the marketplace, and the key swing voter who will decide the election."

Media interest in soccer moms picked up as the election approached. The number of articles on soccer moms in major newspapers increased from a combined total of 12 for the months of August and September, to a total of 198 for October and November. In large part, the intense media interest stemmed from the media's belief that soccer moms had become the most sought-after group of swing voters in the 1996 elections. In the end, suburban women favored Clinton by 53 to 39, while suburban men voted for Dole.

During the election, the soccer mom's most frequently mentioned attribute cited in major newspaper articles was that she was a mother or a woman who had children. The soccer mom's next most frequently mentioned characteristics were that "she lives in the suburbs (41.2% of the articles); is a swing voter (30.8%); is busy, harried, stressed out, or overburdened (28.4%); works outside the home (24.6%); drives a minivan, (usually Volvo) station wagon, or sports-utility vehicle (20.9%); is middle-class (17.1%); is married (13.7%); and is white (13.3%)."

Soccer moms received so much attention during the election that the American Dialect Society voted "soccer mom" Word of the Year for 1996. The columnist Ellen Goodman of The Boston Globe called 1996 "the Year of the Soccer Mom." An Associated Press article named soccer moms – along with the Macarena, Bob Dole, and "Rules Girls" – as the four phenomena that will be forever associated with the year 1996.