Katharina Lindner (3 September 1979 – 9 February 2019) was a German academic and footballer who played as a striker for

Glasgow City F.C. Glasgow City Football Club is a professional women's football team based in Glasgow that plays in SWPL 1, the top division of women's football in Scotland and also the higher of two levels of the Scottish Women's Premier League. The club has co ...

from 2005 to 2011. She was also a lecturer at

University of Stirling The University of Stirling (abbreviated as Stir or Shruiglea, in post-nominals; ) is a public university in Stirling, Scotland, founded by a royal charter in 1967. It is located in the Central Belt of Scotland, built within the walled Airth ...

on gender, sports,

queer theory Queer theory is a field of post-structuralist critical theory that emerged in the early 1990s out of queer studies (formerly often known as gay and lesbian studies) and women's studies. The term "queer theory" is broadly associated with the study a ...

, and how women's images are presented in the media.

Sports career

Lindner grew up in

Kleinostheim Kleinostheim is a community in the Aschaffenburg district in the ''Regierungsbezirk'' of Lower Franconia (''Unterfranken'') in Bavaria, Germany. Geography Location The community of Kleinostheim is about 40 kilometers east southeast of Frankfur ...

and joined

1. FFC Frankfurt Eintracht Frankfurt is a German women's association football club based in Frankfurt. Its first team currently plays in the German top flight, Frauen-Bundesliga. From 1998 to 2020, the club was known as 1. FFC Frankfurt. Eintracht have won sev ...

(then known as SG Praunheim) as a 16 year old. She won a

double Double, The Double or Dubble may refer to: Mathematics and computing * Multiplication by 2 * Double precision, a floating-point representation of numbers that is typically 64 bits in length * A double number of the form x+yj, where j^2=+1 * A ...

with Frankfurt in 1999 before accepting a scholarship in America. While attending the

University of Hartford The University of Hartford (UHart) is a private university in West Hartford, Connecticut, United States. Its main campus extends into neighboring Hartford and Bloomfield. It enrolled approximately 6,000 undergraduate and graduate students as ...

in 2000, Lindner was named an NSCAA 1st Team All-American. Lindner joined Glasgow City in 2005 after moving to Scotland to complete a

PhD A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, DPhil; or ) is a terminal degree that usually denotes the highest level of academic achievement in a given discipline and is awarded following a course of graduate study and original research. The name of the deg ...

in film studies. During her time with the team, Glasgow City won five

Scottish Women's Premier League The Scottish Women's Premier League (SWPL) is the highest level of league competition in women's football in Scotland. Its two divisions are SWPL (previously styled as ''SWPL 1'') and SWPL 2. The league was formed when the Premier Division of th ...

titles, two

Scottish Women's Cup The Women's Scottish Cup is the national knockout cup competition for women's football in Scotland. First held in 1970–71 and known as the Scottish Women's FA Cup, the competition was owned and managed by Scottish Women's Football (SWF), an ...

s and two

Scottish Women's Premier League Cup The Scottish Women's Premier League Cup, currently known as the Sky Sports Cup due to sponsorship and commonly shortened to the SWPL Cup, is a league cup competition in women's football in Scotland. The cup is open only to the teams in the Scottis ...

s. Lindner scored 128 goals for the team in 173 appearances with the team. When Lindner announced plans to retire from football ahead of the 2011

final, Glasgow City manager Eddie Wolecki-Black paid tribute to her contribution: "Kat, few would argue, is without doubt one of the finest players ever to play in Scotland and it has been a pleasure working with such a committed and talented athlete. She will be a big loss to our attacking options."

Academic career

Lindner was a lecturer in the Communication, Media & Culture of

, focusing on gender, sports and

. She wrote several articles published in academic journals such as ''

Sex Roles A gender role, or sex role, is a social norm deemed appropriate or desirable for individuals based on their gender or sex. Gender roles are usually centered on conceptions of masculinity and femininity. The specifics regarding these gendered ...

'' and ''

Feminist Media Studies ''Feminist Media Studies'' is a peer-reviewed academic journal covering media and communication studies from a feminist perspective. Established in March 2001, United Kingdom publisher Routledge publishes eight issues a year. This journal advocat ...

''. In her most-cited work, "Images of Women in General Interest and Fashion Magazine Advertisements from 1955 to 2002", Lindner "adapted a set of qualitative criteria from

Erving Goffman Erving Goffman (11 June 1922 – 19 November 1982) was a Canadian-born American sociologist, social psychologist, and writer, considered by some "the most influential American sociologist of the twentieth century". In 2007, '' The Time ...

’s classic work on the subtle cues contained within advertising" to analyse how women are objectified in advertisements in women's fashion magazines compared to general interest magazines. In 2016, she also wrote an

op-ed An op-ed, short for "opposite the editorial page," is a type of written prose commonly found in newspapers, magazines, and online publications. They usually represent a writer's strong and focused opinion on an issue of relevance to a targeted a ...

for ''

The Conversation ''The Conversation'' is a 1974 American neo-noir mystery thriller film written, produced, and directed by Francis Ford Coppola. It stars Gene Hackman as a surveillance expert who faces a moral dilemma when his recordings reveal a potential ...

'' (reprinted in ''

The Independent ''The Independent'' is a British online newspaper. It was established in 1986 as a national morning printed paper. Nicknamed the ''Indy'', it began as a broadsheet and changed to tabloid format in 2003. The last printed edition was publis ...

'') in support of boycotting the

Oscars The Academy Awards, commonly known as the Oscars, are awards for artistic and technical merit in film. They are presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) in the United States in recognition of excellence i ...

. In October 2017, Lindner published ''Film Bodies: Queer Feminist Encounters with Gender and Sexuality in Cinema'' via

I.B. Tauris I.B. Tauris is an educational publishing house and imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing. It was an independent publishing house with offices in London and New York City until its purchase in May 2018 by Bloomsbury Publishing. It specialises in non- ...

Personal life

Lindner died on 9 February 2019. Glasgow City announced that the team would postpone their season opening game while they mourned her death. Lindner's partner, Scottish footballer Laura Montgomery, is a co-founder of the club.

Death

Lindner took her own life in hospital, having been admitted following a previous suicide attempt the preceding week. She had depression.

References

External links

*
Official website of Glasgow City F.C.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Lindner, Katharina Eintracht Frankfurt (women) players 1979 births 2019 deaths Academics of the University of Stirling Expatriate women's footballers in Scotland Expatriate women's soccer players in the United States Footballers from Munich Frauen-Bundesliga players German expatriate sportspeople in the United States German expatriate sportspeople in Scotland German women's footballers German expatriate women's footballers Glasgow City F.C. players Hartford Hawks women's soccer players German lesbian sportswomen German LGBTQ footballers Scottish Women's Premier League players USL W-League (1995–2015) players University of Hartford alumni Women's association football forwards 2019 suicides Suicides in Scotland 21st-century American women academics