Women who are good at football “play like men”

[Professor Walsh]

Meandering on after looking up the English article on domination tecniques, I found a good article on the role gender sterotypes play in sports.

Football on high heels

Von der Lippe explains that gender stereotypes are rife in sports journalism "“ a situation in which both genders end up the losers, according to her.

"On one level this affects male football players the most, especially when they lose important games. Then insulting expressions like "˜Miss Norway,' "˜pushed around like women on high heels', "˜fatso' and "˜nerd' are used in print newspapers, online newspapers and on TV," she says.

The implicit message in these insults is that the male players are impotent, asexual and non-masculine.

 

[caitaintdead]

I'll definitely have to have a read of this!

I'm a female football player myself and although I lack the drive to be an excellent player due to my love of cigarettes and alcohol I'm not half bad. I'm feminine though. I'm a heels and makeup and dresses girl when I'm off the pitch. Pointless thinking about it at this stage though - I havent read the article yet!

 

[Washburne]

A common expression when I was young was "spela som kärringar" (something like "play like women" just not the nicest word for women.) Then I didn't think about it. I knew it meant that the team had played bad and that was it. Now I'm of course aware that it's not a suitable phrase at all. Sadly men involved in sports be it active, training or just fans often seem to adapt to an incredible old fashioned style of thinking. Take female referees for example. I see men or maybe mostly guys scream out their disgust if a female referee is involved when men is competing way before the game/competition has even begun. "Women doesn't belong in sports." That's some very clever thinking right there...

In school when we were about 16- 17 years old and we took part in a football tournament a girl on our team was the toughest player by far in the whole tournament. I loved seeing that.

When it comes to phrases used in the article it's sad that they're being used but I do think we're moving in the right direction. Just not fast enough.

 

[brinkster130]

Neat article, thanks for posting it.

As a female who has played sports most of my life and at several different levels, I really understand where the author is coming from. There is a lot of discrimination in the athletic world.

The authors point about Olympic games being more focused on male dominate activities was very interesting. I have mixed feeling about that, I think it is important to keep the competition in the Olympics at a certain level however it is sad to see sports dropped because they don't have enough athletes who can compete at that level.

I know this article is mainly using examples from the professional level of play, but just out of curiosity, are there any regulations on sports equity at the collegiate level in other country's? I only ask because in the US there are laws that help regulate gender equity in sports and have studied it quite a bit.

Interesting read.

 

[Wishing Oceans]

Thanks for posting, that was a very interesting article. 🙂