Football, sexism, and homophobia

The first post on"Uneven Pitch", the new blog by Chicago's Dili Yang, has been featured on the "Red Card Homophobia" blog:

As much as we would love to believe it, the world of football is not an isolated one. Politics, economics, religion, and other aspects of social activity are integrated into the game with ease – and vice versa. While a lack of women does not necessarily mean the presence of sexism, a lack of discussion re: sexism-related topics doesn’t mean that some aspects of the sport aren’t problematic. I’ll attempt to address a few of them.

The first problematic viewpoint of football is that of the “stereotypical” American. To these people, football (or rather, soccer) is a game played by women. It’s 90 minutes of girly-looking men running around a field and falling over. The tackles in this imagined sport are “nothing”, the injuries are slight, and the players simply skip around for a while, then go and attend to their perfectly coiffed hair in order to make it more perfect. It assumes that because these players are, perhaps, more feminine (read: European?) than the stereotypical “strong, macho” American athlete, they are inherently worth less. Football also becomes a less worthwhile sport in the process due to its association with femininity. What is this insinuating about female athletes and the worth of masculinity compared with femininity? Nothing good, certainly.

The second problematic viewpoint is the opposite of the first: that football is a manly man’s sport. It’s full of hard tackles, masculinity, and endurance. Any weakness — such as the protestation of bad, injury-inducing tackles — is frowned upon. The players shouldn’t whine, complain, or cry not because it can be irritating in the context of the game, but because these actions are “girly” of them. In this situation, players with feminine characteristics are excluded from the “proper” world of football with scorn. They are mocked for these characteristics. In fact, both of these viewpoints inherently associate “feminine” qualities with “bad” qualities and “masculine” with “good”, insinuating that women are inferior to men. (Taking it all a step further: what constitutes “masculine” and “feminine” in the end? Gender is, after all, a social construct and what is considered “masculine” in one culture may be the complete opposite in another.)

Keep reading HERE.