Misogyny and the World Cup
Not everyone enjoys sports. Not everyone enjoys soccer. Not everyone who enjoys sports enjoys soccer. Fair enough. The beautiful game is not truly universal. No game is.
We are in the midst of the FIFA Women’s World Cup 2019. Twenty-four teams played through qualifying rounds. Twenty-four teams showed up in France. By a number of metrics, it’s set to be the best women’s World Cup on record. Excellent attendance. Strong play. More interest. Better coverage. It has also offered some compelling storylines with classic rivalries, first-time meetings, personal and national records being set. And, of course, the VAR system…..
But the haters gonna hate. And there is a great deal of hatred toward the women playing soccer. In part, it’s the internet being the internet. Anonymous trolls take shots at women playing soccer. In part, it’s socially ingrained misogyny. The women are playing a man’s game and they have no business doing so. Even worse, the women players and teams are quite vocally demanding equal treatment — and payment — from FIFA and from national organizations.
I won’t reproduce any of the misogynistic quotes here. They abound. I’m not giving the trolls the notoriety they seek. However, they fall into several categories.
They’re women, and women can’t (or shouldn’t) play sports.
They’re not as good as boys, let alone men.
They shouldn’t get equal pay since they don’t play as hard, or as much.
They can’t play soccer, but they are hot. / They can’t play soccer, and they are ugly.
They’re a bunch of dykes, anyway.
Their games are boring.
The arguments of the first five categories are rooted in sexism, at best, and misogyny, at worst. I’m not really interested in convincing these trolls that any one or all of the above are complaints absurd. Because they are absurd. If you believe that women (certainly not every) do not want to play sports, then you are mistaken. If you think that women can’t or shouldn’t, then that belief is rooted in long-standing sexist beliefs. The history of resistance to women playing sports is legendary. The history of women wanting to, and trying to, and gaining the right to play sports is inspiring. Of course, I understand that the internet trolls are not really interested in debate, nor are they open to having their minds changed. They’ve lobbed their misogynistic grenades, and they are quite content to feed off the responses.
Don’t. Feed. The. Trolls.
But it part, the dislike of women’s soccer comes down to personal aesthetics and preferences. In this space, I’m interested in the 6th category of complaints — they just don’t like the women’s game.
Everyone has their own preferences, but these preferences do not develop in a vacuum. They develop in context, and for reasons. Examining these preferences says something about that person’s underlying belief system. Generally, personal preferences (in food, in music, in movies, in partners, in politics, in sports) are based on unexamined assumptions.
For example, someone says Van Halen is better than The Eagles because Van Halen rocks harder. The underlying assumption, the thing that makes that statement work, is the belief that hard rock is better than soft rock. That underlying assumption is necessary for the Van Halen fan to make their claim. But neither hard rock nor soft rock is inherently better than the other, but the Van Halen fan has developed the preference over time that hard rock is better. We can recognize that rocking hard is a personal preference and not a categorical statement. It does not mean that Van Halen is categorically better; it means, given my personal preferences, I prefer Van Halen. And that’s really all one can say.
Or, a bit closer to the point, some will argue that men’s basketball is better than women’s basketball because men play above the rim. Here, the underlying assumption at work is that playing above the rim is somehow (even inherently) better. It’s not. It’s a preference, developed in part because of the history of who could and could not play basketball, in part out of personal experiences of playing and watching, and in part because of external values. Consider that the basketball court and rim were designed with men players in mind, not women. Consider, too, that women lobbied and argued to play basketball from the beginnings of the game. When they first gained the right to play, they were compelled to play in floor-length skirts! That might affect your game just a bit.
Conversely, fans of women’s basketball might say that above the rim is boring, and that women’s b-ball is better because they play more selflessly. That, too, is based on an assumption, namely that selfless play is better or more enjoyable. Given that, one can say that they find the men’s game more enjoyable, or one can say they find the women’s game more enjoyable — based on their underlying assumptions about what make the game good. Neither one of the claims is categorically true. Both of those claims are based on personal assumptions about basketball. So, why does one person prefer above-the-rim play and the other prefer team play?
I would suggest the external factor here is gendered. Culturally, we have divided human beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors into categories called gender. We decided that certain behaviors were appropriate to men and some appropriate to women. The decision to do so, and the way the behaviors are lumped together are social and cultural choices. In the West, and in the US, we have long held that men are more active than women, that men are more aggressive than women, and that men are more athletically inclined than women. Indeed, a man who was not athletic was long been seen as less of a man; conversely, a woman who was athletic was seen as less of a woman.
Fortunately, these rigid divisions are breaking down; and yet, vestiges linger. And the trolls won’t let go.
As in the basketball example, we can see some general differences in the men’s soccer game and the women’s soccer game. If we see more individual play on the men’s side, we tend to see more team play on the women’s side. Where we see (quite infamously) a lot of flopping on the men’s side, we see very little of that on the women’s side. Given my own personal preferences, given my own assumptions about what make soccer enjoyable to watch, I prefer watching the women’s game.
I do not mean to suggest that these differences are inherent or essential. But they are tendencies that have been learned — by players and by spectators — over time. Those who hold particular ideas about gendered behaviors, about how men should act and about how women should act, tend to prefer one game or the other.
I suggest, however, learning to understand and appreciate different forms of play, different ways of playing would allow the spectator to appreciate and enjoy a variety of styles of play. But even more, I suggest that understanding one’s own biases and assumptions might help eliminate the categorical — and reprehensible — complaints listed above.
