AIBU to say men who believe this are sexist pricks

I think people are a bit annoyed about the way the media has been pushing women's football.

Almost treating us a bit daft by alleging it's exactly the same and just as exciting as the men's game. It isn't. There's an element of emperor's new clothes. Like we have to say it's good because it's great that women are doing it.

I find it immensely boring. And wouldn't go out of my way to watch. I'm sure some men are sexist, but women's football is actually fairly niche.

The default shouldn't be that everyone adores it and loves it as much as the mens. The media want it to be true. But most of those women still have to work a day job as the wages for the sport are so poor. It's really nothing similar.

The interesting thing is that they have always admitted that this would be the case, they have never tried to say they would be up there with the top men, its a different game and there are allowances for that. I believe it was one of the Venus sisters who said that they wouldn't even make it into the mens top 100.

I find the women's football game is pushed to try and make us believe its the same. People often say they are technically better, but I dont think that is true. They have to use technique more as they dont have the strength/size/power some men do (evident on penalties) so they have to play technically.

Men have that technique also but dont need to always use it, I see it in youth cricket, from a very young age (10ish) there is a significant difference in the boys/girls. We have had girls who play to a really high level in the county but purely down to the fact that cannot hit the ball as hard do not do as well as the boys who only play club cricket, hence why they can play 2 years down, but even then most 17 yr old girls arent a match for 15 yo boys!

To not watch as a football fan simply because it's women playing is sexist.

To not watch because the quality is poor and it's like watching schoolchildren play is fair. I tried to get into it but keep cringing at the level of play.

Well you can different teams have different levels of skill ,even if they are all.playing football
You wouldn't say a Sunday league game was exactly the same, as the FA Cup final.

Women are technically fantastic but I think OP is unreasonable in thinking it’s only men who can be sexist pricks

This!
For the same reasons I dont like watching women’s snooker or even tennis sometimes. It’s just boring tbh.

The quality of the women's game is significantly lower as many people have pointed out, I wouldn't go out of my way to watch the mens U21s international team either but they are far better players than the women, its not even comparable.

My DH will have it on if its a big England match like the other night but wouldn't stop plans for it, a lot of our plans are made round our local mens teams fixtures though. He recognises that the ladies have improved massively and it doesn't come from a sexist place, its just nowhere near as exciting to watch I find.

We watch a lot of cricket and often go to The Hundred so the women play first. Again the quality is pretty poor, they can bat/bowl ok but the fielding is awful (way worse than teen boys) and is even more noticeable when the men play straight after, but to make it more interesting they bring the boundary in for the ladies. I wouldn't usually bother to watch the ladies if the mens match wasnt on after (even though I play myaelf) but occasionally I will go if its a social event with my team/friends. Its really cheap still but I wouldn't pay the same as the mens England cricket prices for the ladies as the level is really not worth it.

One of the stats to come out of this tournament was that several of the women’s penalties from the England team have been the most powerful in all football this year.

I don't mean it like that, just it's unfortunate if no one will even take it seriously or even be interested in it. But I hear what you're saying in that the point of it is to get enjoyment from playing it. Perhaps I got too sucked into that movie Bend it like Beckham as a teen 😄

There are plenty of people not taking men’s football seriously too - “overpaid”, “just kicking a bag of air around”.

In the same breath they praise Olympians seemingly oblivious to the fact that footballers are highly skilled athletes too.

Like with many sports , DH says the women’s game is better technically and less histrionics

he does wish the goal was slightly smaller

For the vast majority of men and women, no one takes their sport seriously. Even really talented male footballers won’t, unless they’re literally in the top 0.1% of players. Everyone should be allowed to partake and enjoy sport, but no one is owed fame and fortune from it.

Attempts to push women’s football hard do seem artificial, and do feel like “You WILL love women’s football as much as men’s, or we’ll shame you for being sexist!”

I watch both and agree they are different. Entirely reasonable for people to choose not to watch everything/ sports they don't find interesting. The women's game is slower than the men's so can be less exciting and engaging to watch. Thats just how it is. They are definitely different. Agree entirely that the culture and atmosphere at womens is way more civil and mens football crowds could learn some lessons on that front.

Similar is true of tennis though, but you say you prefer women’s? Venus and Serena Williams played a match against the 203rd ranked man (they played a set each) and lost 6-1 6-2. This was the year before the sisters won 3 of the 4 slams between them.

I think there is more of a cultural bias in this than people generally like to acknowledge, although I appreciate you specially have mentioned it.

My partner has watched all the games and will watch the final as he thinks it’s a good standard but of voices as others have said, not on a par with the men’s equivalent. Someone suggested the women should play on a smaller pitch and I think will this would help massively in terms of the intensity and impact.

It's fine to not be interested in the women's game, but not OK to slag it off to daughters who may be interested or inspired by it.

Men are allowed to not be interested in the women’s football. It is not an indicator of sexism, or their quality as a husband or father.

fathers shouldn’t criticise women’s football in front of their children, but they are not obliged to pretend that they want to watch it.

It depends why they aren’t watching it.

If they aren’t interested in women’s football, I don’t see what’s wrong with that. The quality tends not to be very high (although is improving, particularly the top teams).

I’m not interested in men’s golf, so I don’t watch it.

If they aren’t watching because it’s women and women shouldn’t play football, etc, then yeah it’s sexist.

I love football but I won’t be watching. I just don’t like women’s football. The quality is dire.

I really like the women’s actually. I went to the quarter finals. The atmosphere is so much nicer than the men’s. After the Sweden game, three swedes came and made friends with us at the bar. We could drink in the stadiums too as no fighting. It’s just a good time. And you still get to support your country.

There is a difference between 'it's not my thing' and 'it's because it is women playing', in my opinion. The former is reasonable- I don't watch or go to the opera for example.

It's not really the same though if you are deeply into it. I've never seen anything as technically brilliant as the Cruyff turn in the women's game for instance. And my DH is often showing me incredibly impressive goals from the men's game that TBH I haven't seen in the women's game.

I'm still more interested in the women's game because the female players are more relatable. I'm not that interested though because I don't find sport that interesting. I can completely see why if someone was watching for a love of football as a game they would find the women's game inferior, in the same way watching a league 2 match is going to involve inferior play compared to a Premiership match, even though it's still football.

"...to pretend it’s exactly the same is not helpful."

You can't get more identical than 11 people trying to score as many goals as possible in 90 minutes. And then nervous breakdown penalties. That's it.

We are sports fans and will watch it. But my DH will piss me off by laughing at it a fair amount. He was a nightmare during that penalty shoot out, which i have to admit was pretty dire.

My DH used to not enjoy the women's football because he said the quality of the playing was very low.

He now enjoys it much more than I do and says the quality has improved significantly due to more investment in the women's game etc.

So I think it's fine if people don't want to watch it. You can't force people to enjoy things.

To be honest I don't really enjoy the Paralympics that much just because there are so many categories. I understand why they need to have all those categories but it just makes it much less fun to watch for me personally. I don't think that makes me ablist, although I am sure someone will be along in a minute to tell me it does 🤷‍♀️