Football culture is far more harmful to women's rights and wellbeing than porn culture.

[solidgoldbrass]

For a start, football culture gives a far more pervasive, wide-ranging and monolithic message: men are gods and women are either decorative accessories or foodstuff. It's misogyny and toxic masculinity encapsulated. Never mind the fact that the England women's football team have apparently won the world cup more often than the England men's team: there's the whole WAG thing, where being someone's appendage is a prize girls are told to covet, yet if they actually try to seek this prize they are demonized as sluts and gold-diggers, there's the way in which rape is seen as far more forgivable than being gay... and hard evidence that violence against women has a big upsurge every time there's a major football match on.

Hardly, if anything that disproves the OP even more since it failed. Virtually all the football fans there did not want to give an applause and the ones who tried to set it up were not random fans but his family members.

Thinking about it, being from Liverpool, so hard to avoid football (plus i used to work for LFC and lived in Anfield).

I wonder if some of the views around sexism (i don't beleive that football supporters are misgynic) are fueled by the fact that the more gutter press/page three type newspapers have the best sports coverage.

The wag culture has built up because of the wages of footballers and the fact that they come from working class backgrounds.

You could argue exploitation from a class perspective as much as a gender issue.

Sorry for typo's.

Its a pretty weird tactic of posting a provocation then sitting and watching but not entering the debate... It's all a bit Big Brother (of the reality tv kind!?)

I don't like the grand national, for the cruelty to horses, the binge drinking and the frocks are pretty horrific too. But that doesn't mean I want people to stop riding horses.

Surely if you take the whole of football, knock abouts in the park, junior clubs, charity matches, community then this outweighs or at least balances with some of the more unpleasant parts? There sre very few things in life that are all bad or all good. And I do agree it's as much about binge drinking associated with matches as it is about glorifying to demi god status some young blokes that can kick a ball and any links to misogamy.

YAN & YABU. Your points are sound (and fluently made; try shorter sentences next time )

The football and porn cultures are intertwined. Both breed sexist objectification as part and parcel of an 'ideal' bloke culture.

It is, however, possible to watch and to play football without in any way supporting the abuse of women for money. Not so with porn.

Oi, Pan! I'm a writer! It just so happens I've not done any paid writing for a while, hence my frequent badly written contributions to the Great Mumsnet Archives. I'm still "a proper writer" though.

Grovel NOW, man, and make it lowly!

agree with garlic.

i think it's the celeb culture that's now entertwined with football that's the problem. that's the objectification part. the kickabout, local club charity match, leisure activity part's not the issue.

sport in and of itself is a decent/wholesome/constructive thing to occupy yourself with. just like sex is a decent/wholesome/constructive thing to occupy yourself with.

it's when you throw in the objectification/commodification of the human beings involved that you get into a pickle.

garlic your post there is a bit contradictory, if you don't mind me saying. If the 'cultures' are intertwinned it would mean they are 'banded together' or mutually identified in some way.
fwiw, I have been a footie supporter since 8-9 yo, and played it to 'county' level as a teenager. Never support the 'porn culture'.
I have little idea how the OP is definnig the 'football culture' and it doesn't look like she is going to bother to illuminate us all either.

no no. I was reffering to sgb in claiming to be a writer..and then..not writing!

The negative aspects of football culture that you've outlined OP have been created in part because of the porn culture. I've been a football fan for over 40 years and I assure you that there was no rape or 'roasting' culture evident in the 60s, 70s 0r even the 80s. The lowlife scum that think that an unconscious woman is fair game to be gang-raped and filmed have grown up with the internet where 'rape porn' has become mainstream. The filming of that poor girl is a factor that seems to have been overlooked in a lot of the commentary I've read - but this was evil men making their own real-life rape porn.

If you wanted a sensible political discussion about this, you might have also mentioned the capitalist angle where profit and success will always trump ethics and decency. Football is no different to big business - if someone's successful and will earn the company megabucks, the fact that he is a racist or a misogynist is overlooked - especially the latter.

As a female football fan, I'm not arguing by the way that football isn't appallingly sexist. I cringe every time I hear footballers' on-pitch violence described as 'just a bit of handbags' and detest the stick that female officials, commentators and pundits get from brainless idiots who know far less about the game. That's always been the case in football and along with rugby and the misogynist culture that surrounds that sport too, it should be challenged at every turn.

What's changed the behaviour of footballers though is the capitalism that's overtaken the game where footballers are paid ludicrous amounts and think they can 'buy' anything (including a woman) and because few women (or people come to that) ever say 'no' to them, they think they are entitled to have it anyway. Raping or having sex in gangs and filming it comes from porn though.

As for the WAG culture, it's just an extension of the sex industry and 'choice feminism' isn't it? Young women aiming to make a buck out of their sexual attractiveness rather than their brain-power and claiming that they are 'empowered' by choosing that lifestyle.

YY, oiko, you're right; it's the sleb end of football that creates problems for women. There's a trickle-down effect, in that supporters and local league players would aspire to the perceived abusive lifestyle associated with success.

That reflects celebrity culture more than football per se - although you can't separate the two these days.

I know, Pan, I was just feeling pokey.

I was about to elaborate on what I meant by intertwined, but I see sternface has done it rather well.

Women's football suffers from a dispiriting degree of tokenism. On the FA website it can be found, second to last, under the final menu item "More" You'll note that tickets for the 2012 FA Women's Cup Final are only £5 and are still available, less than a month in advance of the 26th May fixture.

yes, big 'like' to sternface's post.

Thanks Pan. I think I've seen you on here before. Aren't you a fellow Red?

Nervous about tonight's game? As the great man would say, it's Squeaky Bum time

yes, sternface - trying to not think about it. Will be in a mixed reds/blues pub. My bottom is just warming up. IYSWIM.

I hate football culture; well, British football culture (it's not a big sport here) and think it is insidiously misogynistic and anti-feminist, but I do think porn culture feeds into it and makes it worse, so in that sense YABU.

Good luck convincing this lot of that, though. You never will.

I couldn't agree more with the OP. I have a DS and I absolutely do not want him anywhere near that sport as he grows up.

"I've hidden the feminism topic so I don't have to cast my eye over such tosh."

BackforGood, are you serious? You honestly don't think feminism is worth considering or learning about?

That is one of the most pathetic and depressing things I think I've ever read on MN.

SGB, I totally agree with your OP.

Couldn't agree more CaoNiMa - mŷ eyes rolled off my head when I read that.

Anyone who thinks feminism is 'tosh' is a fool.

I have a season ticket for my local team. I have done since I was 4 years old! I used to go with my dad. We're in the prem now and as soon as DS is 4 if he wants one he can come with me too. I have never found going to the match sexist or degrading to women.

Yanbu. I think OP makes a very interesting point and I agree. I think if you can't see it, even just a little bit, you are lacking in imagination. Football is everywhere, as the op says, it's pervasive and that's powerful. It has become about much more than just a game.

Please don't call Feminism "tosh". Good Grief.

LST - SGB is talking about so much more than the actual games themselves.... football culture.

People imersed in football culture also have access to porn so could one inform the oyther and together to envelope is pushed to be more shocking. Coupled with footballers being given more opportunities or excused by all from a young age creates a sense of entitlement

OP YANBU

I hate watching football now. The cheating, diving, lying antics which are condoned by the clubs and applauded by fans give these men the feeling that they can get away with anything. Add in ridiculous wages and adulation and it's no wonder they end up speeding, writing off cars, cheating on their partners or , if single, having sex with people who arent in a position to consent.

I know this is a sweeping generalisation and not all footballers are like this but the percentagFe who are, and who are pandered to by their clubs and the fans while they behave outrageously, is too high.

The clubs need to lower the pay and clamp down on dishonesty in the game before anything can change. These guys feel untouchable.