Wondering about sexism/football

[Ponderponde]

I might be completely wrong here and overthinking things. And totally support the Lionesses and this isn’t really about them - they are great. BUT. I’ve been tying myself in knots thinking about this. Football (whether we like it or not) has been historically a ‘men’s’ game…and now women are playing it as well, which is great and we are all falling over ourselves to give women’s football the same kudos as men’s. Great. But if you think of traditionally women’s sports - I’m thinking about netball, we don’t get the opposite thing, so men playing that and society in general trying to raise the profile of it. So seems like ‘men’s’ sports are acceptable for women to play but not the other way round. Works out in other areas as well - in my DD dancing class there are no boys, but loads of girls do football and martial arts etc. is it just as insulting to women that it’s socially acceptable to do ‘men’s’ sports, but for a man to then do dancing, or even gymnastics at a child’s level (maybe not when they are older) it’s seen as sissy and somehow not as acceptable?!

Men can do gym aatuca and dancing if they want

Women were banned from.playing football for a long time

Aatuca = gymnastics 😐

It’s a man’s world. So the work generally needs to go in favour of levelling the playing field (not just in sport) for women. It would be great if sport were simply sport, across the board, but redressing the balance needs to start with the oppressed class.

Women's football was huge just after Ww1.

So the FA banned it as not to overshadow men's football so your assertion that it's traditionally a men's game isn't quite correct.

This!

Well male netball is basketball really isn’t it? 🤣
I don’t think that’s true about gymnastics either - there are lots of different disciplines, yes some of them are more female than male but there are loads of boys in the sport. My son does it and it isn’t seen as sissy or girly. I n fact I think he has more respect for women in sport because he sees girls doing strength training and being really skilled. He looks up to the older ones!