The word “lionesses” makes me cringe

[bottledjoyy]

I’m sorry, I know this is irrational but something about it just makes me cringe so much. I enjoyed watching the women’s football and am all for it, but for some reason the term “Lionesses” makes me shudder with cringe.
I feel like it just makes it feel a bit infantilising? I know it’s Three Lions but not like we constantly refers to the men’s team as “the lions”. I dunno it just seems patronising and cringe.

Just me? Haha

Well I suppose the Men's England Football Team can no longer be called merely the England Team as there's also the Women's England Team too.

And then there's the dilemma about are women best called women or possibly Ladies or Female or why?, etc. Given that minefield of description best go for the easier moniker often used for UK Teams involving variations of Lions.

Thr funny thing is that Lions aren't even a native UK animal - but sounds a lot better than The Badgers for instance.

The players wanted that name, it's a beloved name in Oz. If it's not for you, well fine. Cal them what you like.

The lions are the British Lions, the men's combined rugby team.

The lionesses for the woman's English football team isn't really the female equivalent.

I don't really like it either, it feels contrived and awkward.

I suppose it doesn’t help is that ‘lion’ isn’t a gendered word, whereas lioness is.

It’s a bit pathetic. You are not wrong OP.

That’s basically the inherent sexism of the English language (see also: dog). It’s outrageous but we’re so used to it.

A bunch of nutcases. Nothing wrong with female names. How is lioness ‘less than’. It’s not. I’m very happy to be a woman, a mother, sister, aunt, lioness, wife, girl when I was young, an actress when in a school play….it is very sexist and misogynist to say lioness is less than, is cringey, is not good enough, or patronizing. How is being called a female name patronizing. Unless you believe women and females are ‘less than’. Feminists gone so far to the left they’re patriarchal villainesses. Same ones who defend, on this site, married men spending all their time at bars with female friends, ‘ffs are you paranoid, why can’t he do what he likes? Mine has loads of female friends he spends the night with and I’m not worried’ L O L

Thank god the men aren’t nicknamed ‘The Dogs’…

I prefer to call them “the men’s team”, myself.

I don't like it as lioness feels like an add-on word; I.e. we started with lion and tacked on an ending for the other sex. Same principle with men/women and male/female, only there they tacked on a prefix. The core word is the one used for the more important sex, invariably the males.

I quite like Matildas as at least it is a name in its own right and isn't referencing the blessed males. Roses I can live with too, although the females=flowers does make me eyeroll a bit.

I think that's you making up in your head that a lioness is 'less than.' Lionesses do the hunting, they're faster, they're more active.

I do hope that the Men's World Cup is referred to as such, rather than just 'The World Cup' though

I think you’ve entirely missed the point. It’s about the Men’s game being treated as the default.

Its not as if the men’s tournament is called the Men’s World Cup…it just the World Cup. But the women’s one is the Women’s World Cup.

And the England men’s team are almost exclusively just called ‘England’, whereas the women’s team is most commonly referred to by its nickname, the Lionesses…to distinguish them from the default men’s team.

A lioness is a female lion. There's nothing wrong with being female. It's sad that people think that using a female term is "infantilising".
Women aren't children.

Women aren't less than.
Women shouldn't have to use male words in order to be valued the same as men.

The funny thing is that Lions aren't even a native UK animal - but sounds a lot better than The Badgers for instance.

Oregon State University's football team are the Beavers. Beavers are indeed native to Oregon.

And then there is the Florida baseball team known as the Jumbo Shrimp.

Millwall FC female team are known as lionesses too. Its the club emblem, same as England national team. Male U21 England team are known as Young Lions.
Lionesses are strong, powerful creatures ...it could be worse.

“Matilda” is also a nickname/name for a female kangaroo (eg the Commonwealth Games mascot). The men’s basketball team are the Boomers and the soccer are the Socceroos so there’s a kangaroo theme there (plus the boxing kangaroo is a national sporting mascot). Why a PP thinks it’s so awful is beyond me.

The Colombian women are
known as the Coffee Girls!

A bunch of nutcases. Nothing wrong with female names. How is lioness ‘less than’. It’s not.

I don’t think it’s less than, and if I had to have an animal nickname a lioness would be a fine choice. BUT I agree with posters who have pointed out all these women’s team nicknames are clearly gendered, where men’s (when they are used at all) aren’t. Why is that?

I mean a ‘socceroo’ isn’t a gendered thing, so why do the Aussie women have to be Matildas?

The list upthread male national team names is of things like All Blacks and Springboks. Gender neutral. Women get to be Red Roses.

Just reinforces the idea that male is default and female is some sort of stick-on accessory. A novelty.

Also don't like it. I don't see a need to feminise the name of a football team.

Why can't they be England? To call them something else makes them seem less important than men's team - like the men are the real England team.
And they shouldn't be "England Women" either. Just England.
The men's team isn't "England Men"

Yip - lionesses do the hunting and bringing home the bacon in the wild

Well they wouldn't be as the British and Irish Lions is a rugby team

I must admit that I assumed that the Lionesses were a rugby team. It wasn’t until the publicity surrounding them making the final that I realised they were playing football.

I’m not really into sport.

To differentiate between the teams we should refer to them as:

England and England with penises

Or the male team

Or those who haven't gotten to a world cup final in almost 60 years but still keep going on about it

canaries are Norwich footie players

I do - I call them the Australian women's football team.