FIL showing himself up - saddened by DH’s reaction

[SunnierDays21]

We are away with the family currently, DH’s parents have joined us (staying separately on the same site).

We’ve spent much of the afternoon in the on-site bar and DH and FIL were engrossed in the football results which were on the screen.

An advertisement came up for a women’s match tomorrow and DH asked FIL if he’d want to watch it. The conversation went something like this:

DH - fancy it tomorrow, Dad?
FIL - hahaha
DH - seriously
FIL - why would I spend my Sunday afternoon watching a bunch of fat lezza’s pretend to know how to play football?
DH - it’s come on quite a bit
FIL - do me a favour, I’ve seen women’s footballers and I’d not touch them with a barge pole
DH - alright, you have a point

Our daughter has been getting into football over the past few months and this was really disheartening to listen to. I have brought it up with DH and he says he agrees it was inappropriate but his Dad is of a different era and anything he’d tell him would fall on deaf ears.

AIBU to have expected DH to have said something in the moment?

It’s not a choice between going along with it or starting WW3. You can handle these situations more diplomatically.

FIL “… a bunch of fat lezzas…”
DH “I didn’t know that, you must have been taking more interest than me, where did you read it?”

FIL “wouldn’t touch them with a barge pole”
DH “at your age I’d certainly hope not, hahaha!”

💯- to not have any interest in women’s football is absolutely fine, that’s not a problem.

To use misogynistic and homophobic language about the women is absolutely the problem.

I mean lezzas ffs - don’t think I’ve heard that term since in left school in the 80’s.

And I’m sure the sort if men who use terms like ‘fat lezzas’ are prime physical specimens themselves

yes. I would.
Because i am a gobby feminist (24/7 with the feminism) and i don't put up with shit like that. Ever.

Women's football is dire to watch. I like football but just dont think women's football is anywhere near the quality and entertainment of men's football. So on that basis I'd probably decline to watch it. But i think his derogatory comment on referring them to being 'lezzas' is out of order, inferring that if they're lesbians it somehow means they also can't be decent footballers.

Well I really hope you don't go around Feministing all over the place
Keep if for when its appropriate won't you just in case you offend some misogynistic knobhead

the agesim, as always, on this site is spectacularly shitty.

So FIL is early 60s? that's my era. And most of the guys i know wouldn't talk like this - well not around me anyway. people that age grew up with punk, new romantics and the protests around Section 28. IME they are either misogynist twerps like the OPs FIL, or they don't have any truck with that shit.

This is why many men get away with being such arseholes, because women don't want to cause a scene or upset the poor man's ego.

I would pull anyone up for saying that every single time- why let them get away with such homophobic and misogynistic shit?

Your daughter and her peers deserve to be stuck up for.

Yes, will no one think of the misogynists?

Well I am 70, and I would never put up with that 😡

So he wouldn't watch a women's football because he doesn't fancy having sex with any of the players but he likes to watch male footballers....

Holiday, drinking or no, I think your DH should have carried on with his challenge. He started OK then agreed with his father!

It's not a generational thing. Sadly, it's a your FIL being a complete dick thing. My Dad is 80, a lifelong football fan. In so many (many!) ways he's exceedingly old fashioned and a complete traditionalist. Yet, he loves the women's game and freely admits you see far more actual quality football - as opposed to rolling around on the floor feigning injury - when there are no testicles on the pitch.

Agree, I don't doubt that there are much younger men who hold homophobic and sexist views about women in sport and women in general.

I was given tickets to a performance of Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo 25 years ago as a gift by a gay friend. I returned the ticket to him saying 'I don't fancy watching gay men pretending to be women insulting the great Tchaikovsky ballet and I don't find them attractive'. We are still friends and he has no problem with me expressing my opinion to him.

Haven't RTFT but my dad, who's in his late 70s, comes with me and my DS13 to watch the women's team of our premier league club. He would not speak like that about female footballers. It's not ok.

I think there’s a way of handling this sort of thing that doesn’t come across as sanctimonious kill joying, especially on a holiday.

For example

1/ If they’re “all lezzers” I doubt they’d want to fuck you anyway Dad so I’d stop worrying about how attractive you find them.

2/ Do you watch the men’s football because you want to fuck them? Does Mum know?

3/ It’s irrelevant to the sport but they are actually almost exclusively very attractive so your taste in women is shite (except for Mum).

Is this sort of thing the most elegant and proper way to deal with it? Of course not. But making people who talk this way just look stupid works better than being earnest. Someone using the word “fat lezzer” in 2025 to describe Leah Williamson isn’t going to be won over with a lesson in misogyny.

Wholly agree. I’m actually quite shocked.

Quite a few of them on this and other threads!

Well if you had used similar language to OP's FIL I doubt you would still be friends.
And your "story" doesn't make you out to be half as sophisticated as you imagine.

I agree with most of this but I think he was wrong for telling his dad he had a point and affirming him. There are ways to recognise that someone is set in their ways and move a conversation on without validating them and telling them they are right. If this was within earshot of your dd I'd be really angry and have expected him to call it out strongly for her benefit.

Exactly.

My 'story' was about expressing an opinion, not sophistication.

its really not typical 'lad' conversation. I know a few men who work in sports journalism/ sports presenting/ related fields - absolutely none of them would talk like this

and to go along with FIL saying 'fat lezzas' - as the father of a girl who likes to play football? GROSS>

It sounds like from the little interaction they had your dh did try and then backed down. I think it says more about their relationship than the actual women’s football. Your fil sounds disillusioned if he thinks women’s footballers are fat, they are sportswomen. Plus assuming anyone’s sexuality based on a sport is ridiculous. Maybe your dh gave up because of his dad’s behaviour/opinions. Not that any of it was acceptable.

He's in his mid 60s!

It's hardly ancient. He's still of working age and was born in the 1960s.

My mum's 81. And much more socially aware.

When you say 'ageism', do you mean people saying: 'he's of his generation' and that sort of thing?

Because that struck me as really odd too!

Awful.
Pity your oh didn't remind him the Women's England team did better than the men's.