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?

and if the FiL shares your opinion, why couldn't he say "Not for me thanks, I'm not interested" ?

I appreciate that it’s difficult to challenge op but saying he needs to hear from another male is a cop out. This kind of behaviour needs challenging by all and if your daughter was present wouldn’t you want her to see you standing up for what’s right.

He wouldn’t watch female football bc he wouldn’t ‘touch them with a barge pole’ - but he WILL watch male only matches bc he would shag them touch them with a barge pole?

This is his argument - point it out next time, OP.

Horrified my posts do not conform to common idiocy and do not reflect the madness of the world. Not.

I would personally do anything to dissuade my daughter, were she to express an interest in football. But this is just my opinion.

Any meaningless activity (sport, ballet) are mostly watched for the visual pleasure, not intellectual stimulation, so I only watch those sports which I find pleasing - i.e. I find the participants attractive. Not so with intellectual offerings - opera, plays, films - I am not for obvious reasons concerned with the appearance, only the substance.

I shall try to improve in my own time and do my best to come back to the thread, if still available, and to conform to the uniform idiocy!

Yes, I agree. What can I say? I agree.

Wtf?! So just a few years older than my DH who’s spent years watching his own DD play football. He would never in a million years have had an attitude like that.

Your FIL is a misogynistic dinosaur. And your DH is a total drip. To say he’d got a point is pathetic and awful. He totally let your DD down. My vagina would’ve snapped shut and never reopened.

Womens football is dire!
A lot of them are quite chunky, they aren't fit ( athletically ) as the man, they cannot kick and the game is just boring.
It never will be as mainstream as the mens.
No wonder your FIL doesn't want to watch it, I don't know any man who will watch it voluntarily

Don’t need men to slag women when we’re happy to give them a kicking ourselves. I wonder how good the women would be if they were also being paid millions a year? Women’s football was more popular back in the day so the FA banned it. Fil sounds awful and ignorant dull people like this won’t be told.

Oh. Why?

I'm sure you'd run rings around the lionesses on the pitch. If only there was sufficient haulage equipment to prise ginormous you out from under that bridge....

It's fine for you and OP's FIL to not want to watch women's football. Making derogatory comments about their appearance is not OK.

It's such a fucking joke that hideous sexist old men like OP's FIL will say that they wouldn't touch some women with a bargepole as if

a) these women will be upset that they don't meet the high standards of a disgusting old man, and

b) that they would touch FIL with a bargepole if they had the opportunity.

It's as though Queen Victoria has come back to life and is expressing her views on women's sport.

Your posts are some of the oddest on Mumsnet.

The ‘ different era’ stuff is an ageist insult to all the people of FIL’s age group and older who fought for (and gained) women’s rights, fought homophobia, etc etc.

Your DH should have said “Well I would have to disagree on every count, don’t worry, Dd and I will watch, she’s turning out to be a cracking footballer “

Instead of his pathetic ‘you have a point’.

That’s where he let himself and his Dd down.

My husband is 63 and yesterday he watched a women’s football match on tv, followed by a women’s Six Nations rugby match, and enjoyed both, without a single sexiest or misogynist comment.

Do you know many men who call the players "fat Lezzas" because if you do might I suggest you try and meet different men?
Nobody is criticising the FIL for not wanting to watch any sport BUT his language was vile

You aren't wrong
I think I have come across that Poster before and if I am right she is VERY proud of her O level in English

I am putting my honest opinion here. I am aware of it. I am not that poster who would write 'uni is not for all, tell your dc to go into trades', whilst bending over backwards to send their own children to uni. Or to say 'body positivity is great' (for others) whilst being an almond mum. So my honest opinion is that football is a waste of time for girls because it is unlikely to lead to the same sporting career and earnings as for male footballers. In UK schools, including private schools, there are so many things amiss, like they don't teach languages, for example. So instead of football, daughters could be sent to Alliance Francaise, Goethe Institute, or Institute Servantes, whatever is available in their town. They don't teach chess at schools either - a more useful sport (even though massively male dominated with abysmal results for women) - so I would encourage daughters to play chess. And any normal female sport, which would not guarantee hernias, uterine prolapse and dislocated jaws (i.e. not weightlifting, or boxing). I don't have millions to leave to my dc, unfortunately, so my dc would have to work in future, so my thinking is conditioned by that. If I had millions to leave to my dds, I would not have minded them doing football as I would not have cared about their wasting time on it quite so much (but weightlifting would be out of the question for the same reason, as boxing.

Lanzarotelady is not being discussed here, we are talking about women's football and FIL's opinion of it - why would you attack Lanzarotelady? She happened to express an opinion shared by most football fans, that is all. You know that virtue signalling is not compulsory?

Institute Servantes

Its actually "Cervantes" after the famous Spanish Author so if you want to write such pretentious posts maybe get the basics right?

No, we are discussing the disgusting behaviour and misogyny of OP's FIL and her H's reaction (or lack of)

You are commenting on my size, have you ever seen me, do you know what dress size I am?? No.

You are commentating on my sporting ability. Have you ever seen me play any sport?? No.

My ability to play or not play football is not in question here, the fact remains, his language may not have been the best, but for Gods sake does anyone here actually go to pubs or work nowadays and listen to conversations??

Women's football is dire.

That is why I am saying virtue signalling is not compulsory and neither is insulting Lanzarotelady is compulsory. Or is it only the FIL who is not allowed to call people fat?