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?

Yabu because your DH did encourage going twice and you could have jumped on the bandwagon and spoken up.

Sexism is everyone's problem.

Assuming youre right, maybe they'd do better if they had the same investment as men's football. Cap the mens salaries, mandate mens England league coaches must all have completed a period of coaching womens football, equal pricing for tickets. There's loads that could be done in that space.

No, I haven't.

It will never be the same game though. Even one of the coaches said that in an interview (can't remember who ) she said its a completely different game, it never will be on the same level and people should stop comparing them - it needs to be developed as a game in its own right

Whoever said that is a sexist pig with a vested interest.

Eta, yes, you said she said that, it still applies.

@Lanzarotelady the reason I asked is because, as I stated in my earlier post, I watch a lot of football. I’ve been a Season Ticket Holder for 10 years and prior to that used to attend matches on as adhoc basis since the age of 8 (I’m now 43). And it’s not just Everton. My DH is a Koppite (I know, and I married him anyway!) so often watch their games on tv as well as other clubs if I’m able to wrestle control of the remote from DH!

Yes, the standard of the women’s game is not at the same level of the men’s. But in February I attended a test event at our new stadium and the under 18s team were playing. I saw many similarities between those players, style of play etc and the women’s teams I’ve watched. The major difference probably being the lack of tackling by the under 18s, which seems to be actively discouraged through the academy system and sadly looks like will eventually become a dying part of the game that’s leaning more and more into becoming a non-contact sport.

All this to say, these under 18s are all professionals, with contracts and salaries. The majority of these lads will never go on to have a professional career in football, even fewer at the highest level involving crazy salaries, sponsorships etc and yet it doesn’t stop them from playing the sport they love and have likely been playing from the age of 3/4 to have got to this level anyway.

I think it’s incorrect and a little dismissive of you to make a sweeping statement that women’s football is no better than Sunday League, especially when you don’t seem to have much understanding or knowledge of the game and what it involves.

Sunday League is a level of football played for fun, by amateurs and known to often involve men being hungover, relatively unfit but with overinflated perceptions of their abilities and a long harboured sense of the world beating career that could have been were it not for [insert reason/excuse here].

Yes, servants' attitude to frivolity was markedly different from that of their masters. The amoral rot, decadence, debauchery always started upstairs, from lack of meaningful work, from laziness and emphaloscepsis. Yes, I did an awful lot of reading on the subject

Do share the titles ( and publication dates) of your reading on this subject.

Absolutely this.

So one of the female coaches is a sexist pig?? Or just realistic?

Well, since you are Clafoutie, I recommend the whole of Maupassant, Zola and Balzac. And Flaubert.

What an absolutely bizarre way of thinking, and of ensuring your dc miss out on a wealth of opportunities

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

How does that make it a waste of time ? What about fun, enjoyment, fitness, the social side, the things they learn about resilience and not giving up, but also keeping thing in perspective, and working as a team, and supporting one another ?
Neither my dd nor ds who both play football (and still do as adults) were ever likely to make it their career, but it has been (and continues to be) a really positive thing in both their lives.

In UK schools, including private schools, there are so many things amiss, like they don't teach languages, for example
You clearly are just making stuff up now. I don't know if that is through ignorance or if you are just trying to wind people up.
All my dc learned French at school and two of my dc learned German too. Not private, or grammar schools, just our local comprehensives.

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
My dd learned to play chess at Primary school, and played in County competitions. She managed this whilst also playing football for her school, District, and County.
It isn't a sport, but she did learn it. Not that it ever helped her health and fitness, which is really what sport is about.

I'm really not sure why you are just making stuff up / spouting rubbish.

I don't have millions to leave to my dc

Oddly enough, nor do I, and, I suspect, nor will most posters on MN. What is your point ? All of my dc will need to make their way in the world (indeed, mine are already, as young adults) and therefore my job as their parent is to make sure they are well rounded individuals, who don't think the only things worth doing in life are things that they might be able to earn a living from.

A sexist pig because, believe it or not, women can be sexist too.

What she is saying is that women should accept being treated differently because of their sex.

Imagine telling doctors they should just accept being paid less, being published less, and beingmpromoted less, because they're women.

If that attitude prevailed women wouldn't have the right to vote today.

How about "Servantes" (sic)????

Female doctors are often paid less, promoted less and publish less because they take a lot of paid time off for maternity leave. Life happens to us all. Not just doctors, all professions.

After some encouragement from me, DH brought this up again with FIL after breakfast so when sober.

He shouldn’t have bothered, he denies he said anything sexist and said there is such a thing as freedom of speech. My DH specifically asked him about DD playing football and he said ‘well I hope she’s better than the current bunch otherwise she’ll be wasting her time’ which was charming.

FIL is a lost cause.

FIL is my generation then.

It's not because of his age, it's because he has vile attitudes towards women. I'd be furious with DH for not challenging the 'fat lezzers' and bargepole comments. That goes beyond not enjoying women's football into hatred of women who don't prioritise men/him. Which, I hope, is most of us. So most women.

I know quite a few (to my not-interested in sports eyes) football fanatics in that age group. They mostly like women's football too but the ones who don't, don't express views like that about the players.

A couple of years ago I saw a bunch celebrating in the pub because one of them had a granddaughter signed up by a big academy. They were all so happy and proud.

Plus the homophobia as well as sexism.

He expressed
Professional sportswomen are fat.
Professional sportswomen are lesbians.
Lesbians are 'lezzers'
Lesbians are ugly (they must be lesbians as he wouldn't touch them with a bargepole)
Women should care about whether he finds them attractive.

Your FIL basically just hates women. Watch yourself with that one.

I’d have challenged it myself tbh. No point getting upset when you also didn’t confront the issue. I don’t care if FIL is my husbands dad and not mine - when he pulls shit like this I let him know he’s a bigot. Generally I’d add that I had no idea he thought women so beneath him and that he should clearly get on the pitch and show the silly athletes his incredible skill and athleticism.

.

Ah, @Hwi I thought as much. I enjoy a nineteenth century novel, but medical thinking at that time diagnosed hysteria in women as related to the uterus, and causes included waywardness including reading books, masturbation, etc. The same, or similar context in which your debauched servants in the grip of emphaloscepsis [sic] (did you mean omphaloskepsis?) were analysed.

Well come back and whinge at me when we have no babies and pension then.

Or perhaps campaign for equal paternity leave and pay, not a simple sloping shoulders of "well women can half it if they want to.

In the case of women footballers, how many of them have taken a lot off time off for maternity leave?

You need to change the "lads" you mix with if that's the typical conversation you're hearing in the pub.

At least your DH tried, in the future if he makes any similar comments in front of your DD pull him up there and then, there is such a thing as freedom of speech after all

You misunderstood me! I am all for women working AND having babies! I earn less than my male colleagues because of the things I listed above, connected to my taking time off, i.e. could not go on training courses, etc. All I am saying is that I understand why I earn less and I don't find it unfair. I would not campaign for equal paternity leave because no paternity leave can ever replace a maternity leave in terms of the benefit to the children. I am all for equal pay for equal work, no doubt about it.

Its a misnomer though - you don't earn leas than men, you earn less as a mum than the dads at your company because they don't have access to equal paternity.

Equal parenting benefits everyone.

You earn less because the men at your workplace don't take equal time off. They don't miss the courses or take time off tor their sick kids, why is that?

Why do men and women have separate categories in sporting events?

That alone should answer your question about the difference in male and female football.