Why Lionesses?

[EhatBow]

I'll admit I haven't been a fan of women's football. Until recently it's been a lot like watching schoolboys. I felt they needed to develop their own game, like the female tennis player have. In tennis, rather than the same play slower it's a different game and I think the female footballers have achieved that in this competition.

However, we don't have manageresses or actresses anymore, so why Lionesses? Or am I over thinking?

I'm not English but I'd assume it's because the men's team are nicknamed the Three Lions and the women's team wanted some way to distinguish themselves for recognition/branding. "Lioness" is a word evocative of pride and femaleness. I think it works well. If you just called them "the Lions" to be gender-neutral, people wouldn't know what you're talking about.

Yeah let's just erase the fact that they are women entirely.

[off thread topic]

But everyone in the airforce is roled for keeping them flying, hence aviator

Bah, grumble...just no....

The RAF can mangle as much of the language as much as they want but aviator/aviatrix term dates way back to the start of aviation and AFAIK it was never used to cover those working in the important support roles on the ground. Even current dictionaries (such as Collins) still define aviator in terms such as:

"The meaning of AVIATOR is the operator or pilot of an aircraft and especially an airplane."...

The term isn't heard that much in English English these days but for example the US Navy still refers to the people who fly their aircraft not as pilots but as Naval aviators to distinguish them from the sorts of pilots who guide ships into harbors 😉

I know I'm sounding old fashioned but what the RAF has done makes as much linguistic sense as referring to the English soccer team physios or the people who look after the kit as "footballers".

[ /off thread topic]

@notimagain
Abso-bloody-lutely!

Calling them the lions would be like calling all women men, or all she's he, it's the word for female lions. Feminism is about female empowerment and celebrating what women bring, not about pretending women are men

Hmm, not sure there's a lot of zoological accuracy on here when it comes to (male) lions. Their main job is to protect the pride and its territory from incursions by other males - hence all the roaring. This is kind of important because if new males take over the pride the first thing they do is kill all the young to bring the lionesses back into season quickly. So whilst a lioness without cubs might be tempted into a dalliance w a strange male, the last thing a pregnant or new mother lioness wants is a takeover.

And bachelor lions certainly hunt.

About the footballers I take no stand. Certainly there is no shame in being a lioness, they're amazing predators.

The boring truth? 10 years ago, The FA needed a new hashtag when the men's and women's teams were playing key matches at the same time. They needed to differentiate between the two scores when they were tweeting about them together.

BUT out of necessity came an incredible and strong brand. One that instantly told you this was the women's team but whilst keeping them on a par with their male counterparts. It became a short hand, a movement and something that everyone - players, sponsors and supporters could get behind and understand.

Sports teams have always tended to have nicknames and I'm pleased that the England Football approach gives men and women's teams their own identity but on a level playing field. The Three Lions so linked to men's international football in England = Lionesses. They didn't 'downgrade' the women to cubs or use the imagery of the rose (also in the England football crest) which is more femine.

The England Men's rugby team are known as England Rugby, but the women as the Red Roses - it's not immediately clear that its the same sport, let alone the same level and the women are nicknamed the dainty flower the men wear on their chest.

In New Zealand they generally use black for the men's teams (All Blacks, Black caps etc) whilst the women are known as the Ferns. Both taken from the same emblem but very different connotations for me.

As a historical aside the name three Lions comes from the 3 lions that lived in the Tower of London in the 1200's - a gift from Rome to Henry III
Apparently the Tower of London held many exotic animals including a Polar Bear and it was all getting out of hand and so they were all moved to Regents Park and became the worlds first zoo - now London Zoo.

I wasn't keen on the term Lioness at first.

But male lions just lie round postulating and looking cool. Waiting for things to be brought to them. Like gazelles, wildebeest, football, etc.

The lionesses are badass. They do all the hunting and actually being it home.

They do the hard work, the hunting, and bring it home.

The monumental turning point for women’s football unfortunately couldn’t be marked with a Lioness co-presenting Match of the Day last week. That job was left to three very experienced pundits in casual wear who never reached the summit of the beautiful game.

See, I can't get worked up over this. MOTD covers the day's Premier League action. The WSL is on a break and the players and pundits involved in the Euros are having a deserved break too. Football Focus earlier in the day did cover it and that's the right space for it.

I hope both programmes do more ahead of the start of the season to remind people to get to a WSL game so that its not a flash in the pan but the start of somethign much bigger. But turning this week's MOTD into something about the women's game and an international competition doesn't sit right with me.

The photo shoot of the Chloe Kelly all dolled up in an evening gown, made me rage though. She may have enjoyed it but you'd never see a need to give the men's team a glamorous makeover into James Bond after a win. They are much more likely to be photographed in sports or casual wear but for sportswomen the default for a lot of media is showing the feminine, other side rather than the athlete in action.