Girl criticised & ‘called a man’ for playing football

[Coldhandscoldheart]

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-46074539

I can’t see that the welsh women’s football team have responded to this at all.

Poor kid! That's what happens when you entrench gender stereotypes, which is the deep PR or transgenderism. My daughter was captain of an otherwise all boy football team at that age. Only five or six years ago no one cared about this nonsense. Now we are back in the fifties.

What a courageous young woman.

The sad thing is all the other girls who wouldn't have even let themselves think that might enjoy playing football.

Same thing happened to me as a child all the way through school. I remember all the boys laughing at me then when I pointed out I'd scored more goals the boy squared up to me and threatened me. I laughed and walked away.

My own mother refused for me to play once I hit puberty because it wasn't 'right' and there were no separate changing rooms and she tried to blame my periods.

I'm pretty sure this is the route as to why I lost my confidence in playing sports altogether.

This is a prime example of gender being cultural. If she lived in the USA, she would be playing the right sport for girls and women.

God, I spent most of my childhood And early teens with a ball stuck to the end of my foot. I was football mad. I had an entire wall of my bedroom dedicated to The Baggies. It was unusual for a girl but nobody ever called me a boy.

I assumed it would be the other kids, I didn't realise it was the teachers as well.
People really don't give a toss about the Equality Act, do they.

It's terrible. I was a cricket mad kid in an era when only boys got to play at my school, but no-one ever called me a boy. Things really looked like they were getting better in the 80s/early 90s but in some ways seem to have been getting worse.

How ridiculous - football and rugby are part of the PE curriculum for everyone here. That school needs shaking up, not the girl - their attitude is stuck in the 80s. Actually it's probably time we had a survey to find out whether schools are providing equal access to sports - they don't have to be mixed teams (and shouldn't be where safety is a concern), but everyone should be able to try everything the school offers.

I'm so glad we do martial arts. "You hit like a girl" won't ever bother my two...not when they know they can launch an adult halfway across the room

My daughter has played football in the after school club for about three years ago. When I took her to buy a pair of shoes to play indoors in the winter and asked if I had the right sort, the female shop assistant informed me, "No, these are the proper football shoes. The girls trainers are downstairs."

grrrrr

I feel conflicted here. I absolutely think this girl should be able to play football, and to say you need a penis is nonsense. However I would not be happy about a boy choosing to play netball/ hockey on the girls team and dominating the team taking a place from a girl. Mumsnetters I know you'll help me clarify my thinking.

It would depend whether they were sex segregated teams. In my dc school football is sex segregated but other sports netball cricket etc are not. So boys are not taking a girls place because it is a mixed team. There is a boys football team and a girls football team. Surely this is standard in most schools, I dont think dc school is unusual in this regard.

Oh dear. I always resented not being allowed to play football at school in the sixties, but I thought times had moved on.

Golden it comes down to biology again. Post-puberty men are bigger (on average), stronger, faster, more muscular. So if a woman plays with men on a reasonably equal footing, it's because she's supremely technically skilled, and her doing so is not putting them at any physical risk (their egos may get a bit bruised). If a man plays against women, he can be a bit crap and outplay much more skilled women, just because he is bigger and stronger - which isn't fair, and his greater strength can put the women at risk of physical injury which in sports like rugby, Aussie rules football, martial arts, and so on, is downright dangerous.

It's a false symmetry to say "woman playing against men" is equivalent to "man playing against women." Because biology.

So birdsdestiny the school should be offering a girls team, so encouraging more girls to play football rather than calling it a boys sport. So what to do in this specific instance when there is no girls team. I agreeFermatsTheorem but as the school don't offer a girls football team if they put her in the boys team how could they prevent a boy wanting to join the netball team, with all the Biology advantages you indicate. Also re the mixed teams a pp says they have in their child's school surely this is taking a place from a girl because assuming secondary and post puberty they do have a biological advantage.

No it was me who mentioned mixed teams and in my case it is primary. There is an age when mixed teams for football are not allowed but don't know what that age is. From what I can understand from that article, it isn't a boys team it's a football team so there is no reason for her not to apply. Just as in my school there is no reason why a boy shouldn't apply for the netball tan as its a netball team not a girls netball team.
The comments she received sound depressingly familiar. Football brings out the worst in people I think.I can't tell you how many times i have heard coaches and parents say to a boy 'you are playing like a girl'. Terrible for boys and girls alike.