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Post by mistert on Mar 6, 2015 21:05:08 GMT 1
Harmless banter or entrenched misogyny ? BBC Sport linkIf you think the level of abuse women have to endure in the game is OK then I suppose the question you have to ask yourself is: would you shout it at your wife/girlfriend/daughter? If the answer is no then why do you think it's OK to shout it at somebody else's? |
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Post by gillsjan on Mar 6, 2015 21:45:59 GMT 1
Interesting question. .... I have worked in the construction industry all my career and have never had a problem perhaps the problem lies with the individuals concerned ? The people that I worked for have treated me the same as any male colleague so not sure why this happens.
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Post by technical on Mar 7, 2015 9:07:18 GMT 1
Speaking as a feminist.....
It is an interesting issue. I know what gillsjan means, certain women draw this kind of "banter" more than others, but to say that's the root of the problem would be victim blaming which is most definitely not allowed in the world of women's right.
I haven't heard the kind of chants referred to in the article in a decade or so, so there has been some progress but obviously not enough, if some women are still subject to them.
I have a very intelligent (and attractive) friend who sometimes comes to Gills. She is an absolute football fanatic and very knowledgeable, both in terms of the game itself and her encyclopaedic knowledge of football trivia. Not a Gills fan, so only there when her own team's playing in the Outer Hebrides (no-one's perfect!)
My friends/acquaintances at football are outwardly polite and she certainly doesn't receive any abuse but I have noticed that men dismiss her when she talks about formations or tactics. They don't mean to be rude, but their mind-set seems to be that she can't have anything valid to say. They would never ask her opinion in the way that you do on an almost daily basis when you discover a man you've just met has an interest in football. I know she often feels that they are either deliberately or subconsciously excluding her.
So, if you're introduced to a woman this afternoon, ask her what she thinks of the high line the last 2 opponents have employed :-D
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Post by technical on Mar 7, 2015 9:20:54 GMT 1
And I realise what I just did there, consider my wrist duly slapped. I wouldn't have told you my mate Dave was attractive....
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Post by mistert on Mar 7, 2015 11:30:47 GMT 1
And I realise what I just did there, consider my wrist duly slapped. I wouldn't have told you my mate Dave was attractive.... He'll be gutted. The article was more concerned with the role of women employed in football such as referees, linesmen or ( in the most recent case) physios. Ask this football- supporting mate of yours if she would consider a career as a linesman and see what she says. When even women trying to help injured players are being told to "get their ***s out" what hope is there that a woman running the line won't get abuse just because of her gender? |
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Post by technical on Mar 7, 2015 12:55:42 GMT 1
Yes, the treatment of the doctor (not physio!) in the article is appalling, but I haven't heard that chant in years. Obviously it's still happening and personally I'd like to see City and Utd penalised in the same way as they would have been if thier fans had been abusing a black doctor. I do think it's less generally acceptable than it once was though and that's progress, albeit too slow.
My point re my friend was that there is such ingrained sexism in football, that even perfectly decent people who would claim and believe that they aren't sexist at all do it without realising, so a long way to go.
We have had female assistants at Gills and I don't remember them getting misogynistic abuse, but then most of the people around me seem to have more than half a brain cell. Unfortunately, you can't say that about all football supporters. We have at least got to the point where more than anything else, it makes the abusers look stupid. At least for most people it's not just a bit of fun anymore.
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Post by technical on Mar 8, 2015 10:43:01 GMT 1
I spoke to my friend last night and asked her opinion on all this.
Her view is that any effort to stamp out this abuse is a good thing, mainly because she'd prefer her sons not to learn that some people think this is an acceptable way to behave.
However, she thinks that if the campaign is about encouraging more women to work in football, it's coming from the wrong angle. Anyone who opposes fans at football (ref/opposition players or medic) will get abuse. Does it matter if it's because they're female, or because they have big ears? My friend knows she's a woman, in some ways, she feels, the big ears thing would be crueller.
She tells me most women are strong enough to shrug off name calling from stupid idiots they've never met and who wouldn't have the balls to say any of it to her face to face. The daily dismissal of your ideas by colleagues, as I described in my pervious posts, is much harder to take.
Also, we've seen enough cases recently to know that something is seriously broken in the way footballers treat "their" women. Why would any woman want to work with these people?
So, if football wants to attract more women, it needs to understand that they have something (lots) to contribute and deal with the attitudes of the people it already employs, not patronise them by thinking they stay away because of name calling from people who really have very little influence.
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