20 1 / 2010
Football and sexism.
Someone on Twitter made a comment to me, saying that they don’t understand why I find upskirt iPhone applications sexist or why I have a feminist gaming blog when I am a football fan and don’t find football sexist.
Not only is this comparing apples to oranges and it a total strawman argument, but it’s ridiculous to suggest that someone can’t point out sexism in one instance if they like something that someone else finds sexist.
I don’t view football as inherently sexist because it’s a sport. If you’re referring to cheerleaders, I find some aspects of cheerleading to be sexist - such as their outfits. However cheerleading is a sport. It requires athleticism, it is dangerous, it is competitive. Saying that the entire sport of cheerleading is sexist is belittling to the women who enjoy it. It’s anti-feminism to judge and shame women for the activities they like to partake in.
There are parts of football that ARE sexist. It isn’t a co-ed sport, so that is sexist. There is all sorts of negative comments towards the men who play it to “stop acting like a girl” when they get hurt. I will never deny there are elements of it that are disgusting and degrading towards women. That doesn’t change the fact that the baseline mechanics of the sport itself aren’t sexist and ARE fun for me to watch. I enjoy the sport and I put my blinders on to the cheerleaders (although I find them real fun to watch during halftime shows sometimes when they’re doing gymnastic moves). The entire sport IS NOT sexist. There are elements of it that are, just like elements of the game and movie industry.
However, there are sexist games - and I love the game industry and video games. It’s my goal to make people aware of the sexism and stereotypes and work to change it. In football, in my perfect world I would love for all the sexism to be gone. The fact that it is there doesn’t change my love for the sport, just gives me something to critically think about. I’m not a HUGE football fan. I cheer for my hometeam and watch it on Sundays. I’m a far bigger video game fanatic, and I’m quite vocal about the sexism in it. I can’t champion all causes, that would be emotionally exhausting (nor do I have the time and energy).
I found there to be major overtones of racism in the movie Avatar, yet I loved the movie. I listen to music and pop radio, despite hearing terrible song lyrics now and then that degrade women. I buy iPhone apps and support Apple despite some apps being sexist in the app store.
My argument is that this is completely apples-to-oranges. As a friend of mine said:
“I love the movie Superbad. It doesn’t make me a bad feminist who can’t talk about any movie’s sexism because some people feel it’s not cool to female characters.”
It’s exhausting being vocal about feminist causes. You spend 90% of your time explaining yourself to other people. There is even so much in-feminism shaming such as “You can’t be a feminist if you believe ____” or “You are a bad feminist because _____” that it is SO DRAINING at times.
