Sexism In Football
Gender equality; talked about all the time now-a-days what with social media, memes and the general openness of the internet. But the idea that there is a difference between girls and boys has been drilled into us all from a very early age. I mean, I don’t think I am alone when I say there was always a shout of ‘Girls are better than boys’ or vice versa on the playground whether it was during running races or a game of “It” or even in the classroom. And the division doesn’t stop there; men and women are still treated differently in the workplace and in sport but I want to talk about it in football.
So, I was talking to an 11-year-old boy the other day, who is a huge fan of football, loves it, massive Arsenal fan but I asked him one simple question; name a female footballer. He said, ‘Easy. Alex Morgan.’ I said ‘Ok name another.’ He couldn’t. He couldn’t name two female footballers and yet he could go on for hours and hours talking about Ronaldo and Messi etc. Why has society reared the next generation, the very children who will grow up to rule the country and the world in the coming years, to treat men differently from women? I am not saying that women should be able to play against men because that would be unfair. Men are built differently, there is no denying that but what I would like to see is better coverage of women’s football. This is ridiculous! Football is one of the most popular sports in England, millions play it and follow it and yet an 11-year-old football enthusiast cannot name two female players!
But it’s not just the appalling coverage of the sport, it’s the way some female players are treated. Take the situation at West Ham for example where, despite having a female vice-chairman, the female team has struggled to have access to the same facilities as the male players. After a complaint to the FA and a media campaign, action has now been taken to sort out the situation. And what about when a woman, Vikki Childs, an experienced football coach, applied for a coaching job only to be told that no she couldn’t have the job ‘because the boys want to be trained by a man, that’s the way it is’. Would you care if you were trained by a man or a woman? I know I wouldn’t. All I’d want was for someone to turn up and do a good job.
Look at Karren Brady. A strong, independent woman, one of the female faces of the corporate world, best known for her work with Lord Sugar on ‘The Apprentice’ but she is also the former managing director at Birmingham City FC and current vice-chairman of West Ham. She has spoken openly about the sexism she faced at the beginning of her football career despite her place at the top. She has worked hard for where she is now and football needs more women like her. It is still too much of a ‘man’s’ sport and for it to become more relevant in our ever-changing world, it needs to accept that it needs women just as much as men.
