Thursday, January 28, 2016

Feminist or Sexist

Women's Football. Talking with one of my coworkers this week we started to talk about how we wish we could play football. The conversation then led to the ridiculous lingerie football league. I decided to look up some things about it and to my surprise there is a women's league in the US where women can play tackle football. The league is called the Legends National League. However the women that play in this league don't wear what you would think. The women playing in this league are wearing pads and helmets of course but that's about all. They wear very revealing outfits obviously meant for men's enjoyment and not the most practical outfit. Since women are now playing a predominately male sport, men deem it 'ok' for women to play if they can sexually objectify these women. The link below is an article I found that explains a bit more about the league.

http://thefbomb.org/2014/01/womens-football-feminist-or-sexist/

1 comment:

  1. Bailey, the article you mentioned in regards to the Legends National League brings forth a good point about the stereotypes of women as athletes. This article brought to mind the Always commercial called Like a Girl. The commercial asks the question, "Do we limit girls?" The commercial goes further to ask whether society limits girls by placing them in expected gender roles in what they shouldn't or should do. In the commercial, the producer asks young women to show her how it looks to run like a girl and all of the girls run in a feminine way, trying to look cute. Their running was displayed as if they were too worried about how they looked when they ran. The producer even asked women to show them how it looks to throw like a girl and they all threw like they weren't even trying. This is how society objectifies women by thinking women cannot play at the level of men, especially in the case of football. Always also created a commercial about a female quarterback in high school named Karlie Herman, in which her coach expects the male teammates to treat her like any other football player, even though her teammates say she throws the football like a girl. She wears all the football gear compared to the revealing uniforms in the Legends National League. She is the perfect example of how women who love to play football should be represented, instead of in bras and underwear. In the commercial, Herman says she takes the "throw like a girl" as a compliment, since she embraces being a female. Women should be empowered to be a female to play sports without being objectified through showing their bodies. People often associate female athletes of being unattractive and masculine, but I think being masculine as a female is an attribute. It seems to often being feminine is what sets women back from sports in the case of women being unable to play football at the national level, since it's considered a male sport. We see women compete in boxing in the case of Ronda Rousey, so why can't women play professional football? A woman can play a man's sport and should it even be considered a man's sport anyway? The stereotype that women do not like to get dirty, hurt, rough, etc. is concept society created, because some women considerably like to play play hard and be tough. In the future, it would be nice to see a woman play for the NFL.

    Here are the links to the commercials I referenced:

    Always Like A Girl:
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XjJQBjWYDTs

    Always Karlie Herman:
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RUwLdGz7XtA

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