Apr 17 2007
Football Is a Girl’s Game
One of the most common slurs against any football code is that it’s a “girl’s game.” American football fans think soccer is a “girl’s game.” Rugby fans like to call American football a “girl’s game,” mostly because they wear shoulder pads and helmets — and guys, we tried gridiron without the helmets and pads. People died. Trust me, the padding is there for a reason…
But I digress. The whole idea of “girl’s game” being an insult is really pretty silly. After all, girls play every kind of football there is. You could literally say any football game is a girl’s game…
Women’s Soccer. Of course, Association football is probably the most popular form of football played by women. The USA team’s victory in the Women’s World Cup in 1999 served as a springboard for WUSA, a women’s pro soccer league in America that lasted for three years and may be relaunched soon after the 2007 Women’s World Cup in China this September. For a while, players like Mia Hamm (pictured) and Brandi Chastain were nearly as popular as any male athlete in America. (Hamm once kicked a 45-yard field goal during a tryout with the Kansas City Chiefs. She refused to sign, though, because she felt she could do more for her form of football than the NFL.) There’s also a Women’s Premier League in England, which may be the only league where Arsenal wins a title this year…
Women’s Rugby. Of course, sometimes women just want a little more contact in their football, and so they jump into a scrum and run with the ball, just like the men. Nearly every university in America has a women’s rugby club, and Rugby Football Union gladly supports women’s rugby. It’s not just union, though; there are also Women’s Rugby League clubs in Australia, New Zealand and the U.K. New Zealand has dominated both league and union World Cup competition this decade. Do the ladies perform the haka like the men? I’d like to see a YouTube clip of that…
Women’s Gridiron. Then there are the women who want to knock you on your ass. Literally. So they don the same body armor the men wear and take to the gridiron. A few teenage girls — most notably Holly Mangold, little sister of New York Jets’ center Nick Mangold — play on their high school boys’ football team.
One day, Holly will play in the Women’s Professional Football League, which has been around since 1999 and is developing quite the cult following. And that nothing to do with the fact that Brigid Mullen is willing to go beach-frolicking for Sports Illustrated. Not at all.
Women’s Footy. Finally, the unique football games in Australia and Ireland attract plenty of female players. The Victorian Women’s Football League leads the charge for women’s footy down under, and Ladies’ Gaelic Football is the most popular women’s sport in Ireland with over 100,000 women and girls playing at all levels in 2006. In fact, these two countries have held International Rules Football test matches for the female footy teams. Ireland won the first match, 130-15, and promptly took pity on the Aussie gals, offering to play the second test match with an oblong ball, just to make it more interesting. The Aussies declined and lost by a much closer margin (39-18) in the second test match.
And there you have it. So if anyone tells you that your favorite football code is a “girl’s game,” just say, “So’s your game, dumbass!”, and point them to this post. Seriously, point them here. I’ll take any traffic boost I can get these days…
9 Responses to “Football Is a Girl’s Game”
check out she got game, a documentary on Women’s Pro (american) Football:
http://www.shegotgamefilm.com/
People get weird ideas about what is or is not a “man’s game” or a “women’s game”. Throughout the rest of the world, association football is a man’s game and until very recently it was considered odd for girls or women to play soccer. But in the USA with the success of the women’s national team, some Americans have gotten it in their heads that soccer is somehow a “girl’s game”, which is a good excuse for some people to bash it.
This seems to be a fairly universal thing; you’ll find our limey friends bashing baseball as a “girl’s game” because one of the early mentions of baseball comes from a Jane Austen novel where the female character plays something called baseball. Of course back then baseball meant rounders, a game for boys and girls; modern American baseball is so radically different from rounders that comparisons are meaningless.
Our British friends also play this trick with basketball, by implying that basketball is just netball, which is a girl’s game. But basketball came first, and if anything netball is just a simplified game of basketball redesigned for girls. So call netball a girl’s game (which it is) but please don’t confuse it with basketball.
Getting back to Americans, we also have some odd ideas about sports that aren’t too popular here; for instance we think badminton is just some silly game you play during a summer picnic, but in the rest of the world it is a serious sport, as serious as tennis, both for men and women. We think handball is that game you play with a small ball against a well, but in the rest of the world it means a fast team sport that combines elements of soccer and basketball and which is very popular in parts of Europe, Asia, etc.
Or take hockey – ie, field hockey – which if you go outside of North America is just called hockey (this is an endless source of amusement for me on web forums where you get Brits and Americans talking about ‘hockey’ and neither side understanding that they are talking about different sports). In the USA, hockey was introduced as a women’s sport in private schools, college s and universities. Americans still have this idea that “field” hockey is a girl’s game. I have tried to explain to fellow Americans that “field” hockey is a major amateur men’s sport in Europe and Asia (esp. in India and Pakistan); all I get are quizzical looks and I was even asked once if the men also played the game while wearing skirts! I kid you not.
People have the weirdest notions.
Women certainly can and do play real tackle football. There are women’s leagues that provide a place for women to play football. The women’s season is off-season for the men’s teams, so women play in the heat of the spring and summer which means that more endurance and stamina is required than for their male counterparts. Women play with just as much enthusiasm and vigor as men, and their sport is up and coming. I guarantee this is not the last you’ve heard of women’s tackle football. There is still a lot more to come!
http://www.womenplayfootball.com
There is a new forum for women football players to discuss the game, why they love the sport, and even trade football equipment. The sport of women’s football is growing, as should the community that caters to women football players. Check out http://www.womentackle.com
Different Dave, whilst netball is a variant of basketball, it sure as hell isn’t simplified! I’ve played both, with a strong preference for basketball, and I can tell you that basketball is significantly less complicated than netball. Less difficult to play as well!
Whilst what I’ve read indicates that it was originally a misinterpretation of the basketball rules, if you want to take the view that netball was designed for women, then your statement should read “netball is a more complicated variant of basketball designed for girls”.
Oh yeah, whilst rugby is fun, aussie rules is the most fun you can have on a field! Why should the guys have all the fun?
Dave, we love you! What we don’t love are all the unnecessary divisions created to separate people. That whole ‘us against them’ mentality that, if we looked closely, we might realize is more often than not used to manipulate people. To vote for someone. To buy something. To rule the world. Or at least the manipulator’s corner thereof. Plus, when you think about it, put downs (as in ‘awww, it’s just a girls game’) sound just a little bit insecure, no? After all, if you give someone a fair chance to do something (participate in a sport, become a fireperson, etc.), if they really can’t do it, they’ll show you soon enough. Anyway, we think the whole ‘against’ thing is pretty silly when you consider how much more fun the ‘us’ can be!
very good
I am a sophomore at blackduck high school and i want to start Girls high school tackle football team do you no of any schools that have tried this before? of anything that might help with getting my principle to agree? if so please email me savannahmerritt@yahoo.com
yeah yayayayyayayayayay============================================================================================================= Girls totaly can play tackle football!! cause girls arn’t wimps like other boys say!?! I say that girls are sometimes 10x stronger than boys!?! yea yay!!!!??!!