Women's World Cup

[EnderD_503]

Originally Posted by AtLastHome

Sometimes I think a whole lot has changed for women athletes and support for their sports.... then... reality sets in.

A lot has changed, though. While things aren't entirely as they should be, it's definitely gotten a whole lot better than it was in the beginning. At least today you have women's professional leagues in some nations like Germany, France, England and the US where women can train and play for a living. Of course, you still have other countries where many players still have to hold full-time jobs to get by, where they don't get to train or play frequently, where they don't have the opportunity to play in professional leagues. That's where the real gap between teams like Germany and Equatorial Guinea or even New Zealand was pretty visible, for example. Even for Canada, our system here is a huge problem for players. Female players are still not as highly paid as professional male players, but this World Cup has gathered a real boost in popularity for women's football. The German public responded really well to the competitions, and stadiums holding 70,000+ people were completely sold out on many nights, which was a first for women's World Cup competitions. I'm not sure how many inroads have been made here in North America, though. Not many have discussed the World Cup here in Toronto, despite that there is always a huge interest in the men's World Cup given how multicultural Toronto is. It's too bad.

In the professional leagues interest a different story. Actually, some critics have said that that's the reason why Germany did not perform at their usual level is because they broke under the pressure of crowd sizes/being the home team. Usually professional women's games in Germany only really attract 800 or 900 people, and so some suggest they may have suffered a bit of "stage fright" when they came out to 70,000+ supporters on home turf. Though Prinz did also mention that she and her teammates were having some psychological issues during these competitions.

There have also been some great inroads made in areas of the world where women's sports or women's football was completely unknown until recently. Places like Iran, Palestine, Qatar etc, and some games which have drawn fairly big crowds. I think the support is growing for sure.

I've also noticed a big difference in the commentating over the years. In the past, there was a huge difference in the way commentators spoke about female football players vs. male football players. Word choice would often exclude aggressive words to describe a particular play, players referred to by first names instead of last names, sexualizing players, and limitations on physical ability implied. It's changed a lot, but sometimes the commentators still show this need to "feminize" (brackets to denote stereotypical femininity vs. the reality of female athletics, and femininity for that matter) the players by talking about fashion, or saying things like "lots of tired little legs out there" or "she got hit in the tummy" vs. "he got hit in the stomach." The general need diminish from adult human to small, childish, frail. Of course, there were some great stereotype breaking moments as well (referring to Garefrakes as a "bulldozer," talking about the great physical strength of players like Melanie Behringer who is nicknamed "the Hulk" by her teammates etc.)

And then there is the homophobia that plagues all sports, really. There have been persistent rumours over the years that Abby Wambach and Megan Rapinoe are gay which have neither been confirmed nor denied by either player, as well as that Wambach is in a relationship with Sarah Huffman (they live together, have a dog, people go on about Huffman's twitter comments about the two of them etc.)...and well, you can imagine some of the idiotic comments That's really something that has to change in all sports, and I've been happy to see players like Mario Gomez from FC Bayern begin to talk about how more players should come out in professional football etc.

Lots to change, but much has changed for the better to date and there is certainly hope for the future.

The whole "feminization"(again referring to stereotypical views, rather than femininity as at odds with athletics, which it isn't. Athletics are not gendered, imo)/sexualization of players by fans and media is probably what continues to bug me the most, though. Athletes are athletes. But what can you expect when our culture continues to tell us that women must constantly have sex appeal. Want to go to the gym? Better not put on too much muscle mass, you might not look "sexy" by contemporary standards...because, you know, a woman that can actually defend herself or acts aggressively is such a horrific notion... [/sarcasm] This fear of losing sex appeal, or that it even fucking matters (no matter what a person finds "hot" or not) is bullshit. What the fuck do sports have to do with sex appeal? Respect athletes for their abilities, sex appeal shouldn't even enter into the equation...ever. Sorry for the ramble, it just pisses me off immensely and I just read some disrespectful comments about Wambach elsewhere that made me nauseous and perhaps set off this little rant.

That's truly what I hope changes as far as women's football (and society as a whole) in the future.

Originally Posted by AtLastHome

Whoops! I thought the US was playing Japan- it is Germany!

Yep, they are playing Japan. The competitions are in Germany Germany were expected to be in the finals, but were beaten in extra time by Japan in the quarters.

As with every World Cup, the final game is both awesome and sad...because then the excitement and anticipation is all over And then it's time for the summer Olympics countdown!