The Gender Equality Checkpoint

[xoxoxoBruce]

.

[DanaC]

*shakes head*

The FA appears to have scored a spectacular own goal after posting on the England Twitter account that the women’s team, who won bronze at the World Cup in Canada, could “go back to being mothers, partners and daughters” now that they have returned home.

http://www.theguardian.com/football/...ners-daughters

Seriously. Wtf were they thinking?

The account, which has a following of nearly 1.2m, is managed by the FA and has been supportive of England’s women during their World Cup campaign but following the posting of the tweet at just after 1pm BST, it was widely criticised on social media for appearing to portray them as something other than simply athletes.

-snip-

The tweet, which has been deleted, was taken from an article published on the FA website, which has also been amended to omit the mention of England’s players as “mothers, partners and daughters.”

And just to show that they really, fundamentally don't get why this is problematic :

The FA insisted the tweet was taken out of context: “The full story was a wider homecoming feature attempting to reflect the many personal stories within the playing squad as has been told throughout the course of the tournament.

“However, we understand that an element of the story appears to have been taken out of context and the opening paragraph was subsequently revised to reflect that fact.”

So - reflective of the 'many personal stories' of the women's team players, were the roles of mother, partner and daughter. Not teacher, fitness coach and accountant - mother, partner and daughter.

[xoxoxoBruce]

Well that's where they belong, having babies and supporting obeying their man. Next thing you know they'll be wanting to work on trucks in the Army, like that Elizabeth chick.

[Sundae]

I complained to Channel 4 a few years back, after they mentioned an Israeli politician, new to the position, was a mother-of-two. Interesting information for anyone who wants to set up a play date I suppose, but hardly appropriate on an international news broadcast about her appointment. My question was whether a male politician would be similarly credited with now many children he had in a similar piece. No, only if it were specifically relevant ie he was meeting with Fathers For Justice and speaking on the reform of the Family Court system or suchlike.

On a side note, I wonder if the players really weren't mothers, partners or daughters while they were away...

[classicman]

"fathers, partners and sons” ... still offensive to you? not to me.

[DanaC]

Originally Posted by classicman

"fathers, partners and sons” ... still offensive to you? not to me.

No - because the cultural context is entirely different. If we were coming off the back of two centuries of struggle for men to be taken seriously in the workplace, where no matter what their successes they are routinely denied the identity of worker - with even top executives and politicians judged and identified primarily on their roles as childbearers and husbands - then it would be an equivalent.

Reversing it only works if you can actually reverse all of it.

Bit like with racism :P

[Clodfobble]

Originally Posted by classicman

"fathers, partners and sons” ... still offensive to you? not to me.

"Today, these firemen go back to being fathers, partners, and sons... but now they are also heroes."

You really think anything like would ever be said, by any newscaster or PR person, ever? It's not about the fact that the women have personal lives, of course they do. It's the implication that the personal is their primary job, that this is what they really are on a day-to-day basis, and their status as good soccer players is surprising, plucky, and practically adorable. The whole comment is a verbal pat on the head. It's not malicious, it's just patronizing as all fuck.

[DanaC]

Thankyou Clodfobble - that's the explanation I was reaching for and failing to find :P

[xoxoxoBruce]

Originally Posted by Clodfobble

"Today, these firemen go back to being fathers, partners, and sons... but now they are also heroes."

You really think anything like would ever be said, by any newscaster or PR person, ever?

Yes I do, when it's amateurs athletes. After the US hockey team's "miracle on ice", the press and public got tired of rehashing the game, so they got into what the individual players are were doing next. Most of those stories emphasized the life they were returning to as fathers, husbands and sons. I think Dana's right about "mothers, partners and daughters", is the result of a pretty narrow view of women's role in society, but I think the intention was to indicate they were amateurs returning to normal lives.

[Clodfobble]

Is this team not a professional, full-time one? I don't follow the sport at all.

[DanaC]

Well - all women's football in this country used to be entirely amateur. Since 2009, there have been contracts for the main squad - giving salaries of £16k p/a. Some of the squad also have part-time jobs or their own businesses - in order to receive the salary they are not alowed to work more than part-time hours outside of the team.

Claire Rafferty is an analyst with Deutsche Bank in the City
Jo Potter is an FA skills coach
Jade Moore owns her own Sports Therapy business
Eniola Aluko recently qualified as a sports and entertainment lawyer (she's waiting til she retires from the team to work in that field).

Bruce is absolutely right abotu the purpose of that press release. It was about them returning to 'normal' life - and it clearly wasn't intended as anything negative - but damn was it clumsy. Particularly given the issues around acceptance of women in sport, and in particular football - women's sports get a fraction of the attention that men's sports do (in this country anyway), female athletes get paid a fraction of what male athletes get paid - and the prizes and accolades are similarly tiny in comparison to those showered on the men.

Basically, there has been, for a very long time, a cultural attitude towards women's sports that suggests they are a novelty and somewhat frivolous and unnecesary - unlike the serious and hero-making business of men's sports.

The ban on women playing on FA grounds was lifted the year I was born - 42 years later and women's football is only just starting to get anything like the recognition it deserves - can you imagine offering a male footballer a salary of 16k a year?

42 years and the FA are still putting their collective foot in it when it comes to women's football.

[Lamplighter]

Basically, there has been, for a very long time, a cultural attitude towards women's sports that suggests they are a novelty and somewhat frivolous and unnecesary - unlike the serious and hero-making business of men's sports.

Case in point: bikini-clad Olympic "beach volleyball"

You don't see a spedo-clad male counter-part to this farce.



(The spedo's are reserved for men's swimming where they are for "function")

[xoxoxoBruce]

Originally Posted by Clodfobble

Is this team not a professional, full-time one? I don't follow the sport at all.

I don't think they're pros because they don't fall down and writhe in pain when someone comes within three feet of them, like the pros do.

[DanaC]

Originally Posted by xoxoxoBruce

I don't think they're pros because they don't fall down and writhe in pain when someone comes within three feet of them, like the pros do.

Now that's entertainment!

:p

[DanaC]

Oh - I think I was mistaken about all women's football being amateur - I think some of the clubs have professional women's teams on the books.


That said - it really is a pittance compared to the men's game.

You probably earn about the same as the captain of the England football team.

Casey Stoney, captain of England women's football team, earns £25,000 a year - around the national average wage (£26,500) and a fraction of what her male counterparts earn.

Wayne Rooney, Manchester United striker, earns 50p a second, and his annual wage is £15.6m, which is far, far more than what any women’s footballer could hope to make.

So - the captain of the England team - arguably representative of the cream of women's football earns a little less than the average annual wage.

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/ampp3d/...better-4684810

And yet ... they've been doing far better than the men's national team.

Having the women play at Wembley has been a marketing triumph for the FA. They’ve sold 55,000 tickets, more than they managed to shift for the men’s lacklustre game against Norway in September, which just 40,181 attended

In September they put 10 past Montenegro. Away from home. You’ll mostly remember Montenegro’s men from our boys only drawing 2-2 away and Rooney getting sent off.

The England women also scored 13 against Hungary in an away World Cup qualifier as recently as 2005.

England’s men haven’t scored ten goals or more in a game since 1964, when they beat the USA 10-0.

After that dismal trip to Brazil, England’s men are currently 20th in the FIFA rankings. England’s women are currently 7th. And have never been ranked lower than 14th in the world.

England’s women have won the Cyprus Cup twice, in 2009 and 2013. And they also twice won the Mundialito in the eighties, which was the pre-cursor to the FIFA Women’s World Cup.

England’s men have won...erm...well...they won Le Tournoi in 1997. And...erm...couldn’t even win the Umbro Cup when we held it in 1995.

Mind you...

There is one stat where the men have DEFINITELY done better


Number of World Cups won

Men 1 Women 0

http://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/row-ze...womens-4672335