One Thousand Words

Mirrored from brigidkeely.com/wordpress.

I say I’m not a fan of sports, but really what I mean is that I’m not a fan of how sports is packaged, presented, marketed, and treated in the USA. Anything played by women “doesn’t count” and isn’t REALLY a sport, and all sports fans are male. All of them. Every single one. Women: fuck them!

This was really encapsulated this morning, when I wanted to repeatedly punch the tv.

The World Cup is happening, you see. This is a big Soccer thing. I mean, excuse me, this is a big Men’s Soccer Thing. The Women’s Soccer thing already happened and got no press coverage because, you know, cooties.

So Ana Belaval, who does “around the town” type features, was at a local small bar interviewing male people who were there getting drunk at 8:00am. Something happened on a tv screen behind her and the crowd went nuts and she snapped her head around. “What was that? What happened?”

The male anchor there said: “It was just a yellow card. Don’t worry about it. You wouldn’t understand.” His voice dripped with condescension. I mean she was, after all, a girl. How could she fucking even BEGIN to understand something as complicated as a SPORT? That is MAN TERRITORY. Yes, that’s right, how could a Latina who worked for Univision possibly understand Futball better than a White Male? IT BAFFLES THE IMAGINATION. I’m not trying to say that every Latin@ is obsessed with futball, but considering that it’s been popular in South American way the fuck longer than it has been in the USA, I’m willing to bet that she grew up watching games while Mr Man did not.

You wouldn’t understand.

You’re just a girl.

They then had 3 men read off a list of 7 “rules” that their wives/fiances were expected to follow during the world cup. Basically: don’t walk in front of the tv, don’t change the channel, don’t expect any attention or interest or interaction, keep them drunk and fed, and don’t expect them to go anywhere or do anything unless it involves the Cup.

Classy, dudes!

If any person ever read a list of rules that demanded I crawl on the floor rather than walk in front of the tv (unless I have beer), I would smear that person into a fine paste with my mind, and then leave and never come back. Ever. Because fuck you, that’s why. My role as a human being is not to serve some dude food and keep him drunk and be subservient to a bunch of other dudes kicking a ball on the tv.

Maybe if I weren’t JUST A GIRL I’d have a different opinion about a woman’s place with regards to sports. And maybe if the world of sports wasn’t so constantly, aggressively, hatefully misogynist I’d participate in it.

I am in a HUGE GOD DAMNED FUCK THE PATRIARCHY mood today, I tell you what. Something happened on the train last night that almost made me puke out of rage. RAGE. I should be able to go out in public without becoming so enraged that it shoves all the blood out of the way and fills my veins.