The Problem With Women Football: Conclusion
With all other reasons highlighted, exaggerated, or even downplayed, I think the biggest problem with women's football is that it doesn't exist. There's men's football, and men's football played by women. Let me explain.
We know that men and women are different and instead of respecting those differences in terms of highlighting where each gender excels, we seek to either completely ignore the differences or exaggerate them to throw women out of the sport. Both approaches are wrong.
Women are in a Foreign Territory
This point can be easily twisted so allow me to explain it fully before forming an opinion.
Most of the sports we see today were founded, created, and regulated before a single woman would even think of playing them. They are designed and have evolved to fit right into men's traits. That's the case for football and how it was created by the aristocrats. Literally, bored students.
The sport, much like many others, continued to change and evolve to suit men's mental and physical abilities and attributes the most. So, can we agree that starting from scratch men would create a different game than what women would?
By the time women got to play the sports the rules were already there. This is the game, like it or not.
The Same Sports
Most competitive sports that men prefer like rugby, hockey, volleyball, and football to mention a few, were all created to fit into men's desire to chase, outpace, and beat the shit out of each other. Almost a regulated Spectator Lek to host whole events just to show who is the manliest man.
Boxing, kickboxing, and UFC are merely sports made to be an outlet so men wouldn't just kill each other in the streets the way it was before men created civilization.
That is the answer, in my opinion.
This doesn't mean women shouldn't play sports or try to keep up. It is everyone's right to do so. But, when we're talking about the reason women's football isn't half as popular as that of men's, this is why.
You can factor in all the reasons mentioned before like sexism, representation in media, lack of financial support, and whatever reason you could think of but it will remain that sports, in general, catered to men for hundreds of years.
If we're asking why women's football is seen as inferior then this is the reason.
Ownership
Men simply owned sports until very recently. It took more than a hundred years between the time football was created and the first official women's tournament hosted.
Popular sports grew organically around men. That's the opposite of what happened to women. They arrived but everything was set up already turning sports into a constant battle, one that isn't fair toward women. It is like women are basically racing against cheetahs.
With fewer talent scouting and development centers, less financial support, lower pay, and even suitable sportswear, women are required to compete at the exact same level as men in a game that is more catered toward men, and only then could they be seen as much. If you count the other factors, probably even then women won't be watched as much as men in sports.
Solving the Wrong Problems
It was this year that the U.S. women's national soccer team pay discrimination claims case was resolved which started in 2016. And it only happened due to the media focus as the team had no legal way to win it otherwise.
Equal pay claims are easily shut down economically but that wasn't the worst part. The worst part was that it put women's football under unfair scrutiny highlighting how women get a higher percentage of the pie or showing and highlighting the horrible scenes from women's games as a representation prompting the other side to counterargue and so on.
That is bad because that's not where the debate should have been in the first place.
What should have been focused on instead is giving women even the slightest edge men had for hundreds of years, I.E. molding the game to suit them more. Could be having more or fewer players, bigger or smaller goals, bigger or small pitches, less or more game time, just whatever highlights women's strength more. That's what men did with football and all other sports, by the way.
It is Difficult
It is very difficult to create changes to suit women. But it is easier than having women compete in a sport that is literally catering to someone else. It is unfair. It is not unfair because women are weaker, slower, or the lesser sex, but because, again, it is a sport that is literally catering to someone else.
What is needed is to play on the differences instead of ignoring them.
How do we do that?
Among few other sports, I enjoy women's tennis and volleyball much more than I do men's. The difference in strength between men on average is much higher than that between women. What that means is that the women's games are less likely to finish quicker due to fast or strong serves, thus making a great environment for closer and tighter games.
The ball is being played around more in women's tennis and volleyball. So, it is by definition more fun. Unless you consider having games won by a few quick movements in the games rendering the rest of the minutes useless, in that case, wouldn't it just be more fun to just look up the score after the match?
It takes longer for women to get a point than it does for men making the game more fun to watch. It is an example of how men's strength is actually playing against them. We could say that Rafael Nadal would certainly defeat Serena Williams in a game of tennis but that wouldn't change the fact that women's tennis is watched more than men's as it is much more exciting for the reasons mentioned above.
That doesn't get mentioned enough in the media because sexism and media representation still exists. But, the point we have examples of instances where women's sports being more entertaining than men's that we could study and apply.
We're not starting from scratch
Simple solutions based on studies are required and in theory, we could have more and more instances where women's sports are more exciting to watch than men's. That could apply to football or basketball and we could have sports that show us a different version of the same sport highlighting the traits of the gender playing it.
In my opinion, it really looks like both sides are just being stubborn for the sake of being stubborn and are going things out of spite. The battle of the sexes is understandable and a justified one caused by years of oppression at its roots, but there has to be a point where the focus shifts toward actual solutions.
In the end, this is a sport. Something created to kill boredom and have fun, you can't be so tense about it all the time. Even as a pro player, you must have started doing it for fun.
Men, long ago, had the opportunity to ask themselves what game to play and how to play it and came up with different versions of what we see today to have fun. Women didn't get that opportunity.
Instead of the struggle becoming focused on each side finding the best ways to excel and enjoy the sport. It became about one side seeking to prove itself in an environment that is very hostile toward it.
Sources
Men hating women: A look into the psychology of misogyny
Media Coverage & Female Athletes: A Tucker Center/tptMN video documentary
Why Don't People Watch Women's Sports
Media is ‘failing women’ — sports journalism particularly so
Share of women’s soccer fans worldwide in 2019, by gender
The Scientific Reason Men Like Sports More Than Women
The weaker sex? Science that shows women are stronger than men
Yes, Men’s and Women’s Brains Do Function Differently — But It’s a Tiny Difference
Why Americans Call Soccer 'Soccer'
U.S. Women’s Soccer Suffers Setback In Fight For Equal Pay
Why Aren't Women's Sports as Big as Men's? Your Thoughts
I responded to your last post in this series with a different history about women's football.
Women played football on the same terms as men from at least 1880 and at some stage in the late 1890s and early 1900s there were mixed teams of men and women. I think a stop was put to mixed teams somewhere around 1902 and, as I wrote in my comment in your last post, women's football was effectively banned by the Football Association in 1921.
Women's matches were hugely popular in the early twentieth century and raised a lot of money. Significantly, they were outside the control of the Football Association. The decision of the FA was part of a wider backlash against women and their role outside the home: during the 1914-1918 war women had been doing jobs that men had done, except for reserved occupations. There was also deep concern throughout the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century about anarchism with numerous police spies informing about working class activity including sources of revenue. (Incidentally, many of the records of the payment of police spies remain redacted).
When the ban was first introduced, clubs were required to submit their receipts for every game to the FA. That is exceptionally close surveillance.
It's taken a hundred years for women's football to recover. I agree with you that women's exclusion from football has meant that football has moved on without them. However, my conclusion is that it was as a result of capitalism and patriarchy. As capitalism and patriarchy sustain to this day, women's football will only move forward if the hyper-rich decide to invest in it, or we are able to overcome capitalism. Oh wait, we have crypto!
Great series, I hope you enjoyed writing it.
I am aware of this and I was literally going to respond to your comment there before the notification here popped up.
Yes, we can conclude that women's football was popular before the ban. However, the lack of entertainment outlets at the time creates a point of contention that could have sidetracked the whole series. Plus, as we both seem to agree, football has moved on. And it should be mentioned how it changed to favor men more.
The series was poorly organized here actually as the first point (sexism) would have covered a big segment of why it was dissolved. However, the biggest mistake I made was a technical one that ended up with me somehow missing a whole addition of oversaturation when it comes to football; the main idea being that men's football already has 4 top leagues, domestic cups in those leagues, and 3 European competitions. Those are watched worldwide so you could add domestic and continent titles to those places. That's just on the clubs' level. It would have backed my final conclusion as football with few differences is a much-welcomed change anyway, and it actually has a basis.
I still stand behind my final conclusion which is that the efforts are being wasted in the wrong areas and instead should be focused on developing women's football or sport in general away from men's, that includes studies, and even giving women better presentation in Fifa and regulation associations. It also includes the simple question men had every few years as the game was developing; what do you think should be changed? The lack of research in that area is what prompted my conclusion missing as I didn't have a specific direction.
However, I do concede that this series needed much more polishing and I may have gotten over excited to publish it. Perhaps I should have also stuck to the much longer version which included much of what you mentioned. But, I am never able to find the right way to deal with the attention span on Hive and I already got DMed a couple of times (By people with large votes) stating that I am "milking it" by doing parts.
I may revisit this at a later date as I can't go back and rewrite it now (Especially with those milking claims) I would suggest you check out the link in the sources worded (Why Aren't Women's Sports as Big as Men's? Your Thoughts) as it matches much of my way of thinking about the subject.
I am glad you liked it, at least where we agreed. I enjoy researching and preparing it, the rest is the hell of dividing it into parts without looking like I am milking it, another thing is I can't go as point by point as I would like as that might be "rewording" which both can get me downvoted to hell. It's impossible to explain without sounding whiny about little details but they do add up and it is extremely tiring and annoying.
"Women played football on the same terms as men from at least 1880 and at some stage in the late 1890s and early 1900s there were mixed teams of men and women"
"The decision of the FA was part of a wider backlash against women and their role outside the home.."
"However, my conclusion is that it was as a result of capitalism and patriarchy."
Revealing,I never knew this before.
Thanks for this information and it offers some balance on this topic.
Cheers
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I remember when I was in high school our girls varsity team was more popular and the games were better attended than the boys' games were. Why would this happen? Well because the girls team was really good and they won the state championship 2 years in a row. Fast forward a few years when all the talent had gone off to college and they were terrible and people stopped going. This is a very isolated instance and also a very specific one. I think the major reason why people don't attend women's matches outside of the world cup is because the games are comparatively boring and since money drives all sports, there isn't much that can be done about this. You can throw all the money and promotion you want at something but if the audience is not entertained they are not going to come back.
There are certain aspects of women's sports that I find just as, if not more, entertaining then the men's division, such as MMA. We can't force the population to like something they do not, it needs to be something that happens organically.
I do agree that you can't force it and that is my biggest problem with the other "solutions" as they insist it is exactly the same and that sexism is the only reason. I think it would make more sense for women to evolve football into a version that showcases the best of them
I'd like to put this "both sports are the same" idea to rest by having say, the women's All Star team face off against the worst MLS team and see what happens. Or do the same thing with WNBA. I think we all know it would be an absolute blowout.
Even Serena Williams, who is regarded as the best women's tennis player of all time has said on I think it was Jimmy Fallon Show, that she would get destroyed by the top men players. I believe her words were "please don't make me do that, I don't want to get embarrassed!"