I recently attended a Philadelphia Eagles football game and began to notice the role females played in the sports event to be various and intriguing. It is not generally noticed, but there are many types of women spectating and involved in the production of the show that is an NFL football game.
I couldn't help but notice the young woman sitting in front of me at the game. She was wearing expensive cowboy boots, jeans, and a pea-coat. She had fake nails, long straightened hair, and metallic blue eyeliner on and did not cheer once during the entire game. I wondered why she, or her male friend, would spend a couple hundred dollars (which they did because they were asked by the people to their right) on a ticket to watch a game she clearly did not want to attend. The seats had be occupied during the previous game by two young women wearing the smallest McNabb jerseys I've ever seen with bleach blonde hair.. again not even slightly interested in the game.
I guess this is the stereotypical role when play when concerning sports. Many guys, and girls alike, assume girls don't want to watch football and drink beer but instead get their nails done or go shopping. This role, although supported by many of the women I've witnessed attending football games, is also more often than not contradicted. The woman sitting right next to came out to watch her Eagles play even though she was significantly pregnant and kept having to run to the bathroom. The same woman attends a few games a season and cheers her heart out for her team. Another older woman proudly wearing her new Samuel jersey was screaming the Eagles fight song at the top of her lung, an obvious long time, die hard fan of her team.
Although women like these show that women can be just as into their team and cheer for them perhaps even harder than their male counter-parts, the NFL does its job at supporting the bleach blonde, football ignorant image many people hold. One of the cheerleaders for the Eagles attended my high school and she is not allowed to leave her house without looking her best, she's not allowed to color or cut her hair in whatever way she wants, and she's not even allowed to wear her hair in a pony tail in public. The same girl, and all her fellow cheerleaders, annually poses naked for the Eagles cheerleader calendar (a page of which is even hanging on the door of a student is Norsworthy). I wonder if you asked any of these girls what pass interference or encroachment was if they even know that they were football terms. These girls obviously just mold women into the beauty pageant, sports illiterate mold the true female fans are trying to fight. I mean, these cheerleaders aren't at all necessary, just ask the Steelers.
6 comments:
I completely agree that the role of women in sports has been molded into the selling point for advertisements, cheerleaders, or trophy wives of the players and thats it. I can't speak for football as much because I don't follow it but i know that baseball is very similar. You know that every teenage girl walking around with a Jeter jersey wears it because she thinks he's hot and doesn't know much else about him. Also, the women that show up to games all dolled up and stare absentmindedly around the stadium because they have no interest in the game are a waste of a ticket. This does not apply to all women though and there are plenty of die hard women fans that always support their team.
Excellent topic! You've really captured Lorber's point about gender as an ever-present yet typically invisible social dynamic.
I completely agree with this post and with rose23. Although I do not really follow football, I know of girls who just go to games because they think a particular player is "hot". During the summer time, I attended a soccer game, NY Red Bulls were playing the LA Galaxy. I am a huge soccer fan and love the game- I have been playing soccer since I was five years old. However, when I was at the game, I noticed that most of the young girls there were only there to see David Beckham (he plays on LA Galaxy). Of course all the young girls were wearing David Beckham shirts and screaming his name while he was trying to play. Unfortunately, they couldn't care less about what was going on on the soccer field. Of course they wanted "David Beckham's team" to win, but just because David Beckham is a heartthrob and exploited all over the covers of magazines and on the TV. He is recognized as one of the sexiest soccer players of all time so, of course young girls who think this too are going to buy tickets to see him play just to see him in person.
Great topic, I was actually going to write about a similar experience when I went to a Giants game the other week. I couldn't help but notice the numerous girls, dressed up in their white and pick "Manning" jerseys. One of them happened to be sitting directly in front of me with her guito/steriod loving boyfriend. She obviously had no idea what was going on in the game, and she kept complaining on when they could leave and go to the bar.
On the contrary, the woman sitting to my left was cheering louder than any male in our section. She and her husband started the G-I-A-N-T-S! chant and more often than not called out the opponent’s plays.
I completely agree with you casey, it makes angry when I see girls walking around wearing Tom Brady jerseys or rooting for the Patriots because Tom Brady is "soo hot". Its especially frustrating to see these girls at a game, clearly having no idea whats going on with the actual sport. That is not to say that all girls attending games are like that though. I don't want people like you (casey) to be put into the mold of someone who just goes to see the hot player when you actually follow the game and came whats going on aside from an attractive guy running around on the field.
I completely agree that many women attend different sporting events for the wrong reasons, whether it is to be around male fans or to watch the "good-looking" players. Even more so, why do some women feel the need to draw attention to themselves at these games by wearing tiny shirts and short shorts? I'm sure the men are much more interested in the game itself than the "hot blonde" in the bleachers, or so I hope. Women who are attending these events simply for these ignorant reasons are taking up seats for true die-hard fans!
Post a Comment