I recently came across a post on facebook by a someone who I consider family. It was a link to an interview of women that were trying out for a Women's football team, called Dallas Desire - awesome, right? This wasn't normal football though. While the women do wear shoulder pads & helments, it seems they are lacking the rest of their uniforms. No, they're not naked!
They are members of the Lingerie Football League, and the slogan is "True Fantasy Football." (http://www.lflus.com/) This is full contact football that women are playing literally in their underwear. Let's keep in mind that some of these games are played on astro turf! Ever had turf burn? Definition of Lingerie - Intimate apparel worn by women. So we've placed these women in their "intimate" night wear to be physical with each other, while being oppressed at the same time, for who? Not other women. When we place women in these environments to be exploited sexually they're perceived as less of humans, and what I mean by that is men tend to start viewing them as only sexual objects & that's almost always the first step to justifying violence against a person. For instance, strip clubs, men go there for the pleasure of a woman sexually but yet has not real connection or interest to her values as a person - it's all for instant gratification. While I know this isn't the same thing, we're placing these women into an arena of exactly what guys want, revert to the slogan "True Fantasy Football" - which the creators of this league coined and it's absolutely unintelligently brilliant - a bunch of partially clothed women playing what seems to be a vast majority of men's favorite sport and calling it a "fantasy."
So I pose the question, is this sport really for Women? How often, if at all, do you see sports containing men running around partially clothed (besides swimming) & participating in a physical contact sport? Society is tailored to men, and if anyone hasn't realized this then they're blind to the world around them. In everything women particpate they're sexualized in some manner, and objectified to extreme portions from the time they're little. For example- (http://www.cnbc.com/id/29721771/Beach_Volleyball_Ads_Could_Spike_Attendance) and the goal here isn't to get women to attend these sporting events! When is the last time you've seen men objectified or sexualized to get women to come to men's sporting events? When you mix the sexualization of these women with a physically violent sport it sends damaging messages to men that reinforce this skewed perception of women, but also perpetuates sexual violence! We see normalized sexual violence all the time in images, on TV, and now it's being put into real life.
People often, too often, ignore the influences soceity has on gender's in general, but specifically women. Everywhere you look a woman is being dehumanized & belittled sexually and into objects. So while I support women who want to plays sports, and believe that a woman has just as much right to do whatever a man does - I don't believe it should have to come down to the women's expense.
J
Jfallout1212@yahoo.com - Feel free to email me or leave comments
http://www.stepupagainstviolence.com/
No comments:
Post a Comment