practiced
my heart out and if I had finally PLAYED FOOTBALL it would have been one of the most glorious nights of my life. It was fun
to be a part of that.
Yes. Women really can play full-contact the-same-shit-the-boys-play football. We just did it.
And this is wrong and I know it and I should be slapped on the hand for even mentioning it, but … the number of men who came
to watch surprised me.
Are you surprised by the number of women who attend men’s football games?
Actually yes, but then, I don’t like football.
Do you just automatically assume that no one would be interested in women playing sports?
No—I assume men wouldn’t be interested
. So after twenty-five years of identifying yourself as a feminist, you still define your values by what you perceive men
to value?
No, I’m just surprised that many men came to see women play football on a Saturday night. And apparently so were the players
because the newspaper article I read stressed, every other line, how many husbands and boyfriends were bringing them water
and offering moral support. I expected to see thirty men on the sidelines wearing their MY WIFE IS NOT A LESBIAN badge; it
was the two hundred men in the stands that surprised me.
We all know, of course, that one of the players got sacked because she “ran like a girl.” (In fact, I don’t believe that criticism
came from a man.)
When the ball carrier for the Jaguars ran for the first touchdown a Detroit player came barreling in from the side and smacked
dead-on into a well-set Jaguar guard, bounced off and landed on her butt in the grass and the man behind me went crazy. “Did
you SEE that? My God, that was one hell of a block!” All around us amazed male voices decreed, “That was a good play!” Two
plays later the man behind me turned to his companion and said, “Yeah—but did you see that block back there? I mean, she just
WHOMPED her …” (I’m not really making fun of the boys. It really was a textbook block and I was pretty impressed myself.)
Several things impressed me, even in spite of my abysmal ignorance of the game. In about the middle of the front line was
a woman who appeared, from the stands, to be shorter and smaller than most of the other players. The quarterback would snap
the ball, all of the players would begin running, they would all bunch up in the middle and fall on the pile, and then they
would start unpiling until there was only the smaller woman left, and each time she would spring up like a Timex watch and
get in line to do it all over again. She must be made of Teflon-covered rubber.
Oh, yes—football is a team sport. Another reason I never wanted to play football was I never did well at team sports. To play
team sports well you need years and years of practice of keeping track of not only what you are doing, but what everyone else
on the field is doing and how what each of them is doing impacts on what you should do next. Volleyball is the most complex
team sport I ever played and when I played you had your own sacred little patch of land and you played it come hell or high
water. To play team sports well, you need a sense of camaraderie among your fellow players, a sense of higher purpose and
willingness to trust that your fellow teammates will step in and cover you when you fail, back you up when you need it, even
a willingness to sacrifice yourself for the good of the whole … all that T-word (trust) stuff. That’s what boys learn and
have always learned on the playing field where girls were forbidden to go.
Girls don’t learn the rules of engagement. Girls don’t learn the difference between personal victory and team victory or personal
loss and team loss. Girls learned that if you don’t do it yourself, it doesn’t get done. Girls were never asked to fight the
war in Vietnam or any other war. But if they had been, girls would have won. Girls would have felt guilty for not winning
it sooner, and
my heart out and if I had finally PLAYED FOOTBALL it would have been one of the most glorious nights of my life. It was fun
to be a part of that.
Yes. Women really can play full-contact the-same-shit-the-boys-play football. We just did it.
And this is wrong and I know it and I should be slapped on the hand for even mentioning it, but … the number of men who came
to watch surprised me.
Are you surprised by the number of women who attend men’s football games?
Actually yes, but then, I don’t like football.
Do you just automatically assume that no one would be interested in women playing sports?
No—I assume men wouldn’t be interested
. So after twenty-five years of identifying yourself as a feminist, you still define your values by what you perceive men
to value?
No, I’m just surprised that many men came to see women play football on a Saturday night. And apparently so were the players
because the newspaper article I read stressed, every other line, how many husbands and boyfriends were bringing them water
and offering moral support. I expected to see thirty men on the sidelines wearing their MY WIFE IS NOT A LESBIAN badge; it
was the two hundred men in the stands that surprised me.
We all know, of course, that one of the players got sacked because she “ran like a girl.” (In fact, I don’t believe that criticism
came from a man.)
When the ball carrier for the Jaguars ran for the first touchdown a Detroit player came barreling in from the side and smacked
dead-on into a well-set Jaguar guard, bounced off and landed on her butt in the grass and the man behind me went crazy. “Did
you SEE that? My God, that was one hell of a block!” All around us amazed male voices decreed, “That was a good play!” Two
plays later the man behind me turned to his companion and said, “Yeah—but did you see that block back there? I mean, she just
WHOMPED her …” (I’m not really making fun of the boys. It really was a textbook block and I was pretty impressed myself.)
Several things impressed me, even in spite of my abysmal ignorance of the game. In about the middle of the front line was
a woman who appeared, from the stands, to be shorter and smaller than most of the other players. The quarterback would snap
the ball, all of the players would begin running, they would all bunch up in the middle and fall on the pile, and then they
would start unpiling until there was only the smaller woman left, and each time she would spring up like a Timex watch and
get in line to do it all over again. She must be made of Teflon-covered rubber.
Oh, yes—football is a team sport. Another reason I never wanted to play football was I never did well at team sports. To play
team sports well you need years and years of practice of keeping track of not only what you are doing, but what everyone else
on the field is doing and how what each of them is doing impacts on what you should do next. Volleyball is the most complex
team sport I ever played and when I played you had your own sacred little patch of land and you played it come hell or high
water. To play team sports well, you need a sense of camaraderie among your fellow players, a sense of higher purpose and
willingness to trust that your fellow teammates will step in and cover you when you fail, back you up when you need it, even
a willingness to sacrifice yourself for the good of the whole … all that T-word (trust) stuff. That’s what boys learn and
have always learned on the playing field where girls were forbidden to go.
Girls don’t learn the rules of engagement. Girls don’t learn the difference between personal victory and team victory or personal
loss and team loss. Girls learned that if you don’t do it yourself, it doesn’t get done. Girls were never asked to fight the
war in Vietnam or any other war. But if they had been, girls would have won. Girls would have felt guilty for not winning
it sooner, and
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