Football, wars and sex

Posted by Jenni Colwill on 15 May 2009 | 1 Comments

Tags: Jenni's blog, women, football, australia

I like football (AFL, actually) and used to think it was a healthy way of discharging boyish high spirits. But it has all become a bit serious lately. It seems rather than discharging high spirits, football encourages unhealthy attitudes to women, and football culture is now more about blokes exercising dominating and aggressive behaviour, with a heavy emphasis on normalising brutish behaviour toward women.

After the recent Cronulla Sharks group-sex scandal, another footballer is today facing sex charges; this time child sex charges.

I know there are lots of footballers who are embarrassed and ashamed of their colleague's behaviour, and some good things are being done to break the link between football and violence towards women, but it doesn't look as if this is working. They need to do a lot more than just support white ribbon day.

It is becoming a bit of a battlefield. In wars, it isn't unusual for the 'enemy' to be talked about as a single group of people who all have characteristics that everyone despises. This makes it OK to hurt them.

It seems that women are like the enemy when it comes to football. Players use feminine characteristics to describe weakness in men. Violence is trivialised, making it seem perfectly normal, and blaming the victims of violence is also increasingly common.

Not unlike a war.

Dr Michael Flood, a Research Fellow with the Australia Institute talks about football players using behaviour that can make violence seem normal and natural. His research is quoted on a Facebook group set up by a member of the Women's Electoral Lobby. The group is called Stop NRL Sexism. He says that men are more likely to assault women if, amongst other things, they identify with traditional images of masculinity and see violence as manly and desirable.

I have joined the Facebook group because I don't know how else to demonstrate my views this violence. What about you?