Tackling stereotypes

My father, who died in 1996, was a football player.  He played for Georgia Tech, and had half a season with da Bears before he blew out his knee.  He loved the game.

He had three daughters and two sons. His sons have no interest in football.  At all. Or at least they did not have the last time I talked to them about the sport. Oh, my older brother watches it because he hangs out with my eldest sister and...

The three daughters? Football fanatics.  Both college football (Mississippi State and LSU for my sisters, Georgia Tech and Stanford for me) and pro football (The Saints for them (although I have a strong fondness for the guys from N'Awlins as well) and the Buccaneers and Dolphins for me).  Fans who can scream "It's a blitz!  Watch out!" at the television and know what we're talking about. Visiting around Christmas last year when the Bucs played the Saints* was exhilarating, and we all managed to talk to each other afterward. (My mother, bless her heart, learned to watch (and like) football in large part to be able to share it with my Dad, and is a die-hard Buccaneers fan.)

When I was about six my goal in life was to be a linebacker for the Bears. I gave it up once it was explained that this was not, in fact, a viable career path for a girl.**

And as for the next generation... my sons have about the same amount on interest in football as their uncles.  Two of them came in last Saturday in the midst of a tense Stanford - USC game to tell me to stop yelling at the television set.  As if that was likely to happen.

And my nieces?  Yes, another set of women who can - and do - comment "screen pass!" or who groan when the other team runs back the kickoff to our team's twelve-yard line. All of whom absolutely adored the onside kick the Saints carried off to perfection to start the second half of the last Super Bowl.

Funny thing, though.  You would think, looking how football is marketed, that women such as me and my sisters do not exist.  We are completely invisible. The ads during the games rarely or never show women as active participants -- even when the game in question is touch football -- or interested and knowledgeable observers.  Women are window dressing, designed to sell beer or cars or flat-screen mega-tv sets.  Or we are shown as complainers, whining about how the game is cutting into our time watching the latest rom-com on Showtime.***

It's enough to drive one batty.  It makes me angry that there is a whole demographic out there -- of which I am a part -- which for all intents and purposes is treated as freaks by advertising agencies. And the explanation which seems to make the most sense, at least to most people, that women have never played football, applies equally well to a great many men who watch the game religiously. 

It is getting better in one respect, though.  There are now women sportscasters, women who show depth and intelligence about the sport, even though none of them had the good fortune to play it.  There are enough of them now (i.e., more than one) so as to be relatively unremarkable.

Who knows? Maybe the next generation -- my sons' and my neices' daughters -- will be taken seriously as the serious football fans we are.


*The Bucs won.  Hee hee hee.
**Of course, about that time I decided that my other favorite team was the Rams, because they had such cool-looking helmets. My father seemed okay with this, saying who I rooted for for whatever reasons was my business, as long as I pulled for them through thick and thin. He had little patience with fair-weather fans.  This attitude has seen me through countless seasons with the Bucs, Saints, Rays, and Mets.
***Baseball has similar problems, but not, it seems to me, to the same extent as football.  Somewhere it must have occurred to someone on Madison Avenue that hey! there really are female baseball fans.