A very subjective look into AWFC

Toxic masculinity is something that us women’s football fans reject wholeheartedly. It feels like day in and day out we come across comments and posts that make us nauseated. As I always say, just imagine what the players are going through every single day… also, you don’t have to be a player, if you identify as anything other than a cis male, you experience toxic masculinity all the time, and even men do as well. Point is: it sucks.

One of the most obvious ways that this manifests, wether the people doing it are aware of it or not, is by the sexualization of players. An example of this is your typical (idiotic) friend who never ever posts about women’s football and then posts a pic of a player they consider to be attractive and say something like: “I guess I’m a women’s football fan now” or some dumb sh*t. This type of stuff grinds my gears. A lot of the times is like my friend’s dads or something and it’s just so very cringy and disrespectful. These are the types of dudes that would get very pissed when Beckham was playing and women found him cute. They would then say homophobic comments and expose some dark stuff.

I understand the ambiguity and/or irony in that it might seem like I don’t get mad about women saying something about men but trust me, it does bother me, but I don’t think its anywhere near as bad, toxic or mean. I might be wrong. A lot of Arsenal fans post super intense comments about players they have crushes on, there’s constant talk about their private lives, who they are dating and all of this stuff that I, personally, find it to be very lame, pathetic and it doesn’t add anything valuable. I get the fact that lots of fans belong to the LGBTQ+ community and they develop actual feelings for players, and that dynamic isn’t as common with the men’s sport, or at least that we see out in the open because sadly we still have so much to grow as humankind. Yet, that doesn’t automatically make it ok to express some intense thoughts on social media. It’s creepy, it’s weird.

My criticism isn’t truly with what it is said necessarily but actually about how it is said. Maybe it’s an age thing… maybe I would’ve made those types of comments years ago, maybe I have made them. Maybe people I love and care about and respect have made those comments, men and women. I don’t know. This is an observation of where I stand today, right this moment.

d ❤

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