One evening last year when I was back in my hometown, I went to a Anaheim Ducks hockey game with my dad and sister. I proudly showed off my jersey as my family and I sat down in our nosebleed seats. Somewhere far below us, two young women walked up the stairs wearing high heels, tight skirts and tiny cleavage-bearing shirts. My sister leans over to me and scoffs, “They’re wearing clothes that I would go clubbing in.”
It was ridiculous. Why would someone wear party clothes to a hockey game? For one, it is insanely cold in there due to the giant ice rink down below. For another, everyone else is wearing jeans and Ducks gear, like jerseys, T-shirts and hats. And then these women are wearing clothes that my sister would go to a club in.
Everyone knows the type of girl I’m talking about. We have them at University of Oregon football games, too. They’re those girls that scream and clap obnoxiously, but only when everyone else does. When they aren’t screaming, they’re taking selfies for Snapchat and Instagram. When something happens that makes the crowd groan and boo at the referees, they lean over to the closest male and ask “Um like what is everyone so upset about?” Basically, they’re girls that go to sporting events and have no idea what is going on the entire time.
I try not to judge these women. They’re just trying to support their school’s football team after all. Yet, they make every woman that actually likes and knows sports look bad because they make it look like all women don’t know what they’re talking about. They make men not take women sports fans seriously.
It’s insulting not to be taken seriously in the world of sports just because of my gender. I hate when I tell a male that I’m a huge hockey fan and they scoff, even after I scathingly inform them that I’ve been an Anaheim Ducks fan since the seventh grade.
I know that I have negatively stereotyped against women at sporting events in general, but to myself I wonder why. I see women dressed up in sports gear cheering on their team, and I always assume that they aren’t real fans, just because they are women. For example, an old friend of mine started dating a hockey player and magically turned into a hockey fan. Whenever she would discuss hockey with me, I would roll my eyes thinking to myself that she’s only a fan because of her boyfriend. Even if she is actually a fan of the sport, I know that I will never take her seriously. I always think to myself that she is a fake sports fan, even though she is trying to become a serious hockey fan. Yet, because I’ve been a hockey fan for much longer, I see myself as superior to her.
I’ve even stereotyped against myself. When I met my boyfriend, I learned that he is a Chicago Blackhawks fan. I automatically assumed that because he’s a male, that he knows more about hockey than I do. This turned out to be extremely false, but still, I doubted my knowledge just because of my gender.
Women have become more present in sports media, which is of course a great step forward. However, because they are women, men tend to disagree with their opinions. Male fans also harass women sports reporters. For example, Julie DiCaro, an anchor for a Chicago sports radio station, recently shared threatening messages she has received over Twitter. In these messages, she is called degrading names and threatened with rape and assault.
It is dangerous being a woman in the man’s world of sports media. Men make women feel unwelcome and threatened in this world. This is absolutely atrocious and unfair. Male reporters aren’t threatened in this way, why does the world have to be so harsh to women sports fans? Why should our gender even matter in the first place?
Women shouldn’t be threatened for sharing their opinion. Women shouldn’t be scoffed at because they are fans of a sport or a team. In a male-dominated world of sports, women are often seen as unknowledgeable and uninformed. For us women who want to appreciate sports, this is discouraging and unfair. The sports world and the male audience needs to change and be more accepting. Because women sports reporters and fans aren’t going anywhere.