Gender and Sport.

I know that choosing an advertisement for an adult entertainment (read: Porn) channel isn't really a subtle or controversial ad bust. But what really bothers me about this advertisement is the context. It appears in a prominent and excellent British soccer magazine. The implications and ideas of this ad spread far beyond the four corners of the page. It is part of a repetitive motif of engendering the sport I love.

It follows an extremely heteronormative, sexist and racist deductive logic: soccer is a man's sport, only men watch soccer, these men who watch soccer are obviously heterosexual, these heterosexual men who watch soccer must, therefore, obviously prefer Caucasian blonds.

Not only does this engender the single most populous sport in the world but also markets itself as a male adolescent fantasy: Sun, beach, a number of attractive women and no other men. This idea of no other men is particularly marketed to present the viewer of this advertisement as the only one there. The three women in the front are making direct suggestive eye contact with the viewer. The women and their bodies become spectacles for the gaze of the viewer (which this ad has already suggested and assumed is heterosexual male).

This ad is obviously one in a long line of subtle and not-so-subtle methods of engendering sport. But what is really important here is how the assumptions this ad makes are reflected in real life. FIFA, the world football governing body, has run a huge anti-racist campaign for a number of years. The results have been noticeable, the once common 'monkey chants' aimed at Black players has all but disappeared from the English stadiums. Yet there is no attempt, or even acknowledgment, to clamp down on homophobic chants at sports events. If you're at a soccer game then you're heterosexual by default.

The second repercussion of this system is to the handful of pioneering professional women in this field. Networks and newspapers have no problem paying ex-players millions of dollars to become pundits, even though some of them have the analytical and verbal skills of a pineapple. Yet when Jacqui Oatley became the first ever female commentator on the BBC's soccer channel, controversy ensued. Phone-calls and emails flooded in ridiculing her as incompetent. I was surprised too. Hearing a male voice while watching soccer had been the modus operandi , in fact it had been the ONLY operandi. The engendering of soccer has made it a male-only domain, when women enter it, especially on the platform of knowledgeable pundits/commentators, the alpha males are threatened.

The final repercussion is on the egalitarian men who enjoy this sport. They (we) are instantly stereotyped into the categories formed by these ads. They (we) are forced to sit in the stadiums and listen to 10,000 people call the referee a faggot. It turns people away from the beautiful game. In a world where the President of the European Football Governing Body, Lennart Johannsen, is allowed to publicly say "companies could make use of a sweaty, lovely looking girl playing on the ground, with the rainy weather. It would sell." in reference to womens football and STILL keep his job, we do not needs advertisements like these.