Sport

Elie

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I have a few, might write some others later but here’s one. When I was around 12 I played for a mixed gender cricket club- I was the only girl though. One week when I went to training there was a new coach, male. We started playing and then it was my turn to bat, with the new coach bowling. I walked up and he said “don’t worry, I’ll go easy on you” with the sort of encouraging smile you might give to a very small child. I felt a sort of indignation and managed to hit the ball very hard over the boundary, at which point he sort of turned to some of the boys and went “oh, she’s alright” then looked back at me and told me “well done sweetheart”. I just felt patronised, and the condescending manner he spoke to me just made me feel so unimportant. Don’t speak to women or girls like this please guys

Liz

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I play football at school at lunch with a few of my friends. We are all girls. The boys who are the majority playing football at lunch get annoyed at us and annoyed at the boys we tackle telling them they are bad at football. This really annoys me as all the time they are just saying they are better at every thing.

Julia

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I was 14 when I did Kendo, a japanese sport. There I got befriended with a 19 year old guy. He gave me some “big brother” vibes and I liked to talk to him about video games and other normal things. We used to drive in the same direction to get home after sport. At that time we already new each other since more than a year and it was never romantic or sexual between us. We were just friends. Maybe there was some interest from both sides but we really never talked about it. Then once, when we where in the subway on our way home he suddenly told me the following: He told me his best friend has a really sexy girlfriend and both would like to have a threesome with him and he would like that too. I said, cool for you. He kept talking that they only want to have a threesome with him if he lose his virginity before that. And then he looked at me. I knew what he tried to ask me but I tried to play the innocent one and told him he should find someone then. He said yeah. And I just wanted to get out of the situation asap because it felt embarrassing at that moment. But when I came home and I thought about it after some time I got more and more angry and hurt. I was a minor at that time and he asked me something like that which was basically illegal. Later, when I got 19 years old, 14 year olds seemed like total children to me. How could he ask me something like this and destroy my innocent, romantic perspective on sex and relationship which I had at the time?! And not because he liked me, no, he just wanted to use me, my body, to have sex with someone else later. He throw our friendship away and everything what was left was an awkward feeling. I never talked to him about it again and I stopped going to that sport. Years later when I was 18 I met him consistently in the subway again. We had some small talk and I asked if we should keep in contact this time. He gave me his number. After I left the subway I felt all the feelings came back which I felt when I was 14. It was overwhelming. I got angry on myself that I was nice to him, even asked if we can keep in contact. I deleted his number and never talked to him. That he sexualized me when I was a minor while he was an adult and while we where friends hurt something deep inside of me. Sometimes I still catch myself thinking about this incidents and can’t stop being angry and upset about it because I wasn’t able to do anything against it.

Mare

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At school, we have PE together with the boys. And every time we have a male PE teacher, when we have to set up the equipment he always asks the boys to do it. And if girls do it he asks boys to help them because we are “too weak” to do it. We are only 14, this shouldn’t be happening.

At School

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In 7th grade when we were playing sports my teacher would only ever let the boys be captains even when girls were really keen to do it! at the time I didn’t really think much of it but now I think about it I’m pretty sad that sexism was so strongly prominent for kids at that age!

CC

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I was hobbling down the corridor at work on my crutches after hurting my knee at football, and a male colleague asked “What have you done?”. I said that I had torn my ligament playing football to which he replied “What are you doing playing that? That’s a boys’ sport!”. I really couldn’t tell if he was joking or not, but seeing as I didn’t really know him, I thought probably not. I was so astonished by the outdated cliché remark, all I could say back was “It is 2020 you know”, but I wish I’d have been able to think quickly enough to say something a bit more thought-provoking.

anon

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i started playing cricket in primary school. my friend and i were the only girls on the cricket team and we played excellently, none of the boys on our team has anything against us, etc. we were an extremely strong team – we qualified for the national youth finals. my friend and i were so excited to be playing nationally at such a young age but we recieved an email: girls are not allowed to compete at the youth finals i have never forgotten that moment, and still believe that there is so much sexism in cricket, even in 2020 and the 21st century

Anon

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When I was 24 my ju jitsu instructor demanded a blow job in exchange for passing a grading (for green belt). When I declined he failed me at the test and threw me out of the club for “disrespect”. I joined another club, but he had it shut down. I went to a third club, telling them that the chief instructor didn’t like me and the second club had been shut down because I trained there. They didn’t believe me so they let me join. They got shut down too. There is often a “pink tax” in the form of sexual favours requested of women for grading and status in martial arts.

Aoife

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Our soccer team practices every week on the same days at the same time. We have the AstroTurf booked, it is our right to be able to use it. Yet we are regularly forced by the manager and coaches to stop our practice, because boys teams, usually younger and less accomplished than us, want to squeeze in an extra practice and need the pitch. We usually have to conclude our practice there and then, or sometimes we play in the car park of the SuperValu next door. If we dare complain, we’re called miserable bitches or hysterical, we need to get over ourselves and show some camaraderie. Don’t we want the boys to do well? Don’t we care about them? Come on girls, cheer up, you can watch if ye want! It’s funny how concerned they are that we aren’t displaying enough “care” towards the boys, when it is explicitly made clear over and over again that women and girls of all races, ages, and abilities are the demographic that absolutely no one truly cares about in the slightest.

Anon

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When I was 24 my ju jitsu instructor demanded a blow job in exchange for passing a grading (for green belt). When I declined he failed me at the test and threw me out of the club for “disrespect”. I joined another club, but he had it shut down. I went to a third club, telling them that the chief instructor didn’t like me and the second club had been shut down because I trained there. They didn’t believe me so they let me join. They got shut down too. There is often a “pink tax” in the form of sexual favours requested of women for grading and status in martial arts.