women's soccer plays
By Maya Dusenbery • @mayadusenbery • 10 years ago

Male viewer writes letter to the editor explaining why women can’t play soccer

This weekend, England’s women’s soccer team played Germany in an historic match at Wembly national stadium. As the Independent reports, “It was the first standalone game for women at the home of football, drew a record crowd of 46,000, was shown live in TV coverage on the BBC, and introduced a generation of young girls to the idea of the women’s team being treated the same as the men for the first time.” 

After the game, one male viewer, David Hickey, wrote a letter to the editor asking why it was aired when women’s soccer clearly doesn’t compare to the men’s game. “Women can’t play football,” he wrote. “They don’t even know the basic rules.” Here’s his full message:

england-women

 

As a former women’s soccer player, I have to agree 100%.

(h/t @jordanerschwarz)

Header image credit: Richard Heathcote/Getty Images

St. Paul, MN

Maya Dusenbery is executive director in charge of editorial at Feministing. She is the author of the forthcoming book Doing Harm: The Truth About How Bad Medicine and Lazy Science Leave Women Dismissed, Misdiagnosed, and Sick (HarperOne, March 2018). She has been a fellow at Mother Jones magazine and a columnist at Pacific Standard magazine. Her work has appeared in publications like Cosmopolitan.com, TheAtlantic.com, Bitch Magazine, as well as the anthology The Feminist Utopia Project. Before become a full-time journalist, she worked at the National Institute for Reproductive Health. A Minnesota native, she received her B.A. from Carleton College in 2008. After living in Brooklyn, Oakland, and Atlanta, she is currently based in the Twin Cities.

Maya Dusenbery is an executive director of Feministing and author of the forthcoming book Doing Harm on sexism in medicine.

Read more about Maya

Join the Conversation