A study done by Durham University has found that female sports experience misogyny from male football fans in Europe. The negativity they face comes mostly from increased media coverage of women’s sports.
The team looked into 1950 male football fans across 150 online message boards. They found that the participants expressed misogynistic views on female sports. This trend was the same across all age groups of men.
Positive attitudes towards female sports were few
Despite some of the respondents being more progressive towards female sports, the researchers found the negative attitudes mostly overshadowed them. The team thought these attitudes were negative backlash from the increased coverage female sports had in the media.
According to Dr. Stacey Pope, a lead study author from the Department of Sports and Exercise Science at Durham University, no other study has reported on the attitude of U.K football fans towards women’s sports since they started receiving more news coverage.
Dr. Pope noted that while attitude towards women’s sports is improving, many negative views are still there. These views are a reflection of patriarchy and society. Moreover, these attitudes came from men of different ages and generations.
Researchers split the responses into three groups
The team noted that they placed the respondents into three categories. The first was more progressive. The others displayed either overt or covert misogyny. Openly misogynistic respondents thought female athletes were inferior to male athletes, especially in U.K football.
Openly misogynistic men would suggest that women should not play sports or become athletic. The men were also more hostile to women’s sports. They would go as far as to call the media coverage of female sorts PC nonsense or positive discrimination.
Men who were covertly misogynist, on the other hand, were more likely to hold favorable opinions when discussing women’s sports in a public forum. However, when they were part of private discussions, they would express negative views.
The third group of men would express positive attitudes towards female sports. They were happy with the changes in the field over the years. The researchers concluded that many misogynistic men felt negatively towards the attention female sports received because they felt it was an attack on masculinity.
