Tuesday suckage

[bop_radar]

So I've come to hate Tuesdays... Tuesdays mean BSG is available for download, but K's at work kicking her desk and impatiently biting her nails until 'hometime' and trying not to read spoilery reactions on my friends list. It also means I'm waiting for the first yoga class for the week and in need of stretching. *g* And that also means I don't get

Comments

[bop_radar]

Oh, I loved last week's. The screamfest was very funny, yes. It did feel very real. And last week's ep really built on that. Coach sitting around being useless definitely amuses me. He's so male about his daughter.

Yeah, I thought it was cool that the girls took it so seriously. It's good to know that's true to life. But I didn't really understand. So a 'Flag' game means those ribbons they were pulling off each other? Do boys ever play the game like that? (It's hard to imagine the boys playing with ribbons!) And I guess it just made it all the more obvious to me that the girls are excluded from this sport normally. Are there no female teams? Do girls ever get to play it 'normally'?

Oh, and I'm not by any means saying this sport is alone in its sexism. For example, Australian Rules was completely dominated by boys in my school. My primary school had an absolute uproar when a girl wanted to play. And my senior all-girls school did one class of it and that was about it. (I remember because I got hit in the face.) I wonder whether it's changed at all, but I suspect it hasn't.

I agree--there is hardly a character I dislike. The racist coach maybe. And Lyla, although I'm softening on her, and it's more the actress that I don't like, not the character. It's so rare to love everyone this much. I guess that's why the show makes me feel so good.

[serenography]

[bop_radar]

*blush* Oops. I totally thought they were 'ribbons'. If they're not, that does make it slightly less fetishised.

Though, to put my case clearly, I think it is very telling that a sport that has so much money poured into it and such a huge following is almost exclusively male. It's the same here--Australian Rules (or Rugby in the northern states) attracts a huge following, has a macho culture and is a multi-million dollar industry. There is no female league and no rival or equivalent female sport (like softball vs baseball). It's not a question of the girls not being able to do it--women train for full-contact martial arts sports in the Olympics that require full-body padding, so if the equipment was available of course they could do it. Beyond that, I start to wonder how much of the lack of desire by girls to perform that sport is social conditioning. Because it is so hard to fight the established culture, I'm sure most sporty girls choose other sports. I just think it's unfortunate that those sports are not as glorified or idealised, and that they don't attract the salaries or opportunities offered young male footballers.

In terms of powderpuff in particular, I suppose you could argue that it gives girls, briefly, the chance to play like the boys. But then, if they want that, why is it a special event and not an established sport? And I guess in FNL it did seem like it was 'fetishising' the girls--dressing them in boys' gear and making it a spectacle. The 'novelty' factor just affirms that this is not the norm--it's fun because it's unusual. The gender reversal of having the boys as cheerleaders, is the same. It's fun because it's not normal. Why not? I'd love to see guys as a cheersquad in an all-female sport. ;-)

I'm not arguing with you, btw--I just realised that my post didn't clearly articulate why I had feminist issues with powderpuff, and your comments made me realise that it may not be obvious what they were.

[serenography]

[bop_radar]

Yes, I know you're not arguing either, and I'm grateful for you providing insight into the current 'real-world' culture of h.s. For me, the culture portrayed in FNL is quite foreign, and I don't know how true to reality it is.

*nods* about the gender issues--I don't think it's black and white either.

That's really interesting about boys on the cheer squad--that's cool! When I was little I was in a demonstration skipping squad, which was traditionally all-girl, but we had a guy in our team of six. It wasn't a big deal to me at the time (I was 10), but now I look back and think good on him and his parents.

And yes, that does sound like HUGE progress to have a Gay/Lesbian student club. When I went through high school that was pretty unheard of, though I got the impression things were changing/changed in the following few years. And of course it was different at different schools. In my generation it was still most common for people to 'come out' in uni, not school. Though a couple of people I knew did come out in high school--but they were exceptions. It's good to know that's changing.