The Myths of Being a “Good” (Female) Athlete
By Hoài Lê Hà
“You’re a girl and you play soccer?”
I dreaded this comment every time I entered the elevator, coming home late from a soccer game. The almost mocking tone, the eyes sizing me up in my uniform and cleats; I despised it all.
After my best counterfeit smile and a generously polite “yes”, my exhausted body would thank whichever god above that I lived on one of the first few floors. At the same time, if I ever just had enough time on these elevator rides, I’d tell these strangers that yes, us girls can play soccer too.
After the first few of these frustrating incidents, I told my best friend, who also happened to be on the varsity girls soccer team. Much to my heartbreak and disappointment, I wasn’t surprised to find out that my experiences were far from unique. I couldn’t completely blame these strangers; the idea of boys kicking a ball around on the streets was much more familiar to the eye. But, are being a girl and a soccer player two mutually exclusive ideas that could not coexist in a person? I know for certain it’s not; plenty of female soccer players exist.
Even those who are able to come to terms with the fact that we could play in a male-dominated field could only progress so far. People often downplay us, unable to grasp the concept that we had any competence at all. I’ve been told I was “good for a girl” more times than I can be bothered to count. I’ve been told I should be flattered.
How come nobody ever tells a male athlete that they’re “good for a guy”?
Why should I feel flattered when I’ve only satisfied the low bar that’s set for womxn, just because the people around me can’t imagine us being anywhere better and anywhere nearly as skilled as our male equivalents?
I’ve watched teammates and peers around me go out of their way just to prove themselves to be enough, to exceed this confining, misogynist mold of a female athlete, as if male validation is a true measure of how talented we are. I’ve seen the other end of it, where girls degrade and dumb themselves down to make the guys around them feel better, even all just subconsciously. I’ve been both before.
I was only able to officially renounce my attachment to these ridiculous ideals of womxn athletes recently. After an unhealthy marathon of collegiate womxn’s volleyball, I became mesmerized by the strength, capacity, and grace of these womxn on the court. There was a certain beauty in their skill, agility and strategic game that evoked a burning passion and inspiration for athletics within me, something the same games played by men just couldn’t accomplish. This was the point at which I was finally able to acknowledge the evident truths that society keeps trying to deny: womxn perform with just as much strength, talent, grace, and skill as men, and in all of these lies an incredible beauty and athleticism, which I propose urgently that we, as a society, normalize as femininity.
The struggle of the female athlete exists far beyond our little bubble in Hanoi. Even when armed undeniable accomplishments such as the SEA Games gold medal in 2019, women soccer players in Vietnam receive few sponsorships, and are paid an alarming twenty times less than their male equivalents in the national men's team, forcing many to rely on secondary occupations despite having to endure challenging practice conditions regularly. In the more global context, gender discrimination in professional athletics is emboldened by the U.S. women’s soccer team’s lawsuit against U.S. Soccer in their fight for a well-merited equal pay. I say well-merited because one, they have contributed more successes to American soccer than their male equivalents, with four World Cup titles to none, and two, they should be paid the same salary for doing the same job as the men's team regardless. The fight isn’t limited to soccer -there’s tennis, another well-spectated sport, where double standards run rampant as women players are consistently handed violations of conduct that male players are almost never penalized for.
Billie Jean King, an equal rights advocate and icon in tennis, comments,
"When a woman is emotional, she's "hysterical" and she's penalized for it. When a man does the same, he's "outspoken" & and there are no repercussions”.
Sports are supposed to be empowering, but for many girls and womxn they can be toxic and alienating. It’s hard to love a game where the objective standard of excellence is the male athlete, where we never feel like enough because we’re lesser, and that we’ll never be more than just “good for a girl”. It’s hard to love a culture that dictates the physical signs of athleticism, muscles, bruises and all, as un-feminine and un-ladylike.
To all the athletes with insecurities and exasperation for these dangerously normalized ideals of sexism: don’t discount yourselves for the superficial satisfaction of the male eye, and embrace all the fitness and skill you worked so hard for.
If someone feels threatened by your talent as an athlete, then maybe they should; you’re an exceptional one.
