We continue to be sold a line by the promoters and profiteers of Legends Football League (better known as Lingerie Football League, the re-branding means little) that this is a legitimate sport.
Let’s see what the fans think. Here’s a snag of their comments taken at 4.15pm today. Only one comment refers to a player’s talent.
Randy send this comment to Collective Shout’s Open Letter on the LFL. Read it and see the way his daughter was treated and why he no longer supports LFL.
Randy Perrett
Until Saturday night 8 December I was a staunch supporter of the “rebranded” LFL. That was until my daughter who flew to Sydney to represent her State was told that she was not approved to wear the uniform. Previously that month she had submitted a bikini photo as required so that her body shape could approved to wear their skimpy gym outfit. Now she has no problem with the lack of uniform and has for the last 18 months lived for nothing but LFL. At 18 years old and coming from an elite swimming background she wanted to play a team sport that challenged her and she thought LFL was it. Well at the end of the day it does not matter how good you are, if Mitch Mortaza thinks your too fat to wear his uniform. Since the debacle on Saturday night my daughter has been contacted by the coach of the NSW Surge with words of encouragement . My daughter is a large framed girl, that’s why she is unstoppable in defence or so we have been told by many who have seen her. So why would you bench a player who would do nothing but promote the sport as a real game, simple Mitch Mortaza and his cronies only want skinny women in his skimpy uniforms. Sure my daughter is not a size 8, 10 or even 12 for that matter. But she is a very athletic and lethal size 14 and had she played on Saturday night there would a few NSW players hurting still.
Michelle Dean lives in WA and has been speaking out against the Lingerie (Legends) Football League. Here she tells us what she has been doing to stand against sexploitation of women’s sport.
When I became aware of the LFL and exactly what it involved I knew I had to voice my complaint about how demeaning and objectifying it is to women and girls.
I initially contacted the Department of Sport and Recreation in WA. I asked what requirements or processes there are for a sport to set up and be considered legitimate here in WA (with particular reference to the LFL). They advised:
“There is no state government process; the approval process for events rests with the venue/land owners. This is based around the venue owner operator insuring (sic) that the event they are approving in their venue does not break any laws or health regulations. Whilst the activity may be seen as poor taste and sexist it does not breach any laws or regulations. It is therefore up to the venue to determine if suitable to be linked to their venue”. Read more here
So how does the Penrith Panther’s official partnership with the LFL help girls and women feel included and not valued only for their bodies? (me and my colleagues have been asking this question of the NRL on twitter, with no reply).
See also: ‘Is a woman’s performance at work or in sport secondary to how she looks?‘, Kate Galloway, Women’s Agenda,10/12/2013
2 Responses
Snapshot of those facebook entries proves this so-called lingerie football is all about pandering to men and providing them with endless sexual titilation by viewing/subjecting the female players to misogynistic insults.
I wonder how these innumerable men busily engaged in attempting to outdo each other with their women-hating messages, would feel if they were the ones being subjected to minute bodily scrutiny by women checking to see if these men’s bodies ‘meet the requirements of a male dehumanised sexualised robot!’ These men would be outraged that their bodies are being scrutinised by women because men aren’t sexualised objects they are the default human beings.
The excuses/denials/justifications emanating from the male dominated Dept. of Sport; the NLR etc. etc are sickening because all these male dominated/male controlled institutions insist that women aren’t human but merely exist to give men sexual pleasure and titilation.
Keep up the good work boys because your endless excuses/denials prove you are only interested in maintaining male pseudo right to view/treat women as mens’ dehumanised sexualised commodities. Just because these male created ‘women’s lingerie football’ doesn’t violate any existing male created legislation or regulations doesn’t mean these events are promoting/endorsing pandemic male dehumanisation of women and girls.
Racism was once viewed by white men in power as irrelevant because there was no legislation/regulations making racism a hate crime, but now white men claim they accept racism exists.
Yet mens’ pandemic hatred/contempt/dehumanisation of women continues to be a non-issue by the men in power because said hatred/contempt isn’t directed at men. Hence it is supposedly a non-issue because men aren’t the ones being systematically dehumanised and reduced to other mens’ disposable sexual service stations.
I am tempted to say ‘what an absolute joke’ but it isn’t funny at all. Almost none of the commenters are even interested in the players’ names, let alone their faces. And the LFL don’t even bother to provide names. To all the men involved, these women are nothing more than a line up of f***able arses by number.