Sexist Posts in the Football Forums

[jojojo]

RedCafe tries to be a good place to talk about football. We don't like to ban, to warn, to censor opinions or kill debate. But we do have limits, and we do ask posters to help us enforce them.

Intended or not, sexist posts derail threads, cause pointless arguments, and make it harder for posters to have real discussions.

So what are we talking about?

• Posters showing up in threads on women's football, including those that are focused on a particular match or tournament, purely to say that women's football in general is crap.
• Posters moaning about TV stations showing women's football, when they can fix the problem with their remote control.
• Posters who think it's hilarious to complain that a thread about women's football is about football, not "hotties" in the crowd.
• Posts that devalue or insult women, as football fans or as people.

Sometimes the staff try to influence people in threads, to stay on topic, to stop pointless circular arguments, to avoid loaded or offensive language and generalisations. Sometimes we warn or threadban posters. Sometimes we do all of those things.

However we aren't everywhere, and monitoring is not continuous. Sometimes we don't see bad posts, sometimes things get out of hand in a thread before we notice. Please hit report if that happens, so we can act or take a second look at a problem before insults start to fly and the thread turns to crap.

 

[VorZakone]

Yeah guys grow up.

 

[podurban2]

Good. If you have a bad thing to say about it keep it for your self.

 

[kps88]

Save the sexism for the Current Events forum.

 

[sullydnl]

Good stuff. The whining about women's football can be very tiresome, even for those of us who don't follow it ourselves.

 

[Seveneric]

Goodluck with that.

 

[K2K]

Great.

It's definitely an attitude thing. Yes, women's football might be different from men's . But I'd argue that so is youth football


But it simply doesn't get the same viotrol.

This won't necessarily go down well with some, but props to the mods.

 

[Schmiznurf]

There always has to be a few trying to ruin discussions for others.

 

[Damien]

And when you see a journalist with 1 or 2 posts in the mains, try not to scare her off the site within a day. These people contact Niall directly and within two replies the thread was derailed.

 

[Oscie]

I dunno, aren't most posts about men's football saying how a player/team/manager/game is crap?

I kind of do and I don't get the point of this. Granted obvious trolling of women's football threads should be discouraged but isn't there a bit of a risk that we go so far the other way that it ends up being patronising to the sport?

 

[Vato]

There always has to be a few trying to ruin discussions for others.

Harsh, jojojo has a point imo.

 

[SwansonsTache]

Tbf women's football is horrible. Altough I try to catch some of their matches due to the comedic value of the goalkeeping.

 

[Snowjoe]

I dunno, aren't most posts about men's football saying how a player/team/manager/game is crap?

I kind of do and I don't get the point of this. Granted obvious trolling of women's football threads should be discouraged but isn't there a bit of a risk that we go so far the other way that it ends up being patronising to the sport?

No because we aren’t going to come down on people who moan about players performances and that sort of thing at all. We aren’t banning criticism.

 

[Moonred]

It’s fairly simple what Jojojo is trying to say.

 

[narnar]

I dunno, aren't most posts about men's football saying how a player/team/manager/game is crap?

I kind of do and I don't get the point of this. Granted obvious trolling of women's football threads should be discouraged but isn't there a bit of a risk that we go so far the other way that it ends up being patronising to the sport?

Without having read the threads I'd imagine the comments are sexist because they are criticising the player for being a woman rather than how skillful they are compared to their peers.

I don't follow women's football at all but it's popularity is on the increase which can only be a good thing. Hopefully in years to come it will have caught up with the men's game.

 

[Wednesday at Stoke]

The dude abides.

 

[Penna]

I dunno, aren't most posts about men's football saying how a player/team/manager/game is crap?

I kind of do and I don't get the point of this. Granted obvious trolling of women's football threads should be discouraged but isn't there a bit of a risk that we go so far the other way that it ends up being patronising to the sport?

I don't think so. No-one expects posters to say "women's football is wonderful and I love watching it" if they don't think that's true.

 

[Samid]

Good. Women's sports rule.

 

[Florida Man]

As an American, women’s football is the best representation our country has to offer. feck the haters.

 

[Edgar Allan Pillow]

Of the 4 bullet points in OP, only the last 2 are sexist. Rest are not.

 

[Mciahel Goodman]

I think if you wander into a thread on women's football wondering about the validity of women playing football, then it's best to wander back out without posting. Pretty simple.

 

[Will Absolute]

We must be respectful of women's football on pain of exclusion from the forum?

Okay. I'll add it to my list of no-nos on the Cafe. The list is growing quite long. It could eventually expand to cover all of human experience.

 

[adexkola]

And when you see a journalist with 1 or 2 posts in the mains, try not to scare her off the site within a day. These people contact Niall directly and within two replies the thread was derailed.

this happened?

 

[entropy]

As an American, women’s football is the best representation our country has to offer. feck the haters.

Too early in the day for that.

 

[Florida Man]

this happened?

Fairly recently. I forget what the subject was about, but there was a journalist who got fast-tracked to the mains to get more opinions and insight about (I think) Manchester United's women's team when it did exist. Barely made it past half the first page without the crazies responding.

 

[Samid]

Of the 4 bullet points in OP, only the last 2 are sexist. Rest are not.

But they derail the thread and derailing threads is not acceptable. You don't say Apple suck in an iPhone thread, or go on about Messi being GOAT in a Ronaldo performance thread. Same way you just don't click onto a women's football thread and say women's football suck.

Taking a thread off topic
Do not derail threads with posts that are not related to the topic of the discussion. Either find/create another more relevant thread or send a private message if you want to discuss something off topic with people contributing to the thread.

 

[Oscie]

I think if you wander into a thread on women's football wondering about the validity of women playing football, then it's best to wander back out without posting. Pretty simple.

Would the same apply to people who dislike Italian football?

I'm not being facetious, I just wondering how wise it is to on the one hand say that women's football should be treated with respect but on the other hand have extra protections from criticism that I don't think any other topic (team/sport, etc) here has, effectively making it the: 'if you've got nothing nice to say..' topic

 

[Schmiznurf]

Harsh, jojojo has a point imo.

Lol, you know I mean the sexist people.

 

[Florida Man]

We must be respectful of women's football on pain of exclusion from the forum?

Okay. I'll add it to my list of no-nos on the Cafe. The list is growing quite long. It could eventually expand to cover all of human experience.

I think in this case, it's more of a reference to people derailing threads by talking shit about it for the sake of talking shit. We'll see how it pans out, though...

 

[jojojo]

I dunno, aren't most posts about men's football saying how a player/team/manager/game is crap?

I kind of do and I don't get the point of this. Granted obvious trolling of women's football threads should be discouraged but isn't there a bit of a risk that we go so far the other way that it ends up being patronising to the sport?

No one's bothered about actual criticism of a match, a manager or a player. If a keeper has a Joe Hart moment and you want to ask if they're really the best player the team can get - it's not a problem. In fact, as you say, then it's just like the way we talk about any other game.

 

[2 man midfield]

Tbf women's football is horrible. Altough I try to catch some of their matches due to the comedic value of the goalkeeping.

 

[jojojo]

Of the 4 bullet points in OP, only the last 2 are sexist. Rest are not.

Fair comment. I could have put "sexist and similar shithead posts" in the subject heading, but we have rules about that.

 

[Will Absolute]

Fairly recently. I forget what the subject was about, but there was a journalist who got fast-tracked to the mains to get more opinions and insight about (I think) Manchester United's women's team when it did exist. Barely made it past half the first page without the crazies responding.

I remember that. It showed the Cafe in a very poor light. Why does the internet make some people feel they can dispense with common courtesy? I suppose it's their true selves unfiltered.

 

[Penna]

We must be respectful of women's football on pain of exclusion from the forum?

Okay. I'll add it to my list of no-nos on the Cafe. The list is growing quite long. It could eventually expand to cover all of human experience.

If someone wants to have a proper discussion about any aspect of women's football (which is a valid and sensible topic for a football forum), just allow that discussion to take place. If you feel that women's football doesn't deserve respect, don't post in the thread.

 

[jojojo]

Harsh, jojojo has a point imo.

 

[Tom Van Persie]

Well said.

 

[adexkola]

Fairly recently. I forget what the subject was about, but there was a journalist who got fast-tracked to the mains to get more opinions and insight about (I think) Manchester United's women's team when it did exist. Barely made it past half the first page without the crazies responding.

Jesus Christ, I could have seen that coming a mile (1.6 km) away

 

[Rory 7]

Removing people’s anonymity would stop these kind of problems but I guess that would change the caf forever too.

 

[Oscie]

If someone wants to have a proper discussion about any aspect of women's football (which is a valid and sensible topic for a football forum), just allow that discussion to take place. If you feel that women's football doesn't deserve respect, don't post in the thread.

Isn't that slightly contradictory to the whole culture of this place?

There are a few threads in the football section where mainly people discuss rival players and teams that aren't adherent to a proper discussion on valid and sensible terms. How many of the 'Let's all laugh at...' style threads would pass that mark?

If we acknowledge and park sexism as something right to weed out, there are people who dislike Liverpool/Italian football/Championship-level football/international football/women's football and voice non-constructive, dismissive posts about each. Are we saying that that's all fine and legitimate except for the last example?

 

[Mciahel Goodman]

Would the same apply to people who dislike Italian football?

People who don't like Italian football usually moan about the defensive nature of the game, or the overly tactical style. People who don't like women's football seem to question the point of women playing football. There's clearly a difference between critiquing the play of a game and making condescending remarks about the validity of that same game (and all because of gender).