On Dating: The Search for a True Feminist
He got a red card, I got a headache
I found out all I needed to know about my date when I mentioned my excitement over the 2019 Women’s World Cup as we were watching a Mexican men’s league game. Tigres de Monterrey versus Club América.
He rolled his eyes and made a dismissive comment about how the equal pay debate had been going on for too long.
In my split-second of naiveté, I thought his “too long” meant the same as my “too long.” This debate has gone on for too long because, of course, there should be equal pay. Seems obvious. But I was wrong. He had decided that the equal pay debate deserved nothing more than to be dismissed. It was baseless, in his opinion.
I couldn’t help but laugh on the inside at how different our realities were. How two simple words could take on totally different meanings. We started talking about our childhood athletic experiences. He was a terrible soccer player. I was a strong one, my dad having played a proactive role in my development, coaching my teams growing up.
Instead of sharing the facts of the equal pay debate with this Harvard alumnus, a strategy that I sensed would not work, I decided to take a more personal route.
One of my fondest memories growing up was my dad constantly making the effort to take me to women’s athletic events. I told him how we would watch soccer and basketball games at Stanford and Berkeley, home to the greatest collegiate athletes who go on to play at the World Cup and the Olympics.
“That sucks,” he said.
“Why?” I asked, truly perplexed as to what part about this “sucked.”
“Well, first of all, it wasn’t the professional leagues. And you had to watch the women play.”
Oh! Ok, then! A fire started to rage inside me. Resigning myself to the fact that I wasn’t going to accomplish anything with this individual, I decided I’d learn something from the situation, hoping I could be better armed for the next one — or one hundred.
Because I was genuinely curious, I asked, “What is it about men’s soccer that interests you so much more than women’s soccer?”
“The quality, of course!”
30 seconds later, he added, “There is no Messi or Ronaldo of the women’s league.”
Megan Rapinoe? Mia Hamm? Alex Morgan?
“Hate to break it to you, kid,” he said, lazily, as he patted my leg, “it’s just not the same.”
I didn’t want to ask him when the last time was that he saw a women’s game — frankly, I didn’t want to embarrass him. I knew the answer was never. He was defending something he knew nothing about — all in the name of what? Some principle he was so passionate about? Which one was that? Because I think it’s not outrageous to say that there is one side of the equal pay debate that you want to be on…
“I didn’t want to ask him when the last time was that he saw a women’s game — frankly, I didn’t want to embarrass him. I knew the answer was never.”
At the culmination of his gotcha “quality” argument, a player on América had collided with a Tigre. A normal occurrence in a contact sport. After dramatically collapsing to the ground, the Tigre got up, aggressively threw his hands up in the air and began physically attacking his opponent. Instantly, players from both teams came together and began fighting. Shoving, pushing, yelling, threatening. It went on for over five minutes.
Quality sport, right? The irony.
First of all, if anyone wants to talk about the quality of women’s soccer, they should first look at history. Women’s soccer (and all sports) has had 100+ fewer years of formality, resources, money, training, and well, legality, than men’s soccer. So if there is a disparity in quality, that is why. The men got a head start.
Do I say something? Do I say something? was my thought the whole night. I am outspoken. But this man had made up his mind. I didn’t have the energy that night, a sentiment to which every woman can relate.
On another first date, a man once strongly expressed his irritation over how a girl he had been seeing attracted too much attention from men at the gym, and that she should have figured out how to tone it down. Another man, after hearing me and a close friend reflect on the sexism in the 2016 election, couldn’t prevent himself from interjecting, “Wow, you two have a lot of feminist conversations,” accompanied by an eye roll. Plenty of men have insisted to me for almost an hour that I should really change my mind about having sex with them because it will “be fun.”
Think about the contrast in these experiences. I’m fuming inside, knowing I would go on to recount these interactions to my friends and family — and in this particular case, write something about it. My counterparts probably don’t even remember the conversations. In all of these moments, how do we politely express that there is another side to what they think is such an obvious, easy situation? How do we begin to explain their power and privilege to them?
“It reminds me of the old white proverb, ‘That’s not racist.’ There, too, is an old male proverb: ‘I don’t think that’s sexist.’ Or, is it ‘You’re being sensitive?’”
I am often struck with the reality that men cannot not have the final word. It reminds me of the old white proverb, “That’s not racist.” There, too, is an old male proverb: “I don’t think that’s sexist.” Or, is it “You’re being sensitive?”
This young Harvard Business School-educated CEO had the most recent edition of The Economist adorning his coffee table. I flipped through it to distract myself for a moment. Unfortunately, the game had gone to penalties. Soccer is my favorite sport, but I no longer wanted to sit through the game with this individual by my side. I decided the respectful thing would be to wait until it was over. I almost instantly came across an article about how the French women’s soccer league was attracting so many sponsorships that they were giving the men’s league a run for their money.
With time and experience, I know better. I know what to look for. Perhaps I didn’t have the energy to reason with the man, but I did have the conviction to leave and never come back. I deserve better than someone who comes in so quickly and strongly against an equal pay debate and who characterizes my gender’s athletic abilities as something that “suck.”
I left one parting gift, though. I folded The Economist open to the article about women’s soccer in France and placed it in the middle of his coffee table where he couldn’t miss it. I hoped he would get the hint. After all, the article was written by a man.
Story originally for Fourth Wave.
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