The Old Programming

Yesterday the England women’s football team (soccer to Yanks) won the UEFA Women's Euro Championship, beating Germany 2-1 in the final. The team has always been reasonably good and has now brought home the trophy.

This display of sporting prowess by the Lionesses sparked rejoicing from both the Prime Minister Boris “please just fuck off” Johnson and Queen Elizabeth.

Having achieved what the blokes were not capable of pulling off (the closest we came was last year in the equivalent tournament when England’s Lions made the final...but lost to Italy on penalties) for 56 years, this has earned women’s football a LOT of kudos and respect, from what was only 4 years ago, a marginal and niche interest that not many people really cared about.

I read this morning that, as recently as 2018, folks weren't interested in hosting the women’s tournament at their stadiums and for a long time this sport wasn’t a vocation, with the players training in their spare time while holding down other employment.

I’m not a fan of football. I never “got” the need to throw jumpers down as goalposts and go ballistic with either joy or misery depending on who won a kickabout. While I can enjoy a game on TV if it’s on, I genuinely couldn’t care less about it and have no interest.

I am however very pleased that the women’s team were able to to this before the men’s team could repeat what they last achieved at the World Cup in 1966 (to put this in perspective, the women’s team didn’t exist until 6 years AFTER that historic game). This will hopefully have the knock-on effect of making the blokes’ squad up their ante and it will put women’s soccer on an even keel with “normal” football. When the USA won the Women’s World Cup in 2019 there was even talk of putting the captain on the cover of the video game “FIFA 20” but it came to nought.

I consider myself tolerant and open-minded (hey, I even have a Straight Ally patch on my jacket) and take umbrage only at things that genuinely piss me off on a personal level, as opposed to taking a stance based on what I think I should be feeling in order to fit in (e.g. I have zero issue with transgender but think it absolutely fucking stinks that Lea Thomas gets to compete against biological women in swimming).

I watched the news today and saw the press conference invasion and as pleased as I was that this had happened, I realised just how much of my reactions are pre-programmed.

To elaborate.

When the team invaded their manager’s press conference and chanted “football’s coming home”, climbing on the desks and making their euphoria apparent, there was a part of me that liked it and another part of me that was jealous, threatened and thought they were being “unladylike”.

The societal programming I had in the 1970s and 80s (or up until I went to university in 1990) was that boys did boys stuff and girls did their own thing. School playground games were war and cowboys and running for boys and skipping, singing and other girly stuff for the ladies. We rarely interacted and we had our own sports. At primary school in the early 80s I remember clearly that when we got a letter to take home, they were blue for boys and pink for girls.This was amplified at High school where boys did football and rugby and girls did netball and hockey. Once a year we’d mix it up for a laugh and play each other’s sports but it was made quite clear that you stayed in your lane unless given permission to move. 

I was born at the very tail end of an era of doing what you were fucking told and boys could not and should not be interested in girly stuff. No one was gay back then (I went to school with several people who came out retrospectively but “queer” was only an insult).When I went to uni things were livened up with LGB adding a T to the end and things starting to morph into what we have now.

However, like muscle memory, societal programming is hard to shift and seeing the women’s team behaving loudly, raucously and definitely not like “ladies” triggered me and I had to evaluate what I was feeling in order to move past it.

There was that part of me that expected them to be demure, grateful and sit with their legs crossed as they giggled about how wonderful it was to win. The rational and spiritual parts of me realised instantly that this was a fake image but only then did I realised just how pre-programmed I have been with regard to how I expect others (be it male, female, adult, child, gay or straight person) to act.

We are all programmed to a degree to act a certain way and to expect others to act how we think they should.

I am genuinely pleased for the women’s team and believe that this win will make a difference in sport that will be felt for years to come but, to my shock, I felt that part of me, the robotic reaction that was basically thinking “they’re trying to be boys, and what’s all that fucking shouting about?!!”

I am now a little more able to catch myself and reassess so I guess them winning had added bonuses for me on a personal level.