My Two Cents: Simping for England? In this economy?
Not me wading into the world of SPORTS and MEN
To be a feminist killjoy is to live courageously (lol). Kidding, it’s actually annoying because, as a yapper, I WILL yap away at you until your will to live seeps out of your very pores. Blame my dad (also known as Balkan Dad) for making me this way.
Anyway, today’s two cents focuses on this wild Guardian story: “Staff and pupils allowed late Monday starts after England play in Euros final.”
Apparently, major supermarkets and business owners – and at least one school – are planning to give everyone a lie-in on Monday. To recover from the celebrations/commiserations of the men’s Euros final on Sunday night, where England will probably lose to Spain. Companies like Lidl and Tesco will be closing earlier on Sunday and opening later on Monday because of football. Well, men’s football.
Two disclaimers, immediately: my interest in football is mid, at best. I know a small amount about it. And secondly, wow would this post age badly if it turns out that I am in fact, 100% wrong about the claim I am about to make.
Ok. Is it just me or is it a bizarre choice to make an unprecedented decision that will impact your business/school, not to mention the ECONOMY because of?? Football?? Don’t get me wrong, I am all for employees being given more work flexibility and businesses proactively ensuring their staff get to enjoy lives beyond their work. I am all for disrupting the exploitative capitalist cesspit we call our economy. But not when it’s a one-off, sexist gimmick based on a weird idolisation of a football team that isn’t even the best performing team in the country. A killjoy sentence if I ever did write one.
There are so many rabbit holes this post could go down. Why, for example, are so many England fans also the same kind of people who embrace English nationalism, who don’t like ‘foreigners’ and who might feel at ease with the kind of casual, violent racism directed at Black football players playing on the very same team they love so much? Why do so many English people – probably millions, given that 4 million people in the UK voted Reform – happily support a team that can only exist thanks to immigration, only to turn on those players the second things go awry? Why does this nation become sycophantic and self-obsessed the moment we’re put on a global stage?
But the question I feel most drawn to is: where was all of this during the Lionesses’ triumph, back in 2022? I remember the swell of interest and pride as the Lionesses played their way to victory during the Women’s Euros – the first time any senior English football team had won a major championship since 1966 - only for it to die down as soon as the Euros were over. I don’t remember any businesses pledging to let their employees come in late the day after the finals out of some weird devotion to England/the beautiful game. Schools pretty much kept to schedule (I assume). It’s so obvious that even writing it feels silly – women’s football is utterly devalued, even when they outperform their male counterparts. Despite drawing huge crowds – if I remember correctly, crowds that paralleled the men’s games – and breaking sales records, there’s still a significant pay disparity between the men and women’s teams. A Kick It Out Report found that sexism in football shot up by 400% after the Lionesses won in 2022, and abuse towards both fans and players spiked massively – clear backlash to the Lionesses outperforming of the men’s team. Who, again, haven’t won anything major since 1966. The lads really are that fragile.
And the sexism has continued to this day – just a couple of days ago, Lionesses’ forward Beth Mead disputed claims made online that Gareth Southgate is the only England manager to reach two major international finals, reminding everyone that Sarina Wiegman, the England Women’s coach, got there first. The replies, as you might have guessed, were pretty awful – because fuck women! Especially those who dare to excel! That’s why!
I don’t say any of this to shit on football – love it all you want, I don’t care. It can be great, it’s so important, blah blah - although some of the intersections between (men’s) football and masculinity are violent and toxic, and worth examining. Women’s football deserves to be valued for the excellence it is. This isn’t about mocking people who enjoy and derive pleasure from watching matches or immersing themselves in sports history and culture. It’s about witnessing a nation that cannot bring itself to come to terms with its vast and deep-rooted inequalities, instead chasing the empty fumes of nostalgia for one last hit of ‘this country used to be great!’
Listen, it’s 11:58 pm. I’ve written this bleary-eyed after a 12-hour work-day and too many coke zeros. TLDR: football hates women, even when they’re twice as good. And that is very dumb. And very familiar.
(But also, Saka - and Saka alone - you deserve to win. And ily.)
A quick favour. I love writing these posts, and I intend to do them for free for as long as I can. If you enjoyed reading this, forward it to a friend (or three) who you think might like it too. It helps massively, because validation from strangers is truly the only thing that makes the horrors bearable for me.