World Cup Will Not Help Women's Fight for Equality

Cover Photo: The German team celebrate a goal during the opening game of the Women’s World Cup. by dapd

A well-known German tabloid newspaper, which shall remain nameless, likes to advertise with the slogan: Every truth needs someone to say it.

Michael Antwerpes is the name of the poor soul who fate assigned the job of speaking the truth about the Women’s Soccer World Cup, which is currently taking place in Germany. Not that he likely meant to be so open. It’s hard to believe that Antwerpes, a sports commentator for the German public broadcaster ARD, was in full possession of his mental faculties when, during the tournament’s opening game, he said: “It’s the Women’s World Cup, but it can still be fun nevertheless.”

Ahead of the World Cup, ARD had launched a huge poster campaign across the country with slogans such as — in reference to Germany’s showing at the men’s Soccer World Cup in 2010 — “Third place is for men” and “Lads, we will get your revenge.” But even before the beginning of the event, the campaign revealed the dilemma that the sport faces: Women’s soccer primarily defines itself in relation to men’s soccer. No matter how successful the German women’s team is, they will be left with one insurmountable deficit: They are not men. The broadcaster’s posters couldn’t help but create the impression that ARD and Germany would have preferred a men’s World Cup.

That thought is also behind Antwerpes’ slip of the tongue. He involuntarily revealed the rather forced public obligation to have fun and enjoy the Women’s World Cup. Ideally, everything would be like it was back in the summer of 2006 , during the men’s World Cup hosted by Germany, when there were good-natured German fans and a sea of black, red and gold German flags everywhere you looked. The only problem is that back then there was genuine excitement. This time around, the enthusiasm is artificial.

That should have been obvious right from the start. Let’s not beat around the bush: Women’s football is a niche sport. A women’s league match attracts, on average, around 830 spectators. A men’s game typically gets more than 42,000.

But the Women’s World Cup is more than just a sporting event. It is being exploited by organizations, companies and politicians as part of the gender equality debate. The proactive support that this World Cup is getting is a placebo to replace real affirmative action. There are plenty of reasons to expand the institutionalized promotion of women in the workplace. After all, in the 200 largest German companies, only 3.2 percent of board positions are filled by women. But Chancellor Angela Merkel said a few months ago that she does not think introducing a gender quota would change anything. Of course, introducing such a quota would involve her taking on Germany’s powerful industrial lobby. It is so much easier for the chancellor to ceremoniously open an exhibition about women’s football and be photographed in ecstatic rapture at the opening game.

Reinforcing Male Ideas

Similarly, Germany’s highly influential tabloid Bild is exploiting the World Cup to temporarily transform itself from the country’s central organ of male chauvinism into a feminist journal. Following Antwerpes’ faux pas, the newspaper declared the hapless commentator its “Loser of the Day,” a daily front-page feature. “The World Cup would be fun if we didn’t have to listen to such stupid remarks!” the paper wrote. It’s well known that the Bild editors are experts in women’s issues — after all, they have to choose a new naked female model for the paper’s cover every day.

The newspaper was back on its usual territory, however, when a couple of players from the women’s Bundesliga stripped off for the German edition of Playboy, causing Bild to comment that “women’s football is reeeaaally sexy.” The sad thing is that the young women in question probably considered themselves to be particularly self-confident, while in reality they were unconsciously reinforcing male ideas about women’s roles. Iris Radisch, an astute journalist with the heavyweight German weekly Die Zeit, reacted to the development with concern. “Damage is caused by the image of female availability, which such things keep alive.”

But the clearest reflection of the different value that society puts on female and male achievements can be seen in what female footballers earn. While a professional male player in Germany’s top league, the Bundesliga, earns on average €1 million a year, a top woman’s footballer takes home €800 a month.

If female footballers wanted to take a stance, they could let themselves be inspired by the legendary African-American athletes Tommie Smith and John Carlos, who won medals in the 200-meter race at the 1968 Mexico Olympics. At the medal ceremony, they bowed their heads and raised their black-gloved fists in the air in a now-iconic Black Power salute.

Should the German team win the Women’s World Cup, they could make a similar gesture at the ceremony. Perhaps they could pull their shirts up, but only far enough to reveal the words “Equal pay now.” Conveniently enough, it has exactly 11 letters.

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