wijit wrote:Absolutely I would! I love going to football, any football. Preferably Morecambe, but for many reasons I end up at quite a lot of other places, what I enjoy is the freedom to express what I think of the game and this often manifests itself in swearing. I do not like to swear in front of women and I don't want to be so conscious of if there are women there or not that it detracts from the game. If people find this right or wrong really doesn't concern me. As I said, we have women in the game playing a more and more active role, however as I do not feel happy to hear swearing when there are women around, and still being happy to see our game as a men's game my opinion remains.
Old fashioned, sexist...whatever it is.
Okay, that's your prerogative of course and if the need to swear is, for you, so powerful then so be it.
To put a slightly different perspective on the topic I, too, love to go to football matches and enjoy myself and get emotional and excited. There have been times, in the past, when I've indulged in a bit of swearing as well.
More recently, however, I've had immense enjoyment attending matches (Spurs and Morecambe up and down the country) with my family. By sheer act of nature, apart from me, my family consists exclusively of females (one wife, four daughters) all of whom also enjoy their football.
I too don't like to swear in front of women and, particularly, in front of little girls. So I don't.
I have to say it hasn't hampered my enjoyment one little bit.
Further, I happen to think that having more and more women at football matches is a hugely positive thing BECAUSE it makes men conscious of their own behaviour, as you've indicated.
If it leads to less swearing and, therefore, by implication, less aggression, less confrontation and a more self-conscious male crowd then I think that's good for football.
Back to the Keys/Gray thing. I think people miss the point if they think banter aimed at men is always the same as banter aimed at women.
In some areas of employment and society women (and people of certain race) still don't get equal treatment. In those circumstances, attitudes like those displayed by Keys and Gray can ACTUALLY affect people's chances of promotion or just being taken seriously.
Banter by women about men doesn't usually have any real effect at all so IS just banter. Maybe when things are equal in every respect and in every area of society then banter CAN be just that. But we're not quite there yet.
Is the glass half full or half empty? Mmmm? hard to say - but it does look like there's room for more beer!