As Australia’s almighty Matildas stormed by the FIFA Women’s World Cup, cheers of “yeah the girls” echoed across the nation.
The catchphrase packed an additional punch on the finish of the thrilling and historic quarter-final penalty shootout win towards France, whereas Aussies belted it out once more when Sam Kerr blasted an unimaginable objective within the fateful semi-final towards England.
Even after the heartbreaking loss to the Lionesses, “yeah the girls” has emerged as a fist-pumping plaudit to specific the delight Aussies really feel for the history-making crew.
But some followers have taken challenge with how now we have been talking concerning the Matildas; or, extra particularly, our ongoing references to them as “girls”.
Critics say calling the Matildas “girls” is disrespectful to the crew and infantilises a bunch {of professional} athletes.
It is, at greatest, they are saying, dismissive and, at worst, it’s deeply sexist.
This is regardless of the phrase being adopted en-masse as an affectionate catch-all for the crew in informal dialog, in social media, even written into official cheer squad chants – one track declares “the Aussie girls / will beat the world”.
A contemporary spherical of heated criticism has come for a fan’s try to rewrite the lyrics to the legendary Australian bush poem ‘Waltzing Matilda’.
The fan shared the tweaked lyrics on social media, forward of the Matilda’s historic semi-final conflict towards England on Wednesday night time, and urged Aussies to “sing it loud” for the crew.
One line of the Banjo Patterson traditional was modified to honour the crew, switching out the road concerning the swagman watching his “billy boil”.
“And the tales will be told of the girls who wear the green and gold,” it reads.
“You’ll come a Waltzing Matilda with me.”
While some have been fast to leap on board with the World Cup rewrite, one commenter needed to appropriate the document.
“Women. They’re women. They’re professional female athletes and as far as I know they’re all adults,” they wrote.
“I’m starting to twitch every time I see ‘girls’ used to describe our adult female athletes. I know they use the term for each other but I don’t care.
“‘Girls’ when used by non-team members is loaded – it’s infantilising, it diminishes and I really, really want it to stop.”
The remark echoed the feelings of others who argue even calling the Matildas “our girls” is “possessive … gendered and infantilising”.
Quite a lot of individuals mentioned they have been additionally irked by calling the Matildas “girls”, however seemingly as many weren’t bothered by such “petty hangups”.
“Pick your battles,” one other commenter replied.
“It’s just a word and although there’s a choice in how it’s used, there’s also a choice in how you hear it.”
But, in response to various think-pieces, it’s a battle value selecting.
University of Sydney tutorial Victoria Rawlings informed news.com.au Australia has an “ongoing struggle with the word ‘woman’”.
“I didn’t start using it until my 30s, and friends of mine still resist using ‘women’ or ‘woman’ as they were often used by the adults in our young lives as a pejorative,” Dr Rawlings mentioned.
She mentioned our discomfort with the feminine identifier leads us to make use of different phrases like “ladies” or “girls” – which might additionally carry the burden of getting used towards ladies.
But, she mentioned, whether or not or not it’s acceptable to “girl” the Matildas is all as much as context.
“In short, it depends on the speaker, the place, the time, the words that accompany the use of ‘girls’, and the listener,” Dr Rawlings mentioned.
“Words are given meaning by context; there are rarely fixed moral rules or meanings of singular words in common parlance. Instead, every word used is mediated by the speaker, the space and the listener.”
She mentioned the way in which footballers – women and men – discuss “the boys” or “the girls” post-match exhibits a “friendly and affectionate team”. But in different settings the phrases could “diminish importance”.
But different think-pieces would argue the phrase “girl” is way extra loaded than the phrase “boy” – this Guardian piece factors to how doing one thing “like a girl” is supposed to offend, however there is no such thing as a equal for males.
University of Auckland sociology tutorial Toni Bruce informed news.com.au it was essential to think about whether or not the ladies have been being named in another way from males, and who was doing the naming.
“If female teams are referred to as ‘girls’ and male teams are referred to as ‘men’, this can infantilise and diminish female athletes,” Professor Bruce mentioned.
She mentioned “potential problems lie” if outsiders, notably authority figures, begin “girl”-ing the ladies.
“Sports organisations and media have a responsibility to use language that treats female athletes as adults to be taken seriously rather than sidelined as ‘less than’ men,” she continued.
“In the FIFA World Cup teams, even the youngest players have the right to be identified as women. Simultaneously, the players have to right to embrace a team identity as ‘the girls’.”
And, actually, has there ever been a greater time to set free an almighty “yeah the girls” than when our Matildas are making historical past time and time once more at a World Cup on house soil? I feel not.
So a really huge yeah to the ladies – particularly after they go to battle it out towards Sweden for third place on Saturday night time in Brisbane.
Source: www.news.com.au
