Probably my only ever post about sport
And it's investigating why some people insist I ought to enjoy watching it. Which, to be clear, I really don't.
I posted this Instagram story as an off-the-cuff comment and it sparked QUITE a conversation in my DMs.
Image text reads: “Turns out my profound lack of interest in sport trumps my feminism. Even when it’s women playing, I don’t care. (I care about this moment’s cultural valency; I care that women’s sport is finally being celebrated; I care that there’s a lot of beautifully positive queer visibility. I just have zero interest in watching any sportsball ever.) Saves a lot of time, honestly.”
In a surprising turn of events, this has been my most controversial public statement ever. Didn’t think this would be the hill I’d die on, but apparently some people get pretty defensive about the value of sport! (Though I do feel compelled, in an awkwardly self-justifying way, to point out that I didn’t say watching sport IS boring; I said I personally find it boring. Because, um, I do.)
I don’t want to detract from the World Cup moment. As if I could! Women’s sport finally being taken seriously IS important. The fact that it hasn’t been for so long is symptomatic of how unequal our culture still is, and how invisible and normalised and all-pervasive that inequality is. I’m delighted we’re at least beginning to SEE the inequality across more and more sectors of society.
Entirely aside from that, though, I repeat: watching anyone of any gender run up and down chasing a ball simply doesn’t bring me joy.
And I find it sad that, though I got some disagreement in my DMs, far more people messaged, “That’s exactly what I’ve been thinking, but didn’t dare say!” Because that means whenever they’ve dissented from popular opinion before, even about something so minor as how they enjoy spending their leisure time, they’ve experienced that same pushback I was surprised to receive.
Turns out some people are very invested in enforcing cultural homogeneity! And if anything’s boring, it’s that.
As I enter my crone era (is age 43 my crone era? Neither maiden nor mother applies, so crone it is, I suppose), I am more and more convinced that figuring out who you are and what you like, entirely independent of anyone else, is vital to your wellbeing. It’s weirdly hard to unlearn the cultural conditioning that tries to impose desires and dislikes on us, but it’s so liberating to realise one of those common pastimes (watching sport) does not ring true for us (me), and to stop pretending it does.
Like all true secrets of life, authenticity is practically a cliche; something we’ve been hearing people bang on about for years. When we finally understand what it means and how to do it… ah. That way happiness lies.
And at the very least, as I said right up top, it saves a whole lot of time.
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In other life lessons from unlikely sources, I was watching Restoration Australia last night and got positively choked up when one of the couple attempting to renovate a ramshackle Queenslander into an energy-efficient eco home quoted Billy Joel. No, wait!
The lyric she thought of when people told her this enormous endeavour was a fool’s errand? “I don’t care what consequence it brings/ I have been a fool for lesser things…”
I mean. They’re adorable. The house is adorable. And if they’d listened to the naysayers, they’d never have achieved this monumental goal. It’s authenticity again, isn’t it? They listened to what other people were telling them, and politely said, No thank you, and went off and did it anyway. Hats off to em.
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Have just rediscovered Terry Pratchett, a teenage favourite of mine whose books reveal themselves to be even more delightfully clever on each re-reading. (How did Death come by his huge stash of ancient, tarnished coins? “In pairs.”)
It’s not the first time I’ve rediscovered Pratchett, but my first re-read this time around was Mort. That choice was prompted by the superbly named Pratchat podcast, which is a genuine new discovery. It started in 2017 and you’d best believe I started with episode 1. I will absolutely listen to each episode strictly in order. It’s still going, so possibly I won’t ever catch up before the hosts finish their grand multi-year project of rereading every Pratchett book ever written and podcasting about each one. But I’ll enjoy trying.
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I actually meant to write a post at the weekend about a completely different book, but I started training for the 7 Bridges Walk instead. (It’s 28km, which feels quite far.) So please hold, caller, for a chat next time about William Atkins’s The Immeasurable World: Journeys in Desert Places. (Spoiler: loving it.)
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Thanks for reading! It honestly means a lot.
I loved the title of this post, and I loved the post too. I didn't watch any of the women's soccer finals....we (my partner and I - we're a zero-sport-watching pair) were almost tempted when everyone was watching the game against England but then remembered that we don't get free-to-air TV! (the antenna broke off our roof 6-7 years ago) and couldn't find any other way to watch it. It's the only time it's caused any angst - we felt like we were missing the excitement, & probably, for the other reasons you mention, that it would be supportive to have watched....but since there was nothing to be done, I went upstairs and read a book instead.