When reading Under the Lights and in the Dark, by Gwendolyn Oxenham, I gained a unique glimpse into the livelihood and experiences of famous women’s soccer players. As progressive as a country or region can claim to be, it is quite obvious what their actual values are towards gender roles and women when understanding how female soccer players are treated. It was fascinating to see both how they were treated and how the players themselves chose to react. In some moments, they acted with resilience and other moments more strategically.
The various accounts were staggering. When Dani Foxhoven was sitting on the grass removing her cleats in Russia’s Energiya Voronezh, it was startling when her 64-year-old head coach yanked her up by her ear and slapped her, arguing that sitting on the grass could affect her fertility. It was admirable when she responded to never lay a hand on her again, despite being a foreigner in a country and culture that did not accept her. On the contrary, the experiences of the Rossiyanka team were odd; a female player was recounted sitting on the lap of her coach, with her arms around his neck. It was as if this was sort of tax she needed to pay in order be able to pay.
I thought more deeply about the causes of theses challenges. Apart from the overarching differences between how countries perceived gender roles and women empowerment in sports, I thought more deeply about how even the subtle differences in rhetoric could be toxic. For example, male players at one point (or many) called Allie Long by saying “where’s my gringa.” The inherent use of “my” indicated possession that immediately was denigrating and put her at a lower level, regardless of skill.
When wanting to play soccer, being female was one obstacle in itself. However, the piece of Becca Mushrow demonstrated how hard something, such as playing soccer, can be when you begin to add additional dimensions; in this case being: homeless. Since it is a common scene for children of impoverished communities to play soccer, almost to the point where it is fetishized, I began to wonder whether any official leagues formed around this space. I was surprised, and quite delighted, to find the Street Child World Cup, which is a global movement that brings street children from around the world to play football in a unique international conference ahead of each World Cup.
Taking it a step further, I wondered whether there were specific women leagues that were created within this overarching “street league.” I found on organization called Street Soccer USA, which was an American program that fields team in 16 U.S. cities that has both men’s and women’s teams. Mushrow recounts when she was homeless, “lying in that hostel bed, [I] always thought that football was going to her out of there.” While it is important on the higher level to change rules and regulations and to shift societal values to empower women’s soccer, it is also important to make changes at the grassroots level, and to address all the subsets of young girls that face other challenges, such as being homeless and impoverished. This way, there is a wider funnel from the ground level that allows all girls and women to be able to play, rather than those that are more privileged.