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The latest in women's sports franchises, the Lingerie Football League, will kick off this September. Chicago and nine other cities will be home to the spectacle of young women in lingerie parading around a football field for fans' delight. Is this a step in the direction of progress for women or did they just move backwards?
Boy shorts, lacy bras, hiked-up garters and done-up makeup. No, these aren’t the details of a Playboy cover-donning playmate. Rather, this describes the outfits that will adorn the locker rooms of 10 football teams participating in the Lingerie Football League.
Whether you’ve heard of this all-female football league or not, odds are you’ve come across a picture or two. Scantily clad, conveniently photo-ready at all times and seemingly more than happy to tackle one another without pads or proper helmets (of course, these helmets reveal more face and cover less brain) these are the 120 women who identify themselves as the faces (and bodies) of the league.
The Chicago Bliss and its nine competitors throughout the country will debut this September to the delight of fans throughout the nation. That is, a fan base that will likely exclude families with small children or senior citizens with heart conditions.
Based on their marketing materials and promotional appearances thus far, the women who comprise these teams seem to know more about eyeliner and follicle treatment than the Hail Mary or Cover 2. That is not to say women don’t know anything about football. In fact, many women not only know about it, but can play it with the best of the boys.
Instead, the women of the LFL actually ridicule their own knowledge and ability prior to taking a single step on the field, and before anyone else gets the chance. Choosing to portray their athleticism more like lingerie models who happen to use a football as a prop and a field as their backdrop, these women not only stop themselves from getting a fair shake, but also the other women who have spent their lives being told they couldn’t play a boy's game.
What’s troubling is that I’m sure these women actually do know something about the game, and probably have a few plays up their … cups. However, the way they choose to promote their league leaves the public with little choice but to assume they’re not serious football players, thereby mocking those who are and ultimately, the game itself.
By all means, don’t listen to this over-reactive female writer with an ax to grind, just listen to the historically patriarchal Chicago Sun-Times and the fun they had with the Bliss calling the team a “public service” to their fans. Now, if that’s not mockery, I don’t know what is.
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On the other end of the spectrum, you have the women of Chicago's Independent Women’s Football League, the Chicago Force, who put themselves in the same pads, helmets and un-attractive scenarios as their male counterparts for simply the opportunity to play. It’s not about appealing to the crowd or to pre-pubescent boys; it’s about equality of play and getting a chance at the game they love.
Therein lies the rub: is equality equality regardless of how it’s attained? Or should there be an inherent standard of respect thereby attaining said equality relies?
In other words, at what cost do women demand the rights and privileges to which they are deserved without sacrificing their dignity? If it is in the name of equal rights, does it make it OK to use lingerie in order to get on the field?
Many will argue that if you got it, flaunt it and reap the reward that comes with it — period. As a woman in a historically male-dominated field such as sports, I can appreciate the argument that tells me to be conscious of my “advantages,” physical or otherwise, as they may be the defining factor that gets my foot in the locker room or on the sidelines before a man’s. It's form of affirmative action that has become commonplace. If it gets you what you want and takes you where you want to go, what’s the harm in submitting?
The harm, actually, is incomprehensible. It is this nonchalance at the larger impact of every woman’s decision to submit that perpetuates all women’s inability to seize equality at its fullest capacity.
Whether it’s playing legitimized football, serving as a general in the army or making a dollar to every man’s dollar in the workplace, women continue to play on an uneven playing field thanks to the women who continue to give an inch on their demands.
So, before panties get more bunched than what they’ll already be for the members of the LFL, think about the impact of women playing football in their underwear for the rest of us.
Women have finally been given the opportunity to play a game they’ve always been denied and instead of capitalizing on it, they’ve chosen to mock it. Call me hyper-sensitive, call me a prude, hell, call me a misogynist, but one thing is certain: the women in underwear just set my daughter back years in their fight for fair play.
