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Women’s Soccer Gets a Real Bad Girl
I don’t understand pink sports equipment. Actually, I do understand it — and I don’t like it. I hate how pink baseball gloves and pink shin guards and pink basketballs limit who can (and by can, I mean “likely will”) play with them. Pink is meant to segregate kids, to ensure boys don’t go roughing up the deliciously delicate little pink-mitted girls. There’s something so mocking about, say, a pink hockey stick. It’s like, “ha, ha, check it out … a girl playing hockey. A girl!”
So I love — just love! — St. Louis Athletica goalkeeper Hope Solo’s reaction to a pink soccer jersey that had been specially designed by Puma for the Women’s Professional Soccer league’s first season.
She wouldn’t wear it.
From the August Atlantic monthly:
“They go and make this padded goalkeeper jersey and it’s hot pink—it just looks girly, it looks juvenile, it doesn’t look professional,” she told me one afternoon as we sat on a bench in an empty Harvard Stadium, where her team had just finished practicing for its game the next day against the Boston Breakers. “And so I said, ‘There’s no way in hell I’m wearing this.’”
Uniform pickiness, according to the article, isn’t Solo’s only bad-girl trait. The player, who has been called the world’s greatest goalkeeper, is a loudmouth, showboat, jerk of an athlete who swaggers and a makes her teammates mad and is bringing a bit of edge to women’s soccer, which, let’s face it, sorely needs it.
Solo knows she rubs a lot of people the wrong way but doesn’t see why she should stop. Cocky male professional athletes are more than tolerated by their organizations. And no matter how bad they get, they always seems to have a large fan base. Solo gets that. She doesn’t need people to like her.
“For some reason, people want to think that we’re girls next door, who all get along and go shopping at the mall together,” she told me. “Treat us like professional athletes.”
Finally, a bad girl who gets attention for something besides a drug problem, pole dancing or going pantsless!
Ha, ha, a girl getting booed. A girl!
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Photo: Atlantic monthly
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[...] Women’s Soccer Gets a Real Bad Girl [...]
They Say: Baby’s Cry a ‘Natural High’ For Some, Disgust for Others | Strollerderby commented on Aug 27 09 at 2:02 pm[...] Women’s Soccer Gets a Real Bad Girl [...]
Where Do Parents Fit In the Childhood Obesity Puzzle? | Strollerderby commented on Sep 08 09 at 12:27 am[...] ranted plenty here about pinking up sports gear, and gender stereotyping and division in toy ads, and though once in awhile there are improvements, [...]
Vintage Ad Reminds Us Girls Used to Just Be Kids | Strollerderby commented on Jan 14 10 at 3:00 pmPlumbLucky commented on Aug 27 09 at 1:27 pmI’ve owned ONE pink hockey stick, but there was a special reason – fundraising tourney for a teammate stricken with breast cancer. Outside of that, I believe the only pink stick I’ve ever come across on the ice was at the hands of a cocky, foul-mouthed, thought he was NHL material on the other side of the faceoff circle. Its kind of like a pink polo shirt with a popped up collar – easier to spot a jerk in uniform ;-)
Comstock commented on Aug 27 09 at 1:51 pmI just bought a Little Tikes tree swing for my daughter, and was faced with the choice of the regular primary blue and red or, for some reason, pink and darker pink. Why? Are primary colors suddenly too masculine for little girls? I bought the blue and red one; now my daughter will probably become a lesbian.
cheri commented on Aug 27 09 at 4:20 pmYAY!
Mistress_Scorpio commented on Aug 27 09 at 6:22 pmLOL, Comstock!
dee commented on Sep 02 09 at 6:37 pmshe’s above the age of majority, she’s a world famous athlete and yet… “girl”. No. WOMAN. She is a woman. I get that you were calling her a girl for cheek factor, but don’t perpetuate that crap.
Madeline commented on Sep 03 09 at 10:41 amDee,
Of course Solo’s a woman! But considering male athletes who misbehave are called “bad boys,” calling her a “bad woman” sounded about as segregating as a pink jersey.
Duly schooled and reintroducing “grrl” to the lexicon post haste!
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