When men return home from sporting competitions, they’re lauded as heroes, plain and simple. But a tweet from England’s Football Association sums up exactly how female athletes are treated differently.
The tweet, since deleted, came after the England team returned home after placing in third at the Women’s World Cup, noting, “Our #Lionesses go back to being mothers, partners and daughters today, but they have taken on another title — heroes.”
While the FA maintained that it was a well-meaning message and part of a larger story on the team’s homecoming, fans pointed out that the men’s team would not be described as “fathers, partners and sons” in the wake of a third place victory, but simply as athletes.
With or without the sexist tweets, the women of Team England have plenty to celebrate: as at least one person tweeted, they progressed farther in the competition than their nation’s mens team has since 1966.
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