England congratulates sports stars by telling them to get back into the kitchen.

Ok, you’ve had your fun on the soccer field. Now get back in the kitchen.

This week, the English team, the “Lionesses” returned to home soil having made it to the semi-finals. That’s an achievement that Beckham and his male English team haven’t done in nearly three decades.  But despite their success, the tweet from England soccer authorities welcoming them home was a little….um………unusual.

Thankyou, @england, for reminding us that these women will soon return to their lives as mothers, partners and daughters. That women can’t be just sports stars, they also have to be mothers and daughters and partners too. Because emotions, and periods, I guess?

The tweet has since been deleted but it didn’t escape the attention of internet who were swift to call it out for what it was: everyday sexism.

I just thought: would we write this of a man? Would we write it about someone that had just won the Nobel Peace Prize? Would we pat Hillary Clinton on the head and say, well done Hills. Back you go to being a mum to Chelsea and a wife to Bill?

You never see interviews of sports men that ask about what else they do, or how they juggle being a father, or whether their grand final victory compares to their wedding day – a question asked after the WNBL Grand Final this year.

The other thing about the @england tweet is that it (rather clumsily) makes another salient point: that women sports stars DO have other lives to go back to. That they earn a fraction of what the men do, so they are returning to lives with jobs and commitments outside the game.  But the fact that this English team also has bankers, lawyers and writers doesn’t feature.

The English Football Association, or FA, responded to the backlash saying the tweet was taken out of context, and that it linked to an online article about the players being reunited with their families.

It’s encouraging to see the way people called out this everyday sexism.  The same way we question why Eugenie Bouchard played the game of her life and in the post-match interview was asked to twirl in her tennis skirt.  Or how a Surf wear ad, that features five-time surfing world champion Stephanie Gilmore, contains Zero Actual Surfing:

Despite being tougher than Mack trucks, bleeding for their teammates, and sacrificing their whole life for these achievements, it’s interesting that we can’t see women just as sportspeople alone.  That they are still framed as mothers, partners, daughters, with weddings and babies to focus on.

For more:

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