Out of line

[cosmolinguist]

I heard on the radio news earlier that there's a 50p coin with a special football design (because Olympics). There was a clip of the guy burbling "I'm not an illustrator or a designer or anything, so I thought I'd explain the offside rule."

Halfway through this i wanted to shout "so why didn't they get an illustrator or designer to do this?!" (like Brad Pitt says in Moneyball: "whose nephew are you?"; it's not like there's a shortage of designers and illustrators looking for jobs, I bet) but in the time it took me to take in a big breath for shouting, he'd finished the sentence and at that point I could only shout "Oh for fuck's sake!"

The thing about the offside rule is that it's not just notoriously supposed to be impossible to understand, it's supposed to be impossible for girls and women to understand.

When you type the word "offside" into Google, its fourth suggestion (after sensible things like "offside in rugby" and "offside rule" is "offside rule for women." Which brings delightful things like a shoe-shopping analogy "for explaining the offside rules to a nagging girlfriend while trying to watch the game" and Forget about being from Mars or Venus, the biggest difference between men and women is their ability to comprehend the offside rule, where women are "let in" on the "secret."

First time I watched a football game in a bar with people I knew, the one with less civliized ideas about gender roles made sure to explain the offside rule to me, precisely because of this trope. He didn't explain particularly well (this is someone who tried to explain cricket to me while not mentioning for ages that there are two batsmen on the pitch at the same time) but it was still sufficient that I have understood it ever since: my poor little female brain did not overheat.

There's no consolation for having to carry around misogynistic jokes in my pockets, but this comes closest: the coin got the offside rule wrong.

Comments

[braisedbywolves.livejournal.com]

The thing about the offside rule is that it's not just notoriously supposed to be impossible to understand, it's supposed to be impossible for girls and women to understand.

That may be played up a bit, but it is also supposed to be generally difficult to understand. Are you seriously saying that the explanation of it on the coins has a silent "for girls" on it?

[cosmolinguist]

Actually if you look again, you'll see that I said the offside rule is notoriously supposed to be difficult to understand, not that it is (as you say) supposed to be generally difficult to understand. So I don't think we're quite connecting, there; personally I think saying it's *generally* difficult to understand is an infamous suggestion, but of course I wouldn't shoot the messenger, and anyway I guess it's good to know that's what some people suppose...I suppose. :)

[thebustocrookes.livejournal.com]

Hmm... It's fairly easy to tell when someone is offside (or it was before they tinkered with the rule a couple of years ago). The problem is trying to explain to someone else...

Easy to laugh at women struggling to come up with a succinct definition, but the men jeering (generally) can't explain it either.

Whilst I like offside (the game would fall apart without it - it's a "necessary evil"), it's awkward, because football would be incredibly easy to explain otherwise, it's not just a man/woman thing though

[cosmolinguist]

I don't think it's just a gender thing, but I think it's disappointing how often gender gets mentioned when it comes up, and how rare refereeing women are and how much abuse they get even compared to that heaped upon referees who are men.

[matgb]

"so why didn't they get an illustrator or designer to do this?!"

*raises hand*

Please miss, I know this one!

Because it was a competition and this was his entry, there were several thousand others, all the fuss is about this coin but, meh, I always understood the damn rule, and I hate football.

[cosmolinguist]

And that kind of process in itself is as depressing as any resulting coin could be, I think.