Lingerie football league is coming our way. Promotional matches will be held in Brisbane and Sydney in June, with the official lauch planned for 2013. Unless we say No.
www.collectiveshout.org have a petition up and ready to go, all the information you need to know is there.
The reason for the petition? It will be sent to the following promoters and hosts of LFL in Australia –
- Telecafe
- 7 Yahoo Sports
- Live Guide
- Our Festivals Australia
- Brisbane Entertainment Centre
- Allphones Stadium Sydney
We call on all who are involved in hosting, promoting, advertising or otherwise supporting the LFL to withdraw such support immediately.
Cancel the events. Pull the advertising. Withdraw from promotional deals.
The Lingerie Football League must not go ahead in Australia. www.collectiveshout.org
Sign now http://www.change.org/petitions/stop-the-lingerie-football-league-in-australia
“This is objectification at its most pernicious — give women an opportunity to participate in a sport that they haven’t had the chance to do for pay and publicly previously, but only let them do it if they are stereotypically pretty and willing to do it in their underwear” says Courtney Martin
“The game itself of course is based on physical activity, but the hype surrounding it and the target audience are not generally attending to support sport but to be ‘entertained’ by women running around in their lingerie getting hot and sweaty and getting physical with one another,” University of Sydney sports management, Professor Tracy Taylor said in The Brisbane Times
“While many of the players in the existing league are athletes they are certainly not taken seriously in North America and I can not see how the introduction of the league here would be good for women’s sport.”, Professor Taylor
“This League is sexist and demeaning to all women. In a society where women have been seeking and starting to secure equal rights and respect on and off the sporting field, this development undoes so much of the hard work being done by many sporting organizations across the country.” Australian WomenSport and Recreation Association president Janice Crosswhite stated in an ASC media release
Read more: Collective Shout against LFL
We don’t want sexualised sport in Australia
Radical Change - A Feminist Blog 
Thanks for the link, love what you wrote, lets get this out there so our voices are heard, enough is enough when it comes to this blatant sexualisation and sexism.
I actually really enjoy the lingerie football league. It’s sort of startling at first, but these girls are REAL competitors and athletes, many of them having played for their highschool teams and local flag football leagues. They LOVE the sport. And they’re fighting HARD to play it and to get safe equipment, and to live out their passion. Please don’t stop the ladies from doing the same job that men do, support these women by demanding that they get proper equipment, by being the feminist voice of women who let women play football and making it our sport and our right as well.
Hi Awa, thanks for your comments on LFL in Australia, I’m sorry that you had to get over being startled by the appearance of the LFL girls to be able to enjoy real female athletes playing football. If you would like to view female footy players who won’t startle at first please check out the Australian Women’s allstars and the Jillaroos squad for some very cool female athletes, also http://www.sprotingpulse.com http://www.awrljillaroos.leaguenet.com.au http://www.ourfootyteam.com/women-in-league will set you on your way to learn about the real female athletes of footy that already do exist in Australia, on a National and international level.
Rugby league is the main league in Australia, that’s why it is televised so often, these female athletes (I mentioned above) also play Rugby League, unfortunately it is not as funded or recognised by any means like male NRL. But that does not mean they choose to play Lingerie Football League. They continue to play Rugby, as you mentioned with the women of LFL, for the love of it.
Females being recognised and paid equally to male athletes is a whole issue in and of itself, it’s not fair, it’s not right, and this is why legitimate female athletes push so hard to get where they do and to finally start receiving some sponsorship, promotion and air time(still nowhere near on par with men).
As the Australian Sports Commission concludes on their website (about sexploitation in sport) “For most of the past 100 years, women have struggled to be recognised for their achievements and contributions not for how attractive they may be or what they are wearing. Sportswomen now demand to be taken seriously as athletes and have fought hard for media coverage that doesn’t concentrate on superficial issues such as physical looks and attire. If, on the other hand, some sportswomen promote themselves in erotic or revealing outfits or even nude, it sends conflicting and confusing messages to the media, the community and to other athletes. It also undermines the efforts to achieve equal credibility for all women athletes.”
And as Courtney Martin Says “This is objectification at its most pernicious — give women an opportunity to participate in a sport that they haven’t had the chance to do for pay and publicly previously, but only let them do it if they are stereotypically pretty and willing to do it in their underwear”
The LFL does undermine all other female athletes giving their best with their clothes on.
More information on the truth of and the repercussions of LFL can be found at http://www.collectiveshout.org and my previous post We don’t want sexualised sport in Australia
I am a feminist voice, a voice for the equality, decency and respect of women. I am a feminist voice that says no to lingerie football league in Australia.
Thanks for the information. I hate to see the *women* punished for it, is all. I didn’t know of the other leagues in Australia, but this is the only option here.
Hi again, you’re welcome for introducing you to Australia’s women of league, if you had a look at those websites you’ll see that our Aussie Rugby players at National and international levels are pretty amazing stuff, right. And honestly Gridiron is not popular at all in Australia, unless you are an American who resides here, Rugby League, which these women play is immensely popular.
I do really feel for a lot of those women who choose to take part in LFL, for we are aware of all the safety reasons in regards to lack of uniform and protection, if you have a look at http://www.collectiveshout.org, you will see this is addressed with many other issues, including the sexualised uniforms and promotions of the game, uniforms a lot of them don’t want to wear, for the fact that they have to sign a nudity clause and will get fined if they wear anything under their uniforms. Wow Mitch’s boys really don’t have any interest in these women at all, or with the apparent hugely popular success LFL is, he would at least pay them.
Then there are the others straight from Playboy photo shoots – Chloe Butlers etc that are proud to sexualise themselves, the sport and women’s sport in general with ramifications on society.
And as these women said, who just signed the petition, “If this is the extremes women athletes have to go to for public recognition and this is ok with the public, then women’s rights and respect for women is on a serious and worrying decline. Speak up Australian women, No Lingerie Football League in Australia!!” Cathy Strichow And “In Australia the Australian Football League has a Respect and Responsibility code. This LFL undermines this in every way.” Elizabeth Senior Green
Good luck with getting better conditions for the LFL women in America but in Australia we say no to LFL.
Also, despite the advertisements, some of the women aren’t conventionally attractive. The coaches really do pick for talent, not facial features. There was a big dust up when a whole team quit over safety concerns and neglect, and it had some affect in getting them bigger uniformed and better equipment.
As a kid I saw an episode of the Cosby show where Vanessa brings home one of her boyfriends from college, a character named Dabnis Brickey. Dr. Cosby tells Dabnis that he might well indeed be a good catch but it’s the way that she presented him. It’s like having a sirloin steak, juicy with mushroom, onions but it’s given to you on a trash can lid. This whole lingerie football mess is just like that. These women may very well be contenders, not to take anything away from their talent; it’s how they are presented. Trashy….on a trash can lid.
I think the episode of the Cosby show was in season 7.
I like that, thanks knowledge maven and Mr Cosby. Loved the Cosby show when I was young, he did some hilarious stand up too and wrote a funny book on fatherhood back in the day. His wisdom still lives on, thanks for your comment and the memories 🙂