There was no doubting this past weekend that Carolina football had begun.
I could barely see the field through the sea of powder blue, but my ears assured me that the athletic season was in full swing.
Over the marching band blaring the fight song and the helmets cracking on the gridiron, I heard the traditional call of the Tar Heel fan: “Hey Citadel, you suck!”
Of course, what exactly The Citadel was sucking was rarely specified, but I’m pretty sure most fans knew which direct object followed.
Over the course of the game, I heard a few more gendered terms from the stands, some directed at the field and some general banter in the bleachers: “That play was so gay”; “Quit playing like a girl”; “We got totally raped by them last year”; “The coach is going to have their ass after that play”; “Their cheerleaders are so ugly I wouldn’t be surprised if they have testicles”; and, my favorite, “Quit being a fag and go get me a Coke.”
I know that when fans say something is gay, they don’t actually mean that it is literally homosexual. I know people who say, “She’s such a bitch,” and don’t actually mean a female dog.
But this type of language carries undertones which perpetuate the message that the female is less than the male.
Phrases like “Don’t be a skirt” express a cultural understanding that feminine things are weaker and less valued. Phrases like “Grow a pair” carry an undertone that people who are smaller or in a subservient position are somehow more feminine.
A feminine man is broken or weak. And a woman who is masculine does not gain the status of men, but rather the scorn of being ugly and undesirable.
Masculine things win out even when, in reality, they don’t at all.
A woman passes a 10-pound baby through her vagina, and yet a being called a pussy would incite riots among most men.
A man gets hit in the balls and he’s curled up in pain on the ground, hoping at the very least that it will get him on “America’s Funniest Home Videos.” And yet we still give praise by saying, “You’ve got balls.”
This weekend, when fans shouted, “You suck, Citadel,” it was meant to offend the opposing players.
But really who it does and should offend are females, the group who is traditionally and anatomically in that position. Though fans don’t mean it literally, the language does: Being feminine is less.
And besides being derogatory, sputtering out a reference to the petite nature of someone’s genitalia or the grandiose size of one’s own is overdone and uncreative. Booooring.
We’re one of the best schools in the county and all we can think of is to wave our arm up and down and chant, “You suck”?
We would never allow this type of language if it involved someone’s race or nationality.
Feminizing the other team, resorting to genitalia talk, using rape as a symbol of dominance and throwing around homophobic slurs limits everyone.
Don’t be content with “It’s no big deal … I don’t really mean it … It’s how it’s always been.”
People won’t risk anything outside of their expected gender roles if ridicule accompanies it.
Jessica Fuller is a second-year graduate student from Greensboro. Contact Jessica at jvfuller@gmail.com
