Misogyny and sexism is something prevalent in our daily lives and has been present for hundreds of years. Although the world is changing, we still don't live in a society where everybody is fully accepting of people's beliefs and ways of life - something that frustrates me every day.
Sexism in rugby is a weekly, if not daily, occurrence for many girls and women in rugby. Boys claiming "women can't play rugby", "women's rugby is rubbish anyway", "no one cares", all terms used by misogynistic little boys to try and demote ones feelings and bring us powerful and strong women down.
What we don't see much of however is brands showing blatant sexism, intentionally or not. I was scrolling through my instagram feed the other day and stumbled across a post by a brand with a 35.4k following.
What I saw was absolutely appalling. This brand has created a t-shirt, which I'll post a photo of below and I'll give you the reasons as to why this disgusted me in so many ways.
Firstly, the caption on the instagram post stated: "how accurate is this?". If you believe this is accurate, you need to grow up and get out of the 1950's, because if you were living in present day, you'd accept that a) women play rugby too and if you don't like that, get over yourself and b) you might not be a football fan, but by no means should you be comparing that to women.
It's boring, misogynistic and just not funny. You are a rugby brand who are making that step to decide you are going to cut off half of your audience who are women because you can't make appropriate clothes which don't intend to bring anyone down.
I'm going to name and shame the brand, because quite frankly if they don't care about half of their audience, we shouldn't be praising them. The brand is @rugby_champs on instagram and their website is Rugby Champs.
Not only have they posted this sexist t-shirt, but they also have created a t-shirt to suggest concussion is something to be proud of and it's just not. To my belief, they don't have this on sale and have deleted the post.
If you're someone who is sexist, please just get over yourself. It doesn't benefit you in any way. Grow up.
If you're a supporter of women's rugby, keep doing what you're doing, promote women's rugby.
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