It is socially acceptable to be absolutely obsessed with football (soccer). There are tons of people in the states who devote solid portions of their days drooling over the latest sports gossip, columns, scores, etc and insist on talking about it with everyone they see as a conversation opener. The interesting thing here, which only just occurred to me during a conversation with a friend a few days ago, is that American women play on a whole different field than Parisian women, so to speak. This is to say that in the states, women are just as likely to be as athletic and/or sports obsessed as men. In Paris, on the other hand, women do not occupy themselves with sports in the same way. I take that back. They don’t occupy themselves with being athletic or caring about pro sports at all!
In the over 7 months I’ve spent here, I cannot ever recall seeing groups of girls flocking into pubs to catch that awesome rivalry game between blahblah and blahblahblah. Ever, actually. You will always see guys herding towards the bars and huddling themselves as close to the widescreen as possible, cheering and booing in unison as their own little équipe. The only occasion where I have ever seen a girl around is either 1- because she is dating one of the herd members or 2- is a foreign student like yours truly. I am the kind of girl who stayed up until 4 am watching the USA vs Canada Mens hockey games in Vancouver. I’m finding Parisian girls to be somewhat prissy in this way because they consider it to be a man’s domain. Eff that. With such a rebellious and inherently feminist based culture of women in France, how is this the case?
I am starting to wonder if this aspect of American girls is one of the driving forces behind American girl - French guy relationships and why they happen so frequently. This is not to say simply that French boys are solely turned on by our ability to enjoy sports and be able to maintain conversations about everything included, but perhaps that the boys are attracted to American girls because we can play with the boys and aren’t putting on airs because heaven forbid I should walk around thinking that knowing a thing or two about football will make me seem less attractive. Hah. It seems as though American women have mastered the balance of loving sports and maintaining our femininity. I guess this falls under more of the socially ‘unacceptable’ category but I’m writing in a chain of thought. In the end, to each her own, and more beaux gosses for me!
