Do you all know the secret? The deep, dark, totally secret-secret? Female fans talk about sports just like males fans do.
I realize that most everyone reading this article is thinking, “well, duh,” but sadly, not as many people are as enlightened as the readers who frequent EcoSalon.
About a week or so ago, Men’s Health Magazine made a big mistake by publishing the article, “The Secret to Talking Sports With Any Woman.” Luckily, the magazine was struck with a stroke of genius later, though, and the publication deleted the article.
Men’s Health’s “eject now” button was not pushed nearly quick enough, though. Mediaite clicked a pretty choice screen capture of the article’s headline, and its first few paragraphs. Let me tell ya – it’s about as insulting you can imagine. Here are a few bon mots from the now deleted article:
“Not all women share your passion for sports, in case you hadn’t noticed. The reason? They need story lines.”
“Most women don’t care about stats.”
Good one, guys! Up top! But really – what the heck was Men’s Health thinking? Not much, apparently. But after the magazine tweeted out its unfortunate article, it got a heck of a lot of feedback. Men and women alike were mad, strike that – incredibly mad – that the magazine thought this story was a good idea.
Men’s Health eventually caught wind of all the negative feedback and ended up deleting the article and the tweet it sent out to promote the piece. The magazine apologized for the article and tweet, and swore up and down that readers really weren’t supposed to be offended.
Come on, Men’s Health. It’s 2014 — Women and men like sports and want respect. I know plenty of female sports fans who are just as rabid, if not more rabid, than male fans. If Men’s Health were paying attention to anything (and by anything, I mean society, a television, a sports bar, a game, etc.), they’d know that, too. Also: Women, just like men, can be casual fans, too. You don’t need to understand everything about a sport’s team in pain-staking detail to appreciate the game.
So, still need advice on how to talk to women about sports? Here you go: Ask her if she’s a fan and if she says, “yeah, totally,” you say, “rad, me too.”
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Image: Emily Burnett