This is particularly relevant when you start looking at Gender.
It has long been accepted (based on anecdotal evidence) that boys prefer reading books that feature male protagonists and girls prefer reading books that feature female protagonists.
This is most noticeable in genres that are recommended to "reluctant readers". When you look at the books librarians, teachers and parents recommend for children who "don't really like to read", you'll noticed that the vast majority of books recommended for boys are books that feature boys as the lead character, and the vast majority of books recommended for girls feature girls in the lead.
Whether we like to admit it or not, it is easier for us to project ourselves into the plot of the book and live vicariously through the protagonist if that protagonist looks a bit like us. This isn't a new theory, and it's not exactly rocket science.
But I think the same applies to sport. The old phrase "you play like a girl" has more to it than just a casual insult. Girls do play "like girls", and boys play "like boys".
This is, of course, a sweeping generalisation (as are all observations to do with Gender), but on a macro scale, it's also true.
The watching of sport is a vicariously lived experience, just like reading a book. For the hour or so that the game is played, you *feel* like you're playing with the characters - sorry, players - as they are going through this dramatic struggle.
It is easier for us to project ourselves into the drama and live vicariously through the protagonists if they remind us a little of ourselves. It is not unreasonable to assume that women might be more interested in sport if they could picture themselves playing the game. It's easier to do that if you're watching women play sport the way women would play sport.
A television station broadcasting the 2016 Olympics in America noticed that more women watch the Olympics than you normally find watching other sports, and put forward the theory that they find the Olympics a bit like a soap opera because of the "stories" of the athletes. If they'd bothered asking any of their female viewers, they'd probably have been told that they watch the Olympics because it's one of the few times that you can see women playing sport on the television - and we actually like watching that.
I love watching sport - but I don't love watching all sport, and I don't love all sports equally. If I don't know or understand the rules, I can't really imagine playing it myself, and unless it looks like something I want to explore, it bores the dickens out of me.
This is especially true of cricket. I've tried to like cricket. I thoroughly enjoy baseball, and I can watch sports like lawn bowls, so I can't work out why cricket should bore me to tears. It just does. But, a few months ago, I was watching a game of women's Twenty-20 cricket and found it passable. I'm not suddenly going to turn into a raving cricket fan, but I didn't hate it as much as I normally hate cricket.
I love watching football (aka, soccer), but I find it more enjoyable when women play. The way women play football just seems to be a better game to me. I feel like women play the game while men play to prove something. Gross generalisation? Of course, but that's just how it seems to me.
It's the same with basketball and rugby. There's something in the way women play that I can relate to a bit better than the way men play.
If you really want to get more women watching sport, it stands to reason that you should show more women playing sport. There is a market for it, if you're willing to give it a chance to take root and grow.
I like watching people who "play like a girl", because that's so much more interesting than watching someone "play like a boy" - all boofheaded and moronic. That could very well be because I happen to be a girl myself, and I play like a girl, but it could also be because, as a girl, I'm allowed to see the merits in women's sport while men often aren't.
And there's another similarity between books and sport - we're happy to perpetuate the myth than men/boys can't bring themselves to be interested in anything that features a female protagonist. Essentially, we're moving beyond saying "you'll find people who look like you easier to relate to" (which is true) to saying "you'll find people who don't look like you impossible to relate to" (which is a load of crap).
Men are just as capable of watching women play sport and enjoying it for the sport (and not for the scantily clad women) as women are capable of watching men play without those men necessarily being half naked* - just as boys and girls are both capable of reading books that feature characters from the other genders. But we tell our boys over and over again that things featuring girls are automatically and necessarily boring (unless you can objectify the girls), and they shouldn't like it.
We should, really, give everyone a chance to see someone like them doing great things the way someone like that would do it - and to see people who are nothing like them doing things just as great, albeit differently.
*Although, there is an argument that Australian Rules Football has a stronger female fan base than other sports in Australia partly because of the short shorts and sleeveless vests.
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