This post was submitted by Amelie

I love football. This is something that becomes pretty evident when someone mentions the subject around me and I start rattling off statistics about my team (the Saints, and yes…WHO DAT!) and almost every other team in the NFL. Not to mention the fact that all my close friends know not to bother me on Sundays, because there’s no way I’m hanging out with them, unless they want to sit through four hours of silent football watching with me.

So, of course, Sunday was a Very.Important.Day for me. Not only were the Saints in the Super Bowl for the first time ever, it’s the biggest day in football, and it’s a day the pretty much revolves around eating. Basically, all of my favorite things.

But during the pre-game build up, there was one thing I noticed this year, which is that, apparently, the Super Bowl is not for girls.

Not only were there the usual plethora of Super Bowl guides for girls, in a their demeaning glory, but even those whose primary audiences were women couldn’t really write a decent article about the Super Bowl. I saw articles saying that women have every right to enjoy the Super Bowl and article making up their own “Super Bowl” match-ups, but nothing that really actually address women and their interest in football.

And that only becomes more evident when you actually watch the game, in particular the just-as-hyped commercials that air around it. Women only serve as background players, in ads clearly designed to appeal to men, and their manliness. And when you think about some of the programming designed as alternatives to football, in particular Puppy Bowl, it’s clear what women are supposed to choose to watch. Because women like cute puppies, not men running around in tight pants throwing a ball back and forth to each other.

I know that I’m not the only girl that loves football, and I  know that I’m not the only lesbian. There are times when I don’t mind feeling like the only girl in the boy’s club, but at this point, it’s getting a little out of control.

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