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It’s Super Bowl Sunday. You’re at a solid party at your friend’s beautiful home. You have some wonderful food, a tasty imported beer, and a big HD TV to watch on. Pretty perfect environment to watch football in. You don’t quite know everybody there, but they are all friends of your good friend the host, or of his lovely wife, so you are fairly comfortable and excited to share your experience with these people.

Then suddenly there’s a comment from the girl on the couch about a ruling on the field. It’s not exactly accurate, but OK it’s close enough. You appreciate that the girl at least knows what’s going on in the game, and you let it slide. On the next play, you hear another comment, this time it is accurate, but it’s not something you need someone to tell you because it is pretty obvious. Four plays later, there’s that voice again… That’s funny, i don’t remember it being quite as piercing before… She’s talking about a penalty on this play that was correctly called but, unfortunately, the play on the TV is the replay of a play that happened 2 plays ago and not the play that they even called the penalty on.

Now the voice won’t stop. Every play something happens to elicit a response. You claw at your ears to make it stop, but panic sets in when you realize… “Oh My God… It’s only the first quarter!!” As if you were on an airplane, your mind starts instinctively planning emergency exit strategies. Do you get up and run for the door? Perhaps through the kitchen? Maybe you just leap out the picture window to the right of the television… You’ll worry about the broken glass and blood loss if you survive the fall to the lawn. You start considering things you would never have thought of before, like possibly drugging her wine. If she’s passed out, she can’t possibly annoy you. Unfortunately, you’re not Ben Roethlisberger so you’re out of roofies. You’re gonna have to sit through an entire game of this. Every minute the voice becomes more and more piercing until you can literally feel like poking your brain. Is that an air raid siren going off? Wait no, she’s just complaining about a holding penalty. Good god is someone breaking into my car? Nope, Roethlisberger just got sacked and the girl is urging him to “run faster!” You get up, scream at the top of your lungs and run for the door, leaving your girlfriend on the couch in the process, and you escape into the night. You are never seen or heard from again.

Now, good people of the internet, that was just a dramatization. A story based on true events. Some of it happened, some of it didn’t. However, I don’t want you readers out there to take this in the wrong way. It is 2011. I have no problem watching sports with women. Hell, it’s cool when a girl likes sports! Some women, however, are so insecure about being women and being taken seriously as equals that they use whatever football terms they know to overcompensate for the fact that they have breasts. They must tear down the walls of sexism and prove to this male dominated society that they too can roar! They too can shake their terrible towels, clap their thunder sticks and even know what “holding” means! Huzah!!

This post is meant more as a cautionary tale to those women who legitimately like sports. Those who are educated about the teams, the players, and even the rules of football, but aren’t taken seriously because every time they comment on the game, people assume they are like the woman in the story above. It’s great for women to embrace sports and cheer on their team. Women like Pam Oliver, Cheryl Miller, Kim Jones and Erin Andrews have worked hard to show that women in the 21st century know their sports, and can even tell some men a thing or two about the games they watch. Just be secure about it.

Women of the 21st century have proven that they can break all stereotypes and be just as knowledgeable as men in every aspect of life. Unfortunately, they can be as equally annoying to watch the Super Bowl with.

image courtesy of: http://www.post-gazette.com

Martin Stezano

About Martin Stezano

Uruguayan born and American raised with a unique perspective on the domestic and international sports scenes. It will both tickle your funny bone and enlighten your mind. Love it or hate it...just read it.