A girls’ football team from South Morningside Primary School in Edinburgh won the Edinburgh Schools Cup and were presented with a small plastic trophy.
The boys’ team received a full-size traditional cup for their victory in the very same competition.
Horrendous.
The girls’ team wrote to the competition organizers to explain how unfair the situation felt. After the letter gained attention, the organizers acknowledged the mistake, apologized, and replaced the prize with a proper full-size trophy, which was later presented to the girls at their school.
Two things about this incident:
- In this particular case, the sexism was made clear because trophies are tangible and comparable. But for every time sexism is stomped out like this, a billion incidents exist that are less easily seen and often far more nefarious.This is the teeniest, tiniest tip of the biggest damn iceberg on the planet. We should not forget this.
- In order for this to happen, a person or persons had to place an order for trophies and intentionally choose a smaller trophy for the girls, which means that person or persons — presumably male — had to believe that girls were not as deserving of a large trophy as boys.It makes the trophy purchaser a despicable person.
No wiggle room here.
If you made this purchasing decision, you really suck.
