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Sparkle (6)
This year, against my better judgment, I went to my first Rose Bowl game. Let me be clear: I don’t like football. I went because my daughter’s team, the celebrated Oregon Ducks, with their “Quack Attack” offense and stylish Nike uniforms, were playing the Wisconsin Badgers. I went because my fine feminist daughter, despite all that I have taught her, is an unrepentant fan. So my husband got tickets for the four of us.
They were great tickets. For those of you who care about these things, they were in the 12th row around the 22-yard line. We weren’t even in the sun! I was actually excited, because my son, daughter, and husband I were doing something together. Making a memory. Having a moment. When your children finally leave adolescence, you are so relieved that you survived it without killing each other you find yourself embracing the oddest family outings. Like hanging out with 91,000 people wearing identical colors and badger hats and wigs.
It was a perfect afternoon.All blue skies and that legendary Pasadena sun blanketing the San Gabriel Mountains. We were all decked out in Duck T-shirts and hats, nothing too embarrassing, of course. We took our seats. Unlike the end zones, which were a massive block of red at one end, and green and yellow at the other, our section was fairly egalitarian, a convivial mix of Badgers and Ducks. I had brought my digital camera and telephoto lens and was taking pictures as the Ducks’ drill team and band members took the field. The game hadn’t even started.
That’s when I heard them.
The two drunken Wisconsin guys sitting directly behind me. Calling the female band members on the Oregon team “bitches.” They said it so loudly that people sitting across the stadium could probably hear them. And they were laughing.
I felt the hair on the back of my neck stand up. Then I felt a rush of disbelief, anger, and fear. The same fear I’ve felt all my life when I’m around men who feel they have the impunity to talk shit about women. Like women are just objects to be discussed and dissected at their whim. It’s not exactly hatred. In some ways it’s worse. Like women are so worthless and inconsequential they don’t exist. They’re not even there.
My first impulse was to turn around and say, “Would you Wisconsin morons please shut the F up?” Or better yet, something sarcastic and Tina Fey-ish like, “Oh, I didn’t know Wisconsin men had such tiny penises!” But I behaved myself. I kept calm, because I didn’t want to cause a scene or embarrass my family. I didn’t even turn around and glare at them. For some reason--call it the optimist in me--I figured they’d eventually settle down and stop.
They didn’t.
During the pre-game show, they proceeded to trash the women on the Oregon drill team. To comment on their bodies, their looks. “God, they’re even fatter than our girls!” one said. They both thought that was hilarious. Beyond the misogynistic banter, every other word out of their mouths was “fuck.” I’m sure the parents of the young kids sitting around us were elated.
I’d had enough. I was not going to listen to their crap the whole game. Why should I? I thought. Why should I tacitly condone their behavior by not saying anything? They probably do this all the time, and no one ever calls them on it. We’d spent all this money on tickets. Why should I have to tolerate their behavior? And in my home stadium, for that matter? Why should my daughter? Didn’t we have a right to enjoy the game?
I turned around. They were probably in their 30s, two big white guys with beer bellies in Levi’s and Wisconsin T-shirts. One had on a red wig.
“Pardon me,” I said in my most civil but firm voice. “Would you please stop using that language about women? It’s offending me.”
You would have thought I was speaking Albanian. They literally looked at each other and said, “Huh?”
Then, apparently because I was a female, and therefore didn’t exist for them, they started taunting my husband, who was sitting next to me.
“The fucker didn’t even take off his hat during the Star Spangled Banner!” one said, at one point.
