I have created this topic because I am interested in your point of view regarding the said subject.
I haven’t seen another post about this and I hope I have posted this in the right forum.
For those who are not aware of the “story”, Kenny Shiels is the manager of the Northern Ireland Women’s international team. They lost 5-0 to the England’s women’s team.
A generalisation from Sky Sports state KS said the following
“In the women’s game … when a team concedes a goal they concede a second within a very short period of time. Right through the women’s game, because girls and women are more emotional than men, so they take a goal going in not very well"
There is a bit more context to his statement than what I have posted so please feel free to view it, i would link it but I am very dated in terms of technology.
Additionally, the team have made a joint statement showing their support and respect of KS.
So has KS been insulting or is this a case of people/media taking offence on behalf of others? The team (who know him best) have come out to support him.
Was he wrong in what he said? Are women more emotional than men and take conceding a goal to heart more than males? And are his comments actually insulting?
Should he quit his job, where in his role the management/staff, players most likely have inspired a new generation of female footballers?
My opinion is that unfortunately, he is a victim of modern society. Where people almost go out of their way to pull you up on an ambiguous statement.
I do not consider his comments insulting or undermining towards women but an observation of his experience between male/female footballers.
If someone turned round and said male footballers get booked more often than females footballers because they can not control their aggression, would it be an issue?
By todays wokish standards probably not the smartest public announcement. Someone will be outraged no doubt.
Maybe he is right statistically if there are more goals quickly at the professional level. I don’t know.
I have coached both genders for many years and currently coaching women. Give me a womens team any day.
Whilst it is top division park football I actually see the opposite to men. My team is very nice and don’t carry on.
They once asked me the difference between male and female football and my response was “ one gender all think they are Pele and show no respect to officials and the other gender show respect and tend to under rate their ability - you guys be the judge”!
I don’t know enough about this subject. I’ve seen men who are outwardly more emotional than others and I’ve seen females who are more emotional than other females.
I think the women’s game (both cricket as well as football) is played in a better spirit than the men’s games. Maybe the pressure on men is more which leads them to act out etc etc. But the coach is possibly talking about how the women’s team morale goes down more after a goal is conceded than the men’s team. Maybe emotional is the wrong word for him to choose…I don’t personally find anything wrong with this but it’s basically for the women to decide whether they find what he said right or wrong.
I guess there is abit of many elements why such a statement seem offensive. Because for some reasons over time, people have come to believe or mis-believed that being emotional is bad or negative, and so when people described women as more emotional, it can be taken as a slight on them negatively especially in the workspace. However, if you take describing someone as emotional as just describing a feature and not being taken as a negative feature, then maybe people will just take it as that. Its like would anyone get offended if we say ‘women’s hair seem to grow faster than men’? So on that I think we need to see outburst of emotions and vulnerability in work settings as not necessarily a negative thing.
In this day and age someone’s always offended. Are women emotional? Yes. Especially at certain times of the month.
But men are also emotional as loads cry after they lose an important match - so yes,
I think what this guy was trying to say was -let’s not get too emotional when we concede as it affects our performance and we concede again shortly after… Let’s try and re-focus and not be too affected by conceding a goal as it’s part of the game.
I’d have no issue with my daughters football manager saying this to her team.
I think this is the most interesting part of this whole affair.
I don’t think many would have minded if he had indeed studied this and had some form of proof to back up his claim… Otherwise it’s quite easy to see how this could be plain and simple sexism.
‘Emotions’ are human not gendered. Women do tend to internalise their emotions more whereas men externalise. Hence depression, anxiety etc are higher in women, whereas more men engage in risk-taking behaviour and complete suicide. We see this from little kids right up to adulthood. Obv this is a generalisation and there are exceptions.
Sheils is a good guy and has done a lot for the women’s game. Can’t believe how stupid/naïve he was to say this at a press conference though
Men are emotional, certainly. Women are in the main probably more emotional. But women (as mentioned above) play sport in a far more mature manner where as men play like children. There’s probably a lot of scientific data proving both sides of all this. Quantifying emotion is rather tricky though. Try asking my wife how she’s feeling on a scale of one to ten when she’s throwing pans at your head.
Thanks for telling me I have no idea. The Ireland manager should’ve asked you your opinion!
The captain of Ireland has come out and admitted they let their emotions affect them when they concede hence conceding 2s and 3s in quick periods of their games.
They need to forget about it and move on with the game otherwise they’ll always be cannon fodder.
Im not saying men aren’t emotional of course they are.
But since my daughter started playing this season (25 goals in 20 games!) I’ve noticed a huge difference emotionally and the way the games played sportingly in both girls and boys football which my son played from 8-16 and myself from 7 - 29.
Girls play it much more sportingly so get upset when the odd girl turns round and says something like you’re shit etc.
