London - For the past month, the England women's football team have entertained thousands of fans with their performances at the World Cup in Canada.
But on Monday they arrived back home to discover that their own football association stood accused of blatant sexism.
On the morning that the Lionesses landed at Heathrow airport wearing their bronze medals for finishing third, the FA provoked a social media storm by suggesting that the players would now simply “go back to being mothers, partners and daughters”.
The badly misjudged message, which was posted on the England football team's official Twitter account, immediately provoked a social media storm and resulted in the FA being described as both “patronising” and “Victorian” in its attitude to the women's game.
The full tweet read: “Our #Lionesses go back to being mothers, partners and daughters today, but they have taken on another title - heroes.”
The message - which was swiftly deleted - also linked to an article on the FA's website about the team's return to London which used the same form of words in its introductory paragraph.
The author of the article, FA content editor James Callow, rejected accusations of sexism.
“Sorry if I caused offence. The piece is intended to sum up a nice moment when players are reunited with their families,” he wrote on his personal Twitter account.
“I reject any accusation of sexism and human interest is a big part of any sport reporting. I'd have done the same for England men, absolutely.”
His article was later replaced with a new opening paragraph which read: “England Women returned home as heroes on Monday morning - with their bronze medals proudly hanging round their necks.”
However, social media users were not impressed. Science writer and broadcaster Dr Adam Rutherford said the tweet suggested that the players “only exist in relationship to others”, while Arsenal fan Jess Nemnemler wrote: “@England's appalling sexist tweet regarding the Lionesses shows that there's still so far to go in pushing back against sexism in sport.”
Others warned that the FA's tweet risked undoing the work that the England team had done in winning respect for the women's game. “Ironic that after the women's team have done so well to change people's opinions, the actual @England Twitter ramps the sexism back up again,” said Theo Elliott.
However, some sought to play down the row. Jacqui Oatley, the broadcaster who anchored coverage of the Women's World Cup for the BBC, told The Independent: “I'm a little bit surprised that it's become such a big story. It was well-intentioned but clearly ill-judged because so many people have been offended by it, although I'm not one of them. It was deleted, James Callow has apologised, time to move on.”
England finished third at the Women's World Cup, beating Germany 1-0 after extra-time in their final match on Saturday. Arriving back in London at 7.30am yesterday morning, the players said they hoped they had inspired young girls to take up the sport.
“I've never really seen myself as a superstar or anyone's hero, but it is great to know that these kids are looking up to us and that we are making a difference,” said right back Lucy Bronze, who was shortlisted for player of the tournament.
“If in 10 years' time I can say that I made a difference and that some little girl has become the best player in the world then that's fine by me.”
An FA spokesman said the opening paragraph of Mr Callow's story had been “clumsily written” but that it was right for the issue to be debated. “The full story was a wider homecoming feature attempting to reflect the many personal stories within the playing squad as has been told throughout the course of the tournament.
“However, we understand that an element of the story appears to have been taken out of context and the opening paragraph was subsequently revised to reflect that fact.”
Catherine Mayer, co-founder of the Women's Equality Party, said: “Just as happened when Twitter mocked Tim Hunt, there are already efforts to mis-characterise the witty, proportionate reactions to the FA's silly tweet as 'mob rule'.”
The Independent