Do you watch or play football?
If you do, you’re most likely watching boys or men or playing alongside them. Do you wish there were more opportunities for girls and women to play football? Would you watch or play with them if there were?
In “All She Wanted to Do Was Play. Football, That Is.” Alix Strauss interviews Odessa Jenkins, a Women’s Football Hall of Fame running back, who, in 2019, founded a for-profit, full-contact women’s professional football league called the Women’s National Football Conference, or W.N.F.C. The conversation begins:
Why did you create the W.N.F.C.?
Nobody knew women were capable of playing professional football. I wanted to change that. To play professional football at the highest level, women had to give up their financial possibilities of making money or becoming a brand.
The for-profit business entity for women’s football is just starting. I wanted to give women financial opportunity and revenue by building a business with the intention of developing professional women’s football like the N.F.L. with TV contracts, sponsorships, partnerships, community engagement and apparel.
What are the greatest challenges for women in this field?
Professional opportunity. We have been excluded and not taken seriously. There’s no opportunity for girls to play tackle football in grade school right now, there’s only tackle football for boys. So there’s no awareness that adult women can play. That’s going to change because in 2028, women’s flag football will be an Olympic sport.
Are people surprised to learn women are playing professional football?
When people hear football, or think of physical strength, or potentially being violent, they don’t associate that with women. I want to change that narrative.
We have perpetuated a patriarchal idea that good women do soft, feminine things and that beauty is assigned to a certain type of woman. Now women are deciding that beauty can come from their mind and what they can do with their body.
Students, read the entire article and then tell us:
Did you know that there were women who played professional football? What do you think about Ms. Jenkins’s efforts to create a professional, paid league in which women can make football a career?
Do you think women’s professional football could one day gain as much attention and praise as other women’s sports have recently? Could it become as big as the N.F.L.? Why or why not?
Do you believe there should be more opportunities for women and girls to play football? Does your school allow girls to participate in the sport or have its own girls team? Do you think it should?
Some might say that tackle football is too dangerous for anyone to play. What are your thoughts on that?
Ms. Jenkins says much in the interview about opportunity and equality for girls and women in sports. What is one thing she said that stood out to you, challenged you or resonated with your own experiences, and why?
