Navigating the Bleacher Creatures
At The Walrus, Stacey May Fowles responds to a Globe and Mail writer’s interpretation of a demonstrable jump in female attendance at Toronto Blue Jay games. Tom Maloney, Fowles writes, “lazily [hypothesizes] that these young women aren’t really baseball fans at all.” She counters:
Men tend to make these assumptions, but like most female baseball fans I know, I actually have a specialized knowledge of the game that my male counterparts may not. For example, I know what sections of the ballpark are the safest to sit in, where I am least likely to be harassed by men, or to overhear sexist, homophobic or racist remarks from the male voices around me (at the Rogers Centre, 515 and 113 are both good places, if you’re interested). I know that weekday evening games tend to be most comfortable for women, that Sunday afternoons are generally better than Saturdays, and that Friday evenings should be avoided all together. I know that the new centre field porch on the 200 level — although equipped with a beautiful view — is generally out of the question if you’re interested in avoiding aggressive, drunken masculinity. Female fans navigate the game differently by necessity, as media messaging consistently tells us this is a male space that we’re being “allowed” to enter. I am a devoted fan of the game despite and not because of the culture that surrounds it.
Lest you think she’s overstating the nightmare potential for a ballpark environment, a brief anecdote: I once sat in the old Yankee Stadium bleacher seats (home of the “bleacher creatures”) for a Red Sox-Yankees game on a Friday night. Somewhere around the fifth inning, a young woman returned from the restroom through the wrong entrance, and found herself a full aisle away from her seat. Someone offered to let her pass through to the other side, and she started climbing over. She had to navigate both the empty cups and the feet and the sea of drunk men in front of her, and she was moving pretty slowly. The entire section then started a chant so instantaneously it has to be an old staple: “Sit down, bitch. Sit down, bitch. Sit down, bitch.” She got across, finally, and sat down. A few minutes later, she left with her friends.
Men come to the ballpark with an assumed knowledge and interest, whereas women need to be constantly demonstrating how much they know and care. A radically different take on that Ipsos-Reid survey is that maybe, despite hostility, we’re making a bold attempt to find more space for ourselves in a culture that has omitted us.