Ever heard the one about the women so stupid they don’t understand how to patronise other people about the offside rule? No? That’s because, historically, women have neither been encouraged to learn about football’s biggest boner-kill nor apply it.
And a new study, reported on in the International Journal of Developmental Science, no less, finds that boys are better at spotting if a ball’s offside.
Cue the headlines: ‘So the sexists are right: girls do struggle with the offside rule’ ‘Girls really do struggle to understand the offside rule, study finds’ and ‘Boys really do understand the offside rule better than girls, study finds’.
The thing is, the study found so much more than this simple ‘girls are thick at sports things’ angle, which flies so flagrantly in the face of all the incredible work done by our 59 female medal winners at the 2016 Rio Olympics over the past fortnight. As far as toxic reactions to women in sport go, this is as toxic-looking as that putrid green diving pool.
In far blander actuality, the study took 33 children, taught them the offside rule (which means that the ball can’t be played forward if the only player on the opposing team between your player and the goal is the goalkeeper), then told them to draw an offside position. Boys and girls' results were similar here.
Then, the children were shown a computer simulation and asked to show the rule. Boys were better at this. Not because boys have this special spatial awareness that clumsy girls - soon to be buffoonish women with their cumbersome tits and bums - can’t manage. But because boys have likely played more team sports in their lives, thus honing their skills for all things offside-ruley. Professor Lange-Kuttner, of London Metropolitan University, said: 'There’s no difference at all in girls and boys being able to understand the rule. It’s only when you factor in the boys’ greater experience in playing the game that we see such a difference.'
She added: '‘It’s possible that boys have sharpened their spatial perception.'
It’s now clearer than an offside rule breached by a streaker barking ‘OFFSIDE! OFFSIDE! OFFSIDE!’ as he leaps across the pitch with a pink-sparkled willy long enough to drag along the divots as he leaps, that saying ‘the sexists are right’ because of this study is a bit like saying women are worth less because they get paid less at work, or that they're lightning rods to sexual assault because they're so frequently sexually assaulted. The actual report's direct equivalent would be one finding that girls have better fine motor skills when it comes to painting two equally distanced and sized liquid-eyeliner flicks on their upper eyelids, because they’re more likely to have practiced that. And could you imagine a test on eyeliner flick capabilities going into the International Journal of Developmental Science? How badly the boys would do in that? All this sort of experiment should confirm is that practice makes perfect. If anything’s offside, it’s the way girls are still pushed away from sport by stupid readings of banal studies.
Like this? You might also be interested in:
Imagining A Workout Could Make You Stronger. Is This The Best News Ever?
From Yusra Mardini To Dina Asher-Smith, These Are The Women To Watch Out For At The Rio Olympics
Michael Phelps' Olympic #PhelpsFace Is The Meme That Keeps On Giving
Follow Sophie on Twitter @sophwilkinson
This article originally appeared on The Debrief.