“I believe in equality for everyone, except reporters”

Being an avid social media user, I have had the displeasure of seeing many different types of infighting between Arsenal fans. Foreign vs local, the Arsene Knows Brigade vs Wenger Out Brigade, pro-snood vs anti-snood, and the list goes on. What struck me recently and inspired the idea of reaching out to fellow female Gooners was that I’ve had very little interaction and experience in the debate of male vs female supporters.

Most of my experience in relating to fellow fans has been online. When I first started supporting Arsenal in 2008, I found a community of fans on a site called LiveJournal. I spend the majority of my time on ONTD_FOOTBALL and later branched out into ArsenalBBS. I didn’t conciously notice at the time, but all the fellow fans I interacted with and spoke to were female. While there was infighting that us Gooners have become accustomed to (you haven’t seen an online war until you’ve seen the fallout after a Sergio Ramos hair cut; I’m firmly in Team Long Mane) no-one ever questioned my knowledge or support of Arsenal based on my gender.

When I left the cozy confines of LJ to venture further afield to the new frontier of Twitter, I began to interact more with male Arsenal fans and for the most part it has been a good experience. In fact I never even considered the fact that I was female fan amongst male fans until recently. The majority of topics I discussed with my fellow female Gooners also extended into similar conversations with male Gooners. We talked about tactics, new signings, Pat Rice’s shorts, Arsene’s water bottle hatred and his often inexplicable substitutions. I’ve met male Gooners who are bigger fans of individual players than I am, who created parody accounts with us, who debated the merits of our One True Pairings (OTPs) and shared our collective sobs and heartbreak when that man Fabregas left. Over time I learned the art of the subtle unfollow for Gooners whose tweets I didn’t enjoy and I remained content with my eccentric and eclectic group of Gooners.

Then Robin van Persie happened, and in the midst of my shock, tears and crushing loss of faith in loyalty in football, I began to notice a different kind of reaction. Other Gooners began to tell me how to feel about Robin. I was told my opinions weren’t valid, that I needed to get over it and to “stop being so emotional already!” I noticed this happening to other female Gooners and the majority of the people doing the admonishing were male. I had my first experience in being told my thoughts weren’t valid because I was female. It isn’t an experience I’d want to endure again, but like most unpleasant experiences it pushed me to learn and to grow. I decided to reach out to my fellow female Gooners and listen to their experiences, hear how they became Gooners and discuss their experiences. It has been moving, informative and eye opening. There has been a lack of Victoria Concordia Crescit in our club lately – especially in the boardroom – so maybe it’s time for us supporters to show them the way.

Remember to check in tomorrow where I discuss the road to Goonerhood with @mimsicality,  @GreenieJules  and @SandraHelena39 and others.