Faced with harassment in stadiums and online, female fans of soccer and basketball struggle to find a safe space for their hobby
Though staff members were holding up signs urging “civilized” behavior from fans, the atmosphere in the stadium was anything but. On August 9, the highly anticipated “Jing-Jin Derby Match” between the Tianjin Jinmen Tiger and Beijing Guoan soccer teams was held again in the Tianjin TEDA Soccer Stadium after 13 long years, and throughout the game, spectators from both sides relentlessly chanted “shabi”—a Chinese curse word referring to a part of the female anatomy.
Lost amid a sea of male spectators roaring slurs and flipping their middle fingers at their rivals were the handful of female fans in the stands. In a packed stadium of 28,550 attendees, women appeared to make up around 10 percent of the total crowd. Perhaps accustomed to the vulgarities, they appeared like silent outsiders in the testosterone-fueled stands.
Defending the Field: China’s Female Sports Fans Struggle for Inclusion is a story from our issue, “Online Odyssey.” To read the entire issue, become a subscriber and receive the full magazine.
Zheng Yiwen is a contributing writer at The World of Chinese. She was a political journalist at The Paper and Phoenix Media, now she writes mainly about society and culture, for sharing fresh voices from China.
