England's World Cup Tweet Is Sexist & Unoriginal

Sports isn't kind to female players. I mean, the world isn't kind to women, generally, but especially not women who play sports. And, unfortunately, the internet isn't being kind to even the U.S. women's soccer team after they won the World Cup in a truly badass fashion. But you'd think that only weird internet trolls — the kind that have the egg profile picture on Twitter — would actually tweet sexist sentiments about female sports players. Sadly, that's not true, after the official Twitter for the English national team tweeted a sexist comment about the end of the World Cup tournament on Monday.

Come on, England. I thought you were supposed to be way hipper and better dressed and environmentally conscious than the U.S. But sexist? I thought better of you. The tweet has since been deleted, but it said, "Our #Lionesses go back to being mothers, partners and daughters today, but they have taken on another title — heroes," according to a screenshot of the tweet posted by The Washington Post. Because, you know, women who are mothers, partners, and daughters aren't normally heroes. They have to enter the big, bad world of sports to earn that title. And even then, when they work their butts off and return home from a grueling tournament, they "go back" to their former gender roles, because they can't be awesome athletes and amazing mothers or just career-minded people. No way.

The Football Association, which runs the account, defended itself in a statement saying that the tweet linked to an article about the players reuniting with their families, according to BBC News:

The full story was a wider homecoming feature attempting to reflect the many personal stories within the playing squad as has been told throughout the course of the tournament. However, we understand that an element of the story appears to have been taken out of context and the opening paragraph was subsequently revised to reflect that fact.

But Twitter users have already called the FA out on that argument, asking in what kind of context — or century — they thought the tweet would've been appropriate.

Even worse, the FA is still being defended by men who think it's totally OK to say that, yes, actually, that's what all women "go back" to doing, because they're women! Amiright? Even though Carli Lloyd scored three goals in the fastest hat trick in the history of international soccer, people were still being sexist.

Oh, yep, you're totally right. Anyone who stands up against stereotypes that have systemically oppressed women and forced them into roles associated with their gender is definitely just being the absurd and annoying "PC brigade." How dare they ruin the fun of reminding everyone that women assumed (and often still assume) subservient roles and didn't get to attend school or maintain careers like their husbands. Ha ha! It's just so funny.

Thankfully, not everyone on Twitter sided with the FA, and the majority of tweets about the World Cup were awesome and called on more people to rally around women's sports in an effort to help combat global sexism.

Image: Getty Images