Hmmm, I don't think I can necessarily agree when it comes to women in footie fandom. What women are you going to write about? More and more attention is being paid to female footballers, which is great, and that includes more football femslash, which is also great. And of course there's always the occasional genderswap, like your Cesca fic. But other than that, the only women involved in football are the WAGs, and a lot of people have a problem writing about real people who don't have a public persona. Certain WAGs have a public persona of their own, like Sara Carbonera, and certain WAGs have a public persona by trading off their HAB's fame, like Alex Gerrard, but a lot of them don't have public personas. I'm highly uncomfortable writing or reading about a WAG who purposely keeps a low profile, and I know other people are as well -- and more relevantly, the official RPF communities, like fbslash, must be careful about what they allow. RPF is arguably on even more shaky legal ground than normal fanfiction because it's about real people, and certainly the public perception is that it's a hell of a lot creepier than normal fanfiction (which doesn't exactly have a stellar reputation in the public sphere to begin with). RPF's saving grace is that it is written more about a person's public persona than it is about the person themselves, but that only holds for people who have a public persona. Replace that with "woman who is married to famous person" or "woman who works for Chelsea Football Club" and you get on very shaky ground indeed.
I agree with you that women are often portrayed poorly in the footie fandom, and that this can have misogynistic undertones (which is, unfortunately, hardly unique to footie fandom). Certainly there have been countless fics where things were going along fine until a player's partner showed up, and then I had to hurriedly click away because the characterization was so nauseatingly unpleasant. But that is something that should be addressed itself, with "stop being so damn misogynistic", not, "these women we really know nothing about should be written about more/in a certain way". Because honestly, I don't think the partners of most players should show up in fic at all, because of the aforementioned not having a public persona. I am far more comfortable with fics in which the characters' partners magically don't exist than I am with fics in which a non-famous partner is given a large role, even if she is written well. If a person hasn't gone out of their way to make sure they are famous, then I feel they should not have porn written about them on the internet, and that covers a fair number of women who would be portrayed in footie fandom. You know I am always on the lookout for Andres Iniesta fic, but I don't want to read about Ana Ortiz, not because I want to pretend she doesn't exist to fuel a fantasy where Andres Iniesta is actually in love with me, or because I want to pretend she doesn't exist to fuel a fantasy where Andres Iniesta is actually in love with Xavi Hernandez, but because she's not famous and doesn't show any inclination of wanting to become famous, and I think it's disrespectful to write fanfiction about her as if she were.
And when it comes to places like Kickette, honestly, Kickette has a tendency to stray into the wrong side of creepy. The comments really do. I am (mostly) glad that Kickette exists as non-fanction-related proof of women being interested in football, but I really wouldn't take as a shining example any place that habitually has people posting with handles like "Mrs.DavidVilla"; RPF already has enough trouble with stalker types.
Basically, I think it comes down to this: there are a lot of fandoms out there that have really good het and femslash pairings, including most RPF. But if you really want female characters, you should try one of those fandoms, not football RPF.
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I agree with you that women are often portrayed poorly in the footie fandom, and that this can have misogynistic undertones (which is, unfortunately, hardly unique to footie fandom). Certainly there have been countless fics where things were going along fine until a player's partner showed up, and then I had to hurriedly click away because the characterization was so nauseatingly unpleasant. But that is something that should be addressed itself, with "stop being so damn misogynistic", not, "these women we really know nothing about should be written about more/in a certain way". Because honestly, I don't think the partners of most players should show up in fic at all, because of the aforementioned not having a public persona. I am far more comfortable with fics in which the characters' partners magically don't exist than I am with fics in which a non-famous partner is given a large role, even if she is written well. If a person hasn't gone out of their way to make sure they are famous, then I feel they should not have porn written about them on the internet, and that covers a fair number of women who would be portrayed in footie fandom. You know I am always on the lookout for Andres Iniesta fic, but I don't want to read about Ana Ortiz, not because I want to pretend she doesn't exist to fuel a fantasy where Andres Iniesta is actually in love with me, or because I want to pretend she doesn't exist to fuel a fantasy where Andres Iniesta is actually in love with Xavi Hernandez, but because she's not famous and doesn't show any inclination of wanting to become famous, and I think it's disrespectful to write fanfiction about her as if she were.
And when it comes to places like Kickette, honestly, Kickette has a tendency to stray into the wrong side of creepy. The comments really do. I am (mostly) glad that Kickette exists as non-fanction-related proof of women being interested in football, but I really wouldn't take as a shining example any place that habitually has people posting with handles like "Mrs.DavidVilla"; RPF already has enough trouble with stalker types.
Basically, I think it comes down to this: there are a lot of fandoms out there that have really good het and femslash pairings, including most RPF. But if you really want female characters, you should try one of those fandoms, not football RPF.