I've had to eat some humble pie, though. I was one of those people in high school who turned up my nose to soccer, convinced that I would never need to play it. I think that was really just an excuse I used to mask my insecurity at playing the darn game, but I've since made peace with that. I think the exact moment of peace might have come when I realized I was actually tolerable at soccer. Or when I got my first ball in the face. Yeah. That was memorable.
Anyway, I'm a physical soccer player. I don't have any fear of running into people or getting hurt...which is good because I seem to have a knack for it. I've been injured - not seriously, of course - a few times. All of them were due to men.
Which I have no problem with. It's not like the teams are equally proportioned or anything; if I'm going to be injured by anyone, chances are it's going to be a man. First, as aforementioned. I got hit in the ball with a face. Oops. I mean, vice versa. I also got a bloody nose to go with it. The guy who did it was actually a teammate, and it was definitely an accident. He sheepishly apologized, which was lovely of him, and I didn't really think much more of it until the next practice.
We were practicing corner kicks, and we were lining up in the goal box to block it. He came up to me. "You stand there," indicating the goal post nearest to the corner kick. "You won't get hurt there."
Part of me was like, dude. I know the risk. I don't mind getting hurt.
And then I thought about that. Was it possible that he felt guilty for hurting me?
A few weeks later, I was playing in a game and someone on the opposing team tripped me. I screamed and somersaulted on the muddy field, then kept playing (Yes. I screamed. It was a weird kind of fall, and I was kind of hoping the ref would call it. He didn't.) People told me later that they'd never seen my husband, who was playing at the time, move so fast. He apparently barreled towards me when he heard me scream.
The player who tripped asked me if I was okay. He sounded almost, well, panicked. "Are you alright?" I shrugged it off. "I'm fine." And I was. After the game, he asked me the same question.
In a different game, one of my teammates munched my teeny foot with his not so teeny one, and I yelped. He turned around, and with the same panicky expression and tone asked if I was alright. And all this got me thinking.
I wonder if men, at their core, know - just know - that they are not supposed to hurt women. That it's awful when they do - even if it's by accident. That even though I was fine and wasn't hurt, I had still been hurt by them. And that bothered them.
I had a good friend who had a part in a play where she was murdered. As she's dying, she screams an ear-shattering, gut wrenching scream. She told me later that all the men backstage started covering their ears during rehearsals - not because her scream was too loud, but because it did something to them.
They didn't like to hear a woman scream because it meant something was wrong.
I wonder, y'know? I wonder.
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