Sexism a constant companion in Swiss women's football

We are in the 1970s, a crucial time for women's football in Switzerland. A women's league was founded and the first official national team was formed. But the media still rarely took the players seriously. The comments were much more about their looks than their sporting achievements.

"The pretty Lucerne girls have only been playing together for half a year," is one comment in the press. Elsewhere, a journalist notes: "You can see a good game, and many of the girls are very beautiful and very slim". The tone is set: Condescension, sexism, devaluation.

The photographs illustrating the games reinforce this effect: the bodies are shown from often sexualized angles, with athletic performance pushed into the background. This way of dealing with the subject continued into the 1980s.

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When people talked about women's football, it was about the players' make-up, whether they were married or had families. There were even descriptions of how their breasts moved during a game. "In the 1970s, there were hardly any pictures of matches and the score was rarely mentioned in the articles," says researcher Marianne Meier from the University of Bern. She is co-author of the book "Das Recht zu kicken. The history of Swiss women's football".

Football before the right to vote

Paradoxically, Switzerland is one of the pioneers of women's football. It is worth remembering that women were already playing football before they were given the right to vote in 1971, explains Meier. By comparison, Germany had its first national team in 1982, Italy in 1986 and Austria in 1990.

But this early momentum was not followed by any real support. In other countries, fixed structures were established after the national team was recognized, says Meier. There was nothing like that in Switzerland. The women started early, but were then overtaken in the 1990s.

The 1990s are a good example of this lack of recognition and the resistance that still exists. In 1994, the men's section of the Wettswil-Bonstetten club in Zurich was disbanded on the grounds that there were "too many lesbians".

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This move caused a shock wave: Stern TV and the BBC reported on the case, while Blick spoke of a "sex scandal" at a football club. "It was one of the few moments when women's football was briefly in the headlines in the 1990s, but for the wrong reasons," says Meier.

Inequalities at all levels

On a structural level, the inequalities remain. In Switzerland, football is considered professional football as soon as a player earns more than 500 francs a month.

The problem is that the official status does not reflect reality. When people talk about "professional", they imagine someone who can make a living from it. "This is clearly not the case for most women," emphasizes Meier. This definition perpetuates the huge gap between men and women.

If there is a clash of dates on a pitch, the men's Super League takes priority, followed by the Challenge League and only then the women's Super League. The boys U15 to U16 are in seventh place, the girls U15 to U16 in thirteenth, says the researcher.

This imbalance is reflected in the media presence. One example of this is the upgrading of the Axa Women's Super League, whose matches have only been broadcast live on television since 2020. "It's not enough to put the national team in the spotlight. We need to support the entire women's league and make it visible," demands Meier.

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