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It's amazing that in 2009, a professional football league for women was born - in which the players wear only helmets, shoulder pads, shoes and bikinis. It's full contact, with blocking, tackling, passing and injuries. "True fantasy football," as the Lingerie Football League describes itself. Fantasy for men, of course. Game videos show what appear to be athletic swimsuit models mixing it up on the field, being cheered on by bleachers full of male fans. While this may have created professional opportunities for women in sports, depending how one defines sport, it also calls into question how far we've really progressed in the forty years of the modern women's movement. The fans willing to buy tickets to these games surely are more interested in the sight of nearly naked female bodies wrestling each other to the ground than in the athletic ability on display.
If I were a resident of a Middle Eastern nation defending local practices that seemed to Western sensibilities to be demeaning to women, I would cite Lingerie Football as an example of Western hypocrisy.
