It was, of course, more made-up nonsense on Radio 4 this week when a listener’s use of the word Lionesses to denote the English women football team.
The caller asked why the women of England had to be lionesses, and not lions, as if this were some form of insult, as if lionesses were somehow less.
Hostess Emma Barnett tossed it over to her guest Anita Asante – 71 appearances for England, 2004 to 2018 – who no doubt worried about being on the wrong side of a direct response, but didn’t dismiss it as forcefully as she should .
A Radio 4 listener called to question the use of the word Lionesses to denote the women’s team
“We gendify everything,” Asante said. But that is not true. Gender is being removed from board-level roles and in many professions. A Best Actor and Best Actress award seems like an anachronism these days, an acknowledgment that women often miss out on the flashy roles, so need their own category. But then Asante hit the nail on the head. “To be honest, it’s been a great branding tool,” she said.
And that’s what it is. A brand tool. An invention by, you think, a mostly male marketing team employed by a national association desperately looking for a way to promote women’s football in England. And in that respect it has been brilliantly successful.
At a time when the women’s team had little fame, the Lionesses made them different and memorable.
Former England international Anita Asante (above) described ‘Lionesses’ as a branding tool
They didn’t always meet billing, but that wasn’t important. The Lionesses were the England women’s football team and the men were just England. And that was the real sexism. Not that they should be lions or lionesses, or any other nickname, but that they couldn’t just be England. And that England alone was good enough. Now it is.
On a personal note? Always hated the Lionesses surf and never used it. I’ve always felt that it was the construct of an FA marketing guy and that using it was too sociable and unobjective. Always felt that it put unnecessary pressure on the players. But Asante is right. It was a great branding and that’s how it worked. When the FA took charge of the England team in 1993, they were not the Lionesses, and very few actually knew who they were.
“It’s a way for fans to connect and connect with this group of players,” Asante continued, and that’s where we disagree. Not this group of players, for sure. Not anymore.
England striker Beth Mead doesn’t have to be a lioness to connect with the country
This is a great football team. They beat Sweden, the second-ranked team in the world – not just Europe, remember that – 4-0 in a semi-final and played outside the park in the second half. Norway was considered a threat in the group stage and was overwhelmed 8-0.
These are record-breaking deficits in a European tournament. Beth Mead doesn’t have to be a lioness to connect with the land. She could be Beth Mead, soccer player. Beth Mead, the tournament’s top scorer. The Lioness tag is harmless, but also unnecessary.
Because this is the change, this is the leap forward that the women’s game has pursued. From here on, the women have as much need to be Lionesses as the men have to be Lionesses. Because that was the rooted lie in the Women’s Hour discussion.
Who calls the England men’s team the Lions? It’s a song, a badge, and there’s an association that way, so when the team wins, Panthera-related puns dominate the headlines — but nobody’s saying they’re going to watch the Lions.
The team is now something even bigger and more powerful than Lionesses
They don’t buy tickets for the Lions, or follow the Lions to a World Cup. They are going to see England. And by this, it is implied, they mean the men of England. And that’s what changed this glorious run too.
Now, that statement may need the slightest clarification. England’s men or England’s women, because it’s not so great to have tickets for either or both. That is the achievement of this team. They have outgrown the need to be lionesses. They have outgrown the need to be something outside of themselves.
And in doing so, they have become something more than Lionesses, something even bigger and more powerful. This is England.