In the men’s Eredivisie, FC Twente had almost finished drying Ajax off on Sunday when girlfriend W called. If I went to the ceremony. “The Ajax women should not be honored,” I said. I wasn’t sure what explanation to give her. Edwin van der Sar’s or my mother’s.
Van der Sar feared a low turnout. Also, a tribute was not appropriate now because the women already had the title at the beginning of May. The supporters associations didn’t think so either. Leidseplein was not good. And there was a lack of joy because of the men’s poor performance. Their closing low was yet to come: losing 3-1 to Twente and the Grolsch Veste saying goodbye to Steven Berghuis who tried to punch a supporter for his racist resins.
I had previously presented Van der Sar’s arguments to my rabid feminist mother. She immediately went wild with bedtime stories from the past. Not awarding a tribute to women is due to deep-rooted misogyny. It arose when the first men learned to count and realized that fewer men than women were needed for reproduction. For fear of losing the womb on legs to competitors, the weaker among the men chained women. Everything was invented to keep her home. Don’t study, don’t play sports, don’t drive, high heels. Anything so that bitch wouldn’t stand on her own and leave, and if she was already inside, she might as well do the housework. Those weaker men also made up the war as wildlife management to get rid of the strong men.
When I couldn’t sleep my mother would tell me about Freud, who called out penis envy and didn’t see that uterine envy is much bigger and deeper. She thinks that’s the biggest hoot in male psychiatry. You hardly saw women at universities at the time. Men of learning were more concerned with the development of weapons than of wombs. If they had focused on that, then all world directors, including those of Ajax, could have reproduced in a jerry can for a long time. Then the Ajax women could be honored without jealous man’s whining. So not now.
“That honor will come,” said friend W. “Tomorrow. In Lifelong, in East.” She sent me a link announcing the rebel tribute. Inside there was room for six hundred people. Lifelong lives in the boiler room of the old Bijlmer prison. An appropriate place, because even though women and their football are free in the Netherlands, they are still in an old prison without parties.
I arrived extra early. Mostly men were present. Brave and brave, they lugged heavy things to the party room. More and more people in Ajax shirts trickled in. In the meantime it was known that the Ajax women would come. In limousines. In order to drive in the player bus, the Ajax management should have been involved in the honoring of their players. For a moment I feared that if the party was in full swing, the management would lock the place. Everyone in that prison and not out. Fortunately, locking up is no longer allowed, but complete ignoring is.
Caroline Trujillo is a writer.
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