COULD WOMEN’S SOCCER HELP
END TOXIC MASCULINITY?
To build investment and a bigger fan base, Women’s Super League games need to entice boys and their dads. Could this also solve gender disparity?
At the Emirates Stadium in 2024, a newsflash illuminated the LED wraparound screens embedded within the stands. An announcement came over the tannoy, and in an instant, a roar of applause reverberated through the crowds in harmonious synchrony. 60,160, it read. “A record-breaking attendance for the Women’s Super League,” cheered the voice.
This was Arsenal’s WSL game against Manchester United. The Gunners’ women’s team has played an increasing percentage of its matches in the men’s stadium since 2019, when attendance started to climb for the women’s games in the aftermath of the World Cup. After the Lionness’ won the Euros, demand skyrocketed. Today, the Emirates’ stands were filled with little girls wearing red ribbons in their hair to match their football jerseys and families on a day out; it was a Saturday afternoon, and groups of teens had also come to hang out. Studio Beyond was on the ground, and the atmosphere was warm, inviting, and family-friendly. Those words are not the first that come to mind when recounting Premier League games, where the vibe is raucous and testosterone-fuelled. The women’s games are, in that sense, gold for marketers.
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The women’s games are also relatively affordable—another facet that is not typically associated with the men’s football. Tickets for WSL matches at the Emirates start at £18 for adults and £9 for kids; men’s games cost between £78-£145.50 for seats against Manchester United, and for kids, the cheapest seat is £39. Amid the soaring cost of living, these prices are unrealistic for many families. Men’s football has become a spectator sport for the affluent. The WSL and women’s games globally have an opportunity to fill the gap. WNBA tickets are still cheaper than the NBA; seats at the women’s Six Nations cost between £10-20, compared to £90-200 for the men’s games.
WSL athletes are playing with stunning technicality, and the games are dramatic. It’s entertaining, not just in stadiums, but on television. “We live in a world where if you put the word ‘women’ in front of the word sport, there’s an automatic discount to it,” said Nikki Douket, chief executive of the WSL, in an interview with GQ. “We’re still having to educate the valuation but you shouldn’t use the same formula for men’s and women’s football.” The women’s game is different, but it’s not sub-par; Olivia Smith’s $1 million contract with Liverpool broke world records in July 2025, following Naomi Girma’s $1.1 million (£820k) to Chelsea in January 2025. “These are elite players. Smith is one of the best young attackers in the world right now… When fans see [women] players being worth a million pounds, you want to watch that.”
We are in an age when the costs of a ticket typically correlate to the experience—think of gig or theatre tickets, for example, where seats are ranked by cost and the cheapest seats have a restricted view. There’s an education that needs to be done by club owners to communicate that women’s games are different, but not lesser, than the men’s games. Of course, elements like attendee count impact the overall experience; men’s games always sell out, so the noise and energy in the stadium will always feel more immersive than a women’s match that’s at 50-75 percent capacity. The more people attend, the more atmospheric the experience will become. Arsenal was able to hit 60k capacity because it had strategically pushed the women’s games in recent years, both in ticket initiatives and in marketing. In 2025 however, demand slowed to an average 28,808 per game.
“The atmosphere at Premier League games is raucous and testosterone-fuelled; the Women’s Super League games are warm, inviting, and family-friendly.”
On top of this, women’s teams are still fighting for equal pay. The WNBA’s well-documented campaign is ongoing; many of the Lionness’ had full-time jobs when England won the Euros in 2022. Midfielder Jill Scott was back working in a coffee shop just days after the team lifted the trophy. The affordability of ticketing and ratio of matches that don’t sell out hinder bigger investment into the women’s games, from salaries to infrastructure; any non-Emirates matches for Arsenal Women are played at Meadow Park, which has a capacity of 4,500. This significantly limits growth. This is on top of the fact that women’s football has been a professional sport for only a tenth of the time the men’s game, with a fraction of the investment and participation. There are many hurdles that are hindering the game.
Marketing women’s football to men (and young boys) will drive attendance, investment and attention. Amplifying those would have the knock-on effect of ensuring women’s games are streamed regularly on mainstream television; fans have struggled to watch WSL matches in the past.
Inviting men and young boys to participate in women’s sport could also have more profound consequences. There is a huge opportunity for women’s football to be seen as a solution against toxic masculinity and the growing numbers of young boys adopting problematic views. The atmosphere of typical men’s matches could be described by some as intimidating—it’s noisy, and people use foul language and hurl insults. Often, emotion turns into anger, with aggression being the one stereotypically “acceptable” form of masculine expression. This has historically turned into bar fights and post-match brawls; there is a reason local police forces are on highly visible patrols around major men’s games. Football is the only sport where this is necessary.
This culture around men’s games is arguably the most visible version of toxic masculinity that exists in culture today. Added to that, in recent years, there has been a number of high-profile footballers accused of rape and sexual assault against women. In a study for the University of Birmingham, Dr Alexandra Consterdine (School of Sport, Exercise and Rehabilitation Sciences) wrote: “The privileged position of football in the national consciousness means that the behaviour and actions of players…contribute towards the (re)production of cultural attitudes, expectations, norms, and in this case, the perpetuation of misogyny and toxic masculinity in football culture.” Why do we want our young boys to inherit and be influenced by all this?
“Football is an opportunity to show boys from a very young age that women deserve an equal playing field to men.”
That family-friendly, inclusive feel of women’s games could be a serious course corrector. This makes the women’s games actually more evolved than men’s, from a societal and cultural perspective, at least. Normalising men supporting women can stop old ideas about women being “lesser” from taking root. Boys going to women’s games and learning how to cheer for women builds an innate respect and tackles misogyny. Let’s educate our way toward a healthier version of masculinity through a format that is fun—football. Football is an opportunity to show boys from a very young age that women deserve an equal playing field to men, both literally, and in life. It could curb early-onset gender bias which subconsciously becomes engrained and filters into every aspect of adult life, from workplace hierarchy to underfunded medical studies. Women are 14 percent less likely to be promoted than men with similar performance, according to a study by Yale and MIT; in academia and construction, the figures reach 28 and 33 percent. Women across all sectors have unreached potential.
The growth and success of the women’s games should not be confined or predicated to girls and female fans alone. To eradicate gender disparity, it simply can’t be. Teams and organizations need to go heavy on marketing the women’s games to men and boys—which drives up engagement, ticketing and investment. Creative marketing campaigns have a role to play. What visuals, videos or even Instagram reels can feed the algorithm of dads who might never have thought of taking their kids to a women’s game; what storytelling can be done around the ticket prices, the technicality of the game and the fact a women’s match has yet to end in violence? Often, men won’t be what they can’t see, and to go into women’s spaces takes a certain level of cultural permission. Clubs need to get into the stands and visibly capture men and boys showing up to games.
Fun, engaging campaigns that express gender equality in a meaningful way are urgently needed. It’s relevant not just to sports clubs, but brands and marketers of all industries.. The gender divide starts so early, with toys, clothes, sports and even colours that reinforce those stereotypical biases.
To stop toxic masculinity, young boys need to truly understand that it’s okay to embrace their feminine energy. And for that, they need to see examples on a regular basis; we need it to permeate their peripheral so often, it becomes a part of their psyche. A huge driver of the divide between men and women in popular culture currently is the fact that women are in their masculine era of professional, personal and sports-related success, and men feel aggrieved. Why is this? Because they were rarely taught that it was okay to embrace softness. Kids of the Nineties grew up with Action Men, the Power Rangers and Grand Theft Auto. That implicit messaging of the product should read like an alarm.
Women’s football matches are just one lens through which, societally and generationally, we can start to have really meaningful conversations that change our culture for the better. And for that, we need visibility, not just cup-related victory.
By Grace Cook, Nicola Strange and Ben Gallagher. image credits: Pinterest, Sky Sports, Manchester United. Images are used for editorial purposes only; all rights belong to their respective owners.