Why do the Dutch not seem to care about the Women’s World Cup? They’re generally much bigger fans of football (soccer) than Americans, and they’re generally much more concerned with gender equality. Yet people here in the Netherlands simply don’t seem to care at all about women’s football (soccer). The Women’s World Cup a total non-event.

It’s odd to have American friends asking me about the Women’s World Cup, yet hearing almost nothing about it through the Dutch media. I’m sure some of this has to do with the fact that America has a good team this year, whereas the Dutch team didn’t even make it into the tournament. But still… I wonder if there are greater societal forces at work in this situation. I’m probably one of the least-qualified individuals to offer commentary on this particular situation, so I’d be curious to know if anyone else has a better theory. But it seems to me that football (soccer) is one of the unique areas of American sports culture where women have an equal—if not even superior—footing with men; whereas the sport is still one of those last bastions of Dutch machoisme.

In American sports culture, football (soccer) is not considered as “manly” of a sport as American football or basketball. Don’t ask me why: it just is. Therefore, professional-level football (soccer) generally gets less attention from most American men. And since men also tend to be the primary sporting enthusiasts, professional-level football (soccer) generally gets less attention from the American public at-large. However, football (soccer) is still promoted at lower levels of competition, presumably because it’s a relatively inexpensive sport with broad international appeal. Therefore, when such an opening is allowed for American women, in a generally sports-obsessed culture, the considerable resources of the United States (material resources as well as human resources) are brought to bear—and the results are a very competitive, very successful team. And since Americans enjoy success (like most cultures of the world probably do), their success attracts attention, which in turn breeds further success… and further attention.

In contrast, it seems to me that Dutch football (soccer) is one of the rare elements of Dutch culture where one actually runs into the grunting, brawling, chest-thumping, beer-drinking stereotypes of “manliness.” Could it be that this phenomenon is to an extent that Dutch women playing football (soccer) justs seem weird or out of place: perhaps similar to the idea of women in the USA playing American football or ice-hockey (not unheard of, but still not very popular)? Consequently, there aren’t very many girls football (soccer) clubs here in the Netherlands. And thus, there aren’t very many women’s football (soccer) players who make it to the highest levels of competition.

Am I missing anything here? Could it just be that I’m completely uninformed? Why do these distinctions seem so pronounced? What do the differences say about our cultures?