Hello r/MensRights, feminist and mra here. I’d just like to ask about experiences with competitiveness when it comes to young boys.

I grew up with an autistic brother in the uk. Here in the uk were very obsessive over football, and if you’re a young boy, you basically have to like it to even be considered Male. It was kinda the norm to send your son to a football club, wether he expressed interest in the sport or not.

One thing I noticed when sending him to these clubs is that they were extremely competitive. The coaches treated these 6-8 year old boys like they were professional premier league football players. Keep in mind, these are young boys who just want to kick a ball around, but because of the competitiveness forced onto them, some boys would literally go to these clubs and sit out for the entire game because “you’re not good enough to play”. I’ve asked Male friends at school about this and they’ve told me about similar experiences.

I’m physically disabled so I can’t do sports, but before we knew that my mum would send me to a cricket club for 6-8 year old girls. In my experience, we were very chill when it came to playing the game and no one had to sit out because they “weren’t good enough”. But it just got me thinking about how you tend to see this idea of taking fun extremely seriously when it comes to young boys.

I have no idea what it’s like in other countries, maybe it’s just the fact we’re so passionate about sport in the uk. I’d just like to hear to opinions/ experiences with this kind of stuff from a men’s rights perspective, as I can’t really commentate much on it because I never experienced it first hand.