I guess Boston commuters have never seen a female football player before.

Okay. I know my bag’s big, and I know it smells, and I know when the T pulls into Park Street, the jersey-clad, half-crunked Red Sox fans are not going to part like the Red Sea. But every practice night, every game day, it’s the same ritual once they notice the insignia: Boston Militia Women’s Football. Stares. Whispers. Fingers pointing. Feet shuffling. General anxiety and confusion. And when there are two of us, well, that’s just too much to handle. Even small children cry.

Before the corpse-sized bag, I carried my helmet and shoulder pads in one hand, my cleats in the other. Somehow, that warranted less stares, whispers, pointing and shuffling. Mostly because those jersey-clad, half-crunked Red Sox fans seemed to think I played lacrosse. Without a stick. But a female lacrosse player, that’s believable. Female football players? They’re myths, like unicorns, and Bigfoot.

Women’s sports in general face a lot of adversity. Most have no future outside of college, and others, like women’s lacrosse and hockey, are neutered to the point of boredom. And for my team and me, the men on this forum make us feel like bobble-heads rather than football players. Mud? Sex? Victoria’s Secret lingerie? Stupid perverted fantasies that remind me of the time I snuck downstairs as a kid and found my father watching Jell-O wrestling on Pay-Per-View.

Personally, I doubt these guys have stepped foot on a field since Pop Warner. And I’d love to line them up on the 50-yard line during one of our practices and have them talk about our “quarterback making deep penetration when the tight end is wide open in the end zone.” They wouldn’t leave with balls, let alone footballs.

And I think our 6’0”, 200 pound tight end would be the first to score.