There are two f-words that people often use in relation to me. (Maybe a third, depending on how much they hate me.)

“Feminism” and “football.”

These are two words that seem to have no correlation with each other whatsoever. We have our conceptions about people who identify as feminists and people who identify as football fans. Feminists are angry, fun-hating, man-hating, marriage-hating, sports-hating, lesbians who don’t shave and burn their bras to fight the man. Football fans are loud, brash men who drink beer and yell at people during tailgates about their fantasy league and how their losing-record team’s really going to come through this year and win a Super Bowl (cough, cough, Giants fans, cough, cough who said that I sure didn’t).

As with all things, however, stereotyping a certain group of people leads absolutely nowhere and is generally accurate. Sure, you’ll find a handful of angry, man-hating women who call themselves feminists (but are, by definition, female supremacists). But you also have an overwhelming population of women–and men!– of all shapes and sizes who believe in the social, economic, and political equality of the sexes. And, fine, there are plenty of screaming, beer-guzzling men who throw their phones at the television. But there are plenty of rational male fans as well as a large coalition of female fans of the game. I’ve met plenty of women who know more about the game than several men I’ve met.

So, sure, I’m not the typical football fan– mainly because I’m a female. But it’s not just the nature of my sex that makes me a strange candidate for one of the more frenetic football connoisseurs. It’s more of the fact that I identify as a staunch feminist and turn away from anything I find to marginalize women and football is often linked to the degradation of women. It’s a bit of a paradox and one that I, myself, struggle to understand and justify.

At its core, football is a violent sport designed to showcase physical strength. Men tackle one another for a living, resulting in several injuries per game and horrifying mental aftereffects. Even free agent safety Bernard Pollard, a notoriously dirty player (known for destroying Tom Brady’s knee, hurting Rob Gronkowski’s ankle, concussing Steven Ridley, and tearing Wes Welker’s ACL and MCL– does he hate the Patriots or something?), has been quoted as saying that he doesn’t think football will be around “in 20, 30 years” because “we all know what this game is about…it’s a violent sport.” Pollard went so far as to say that the annual NFL draft of players is a “meat market” of sorts. The biggest, fastest, strongest, most aggressive men are targeted to play, and the more athletically gifted the players are, the more violent the game becomes.

The violent nature of the sport combined with the high value placed on male physical strength leads to a grotesque display of hypermasculinity. Men who are hypermasculine believe that, in order to assert their masculinity, they must exaggerate the stereotypical male attributes of strength and dominance to a more aggressive level. They look at these football players and cheer for them when they serve out brutal hits or even get into a fight with another player. The perpetuation of this violence in the media correlates with a perpetuation of violence in the brain, particularly in the case of younger male fans. Hypermasculinity, unfortunately, inevitably leads to the marginalization of women– men feel the need to degrade women in order to assert their dominance over them.

And, of course, this leads to a culture of rape and domestic abuse. Rape culture is predicated on the need to display one’s power. Unfortunately, a staggering amount of the time, women are the victims of abuse. Thus, women are the general victims of hypermasculinity. If the sport is a gross display of male violence, then it should come as no surprise that many of the players themselves exemplify this aggressive nature in their own lives. There have been plenty of domestic violence allegations against NFL players; two prominent cases as of late have been running back Ray Rice and defensive end Greg Hardy. The NFL has not done nearly enough to deal with these problems; only recently did they start handing down stricter punishments, most of which have been poorly handled.

Add all of this to the fact that female fans of the sport are very rarely appealed to; the furthest the NFL goes in appeasing its extensive fan base of women is advertising its vast array of female clothing. The closest women typically come to the football field is as cheerleaders– scantily clad women to the metaphorical and literal side of the men. That’s why the hiring of the first female assistant coach this year and the first female referee was such a huge deal. There is an obvious gender disparity in the sports media as well, particularly in football; female analysts are far and in between, although the numbers have been increasing as of late. But, as a whole, the sport is about men and, thus, designed for men.

So why am I such a fan of this male-centric sport that blatantly disregards the interests of women? I don’t know. It is hard to justify my fascination with the sport. I acknowledge that the NFL is an organization that profits off of brute force and I take plenty of moral issues with it. In the end, it is an American pastime, a tradition that many would like to see ended, but many more expect to see continue.

I think the reason why I continue to warily watch the games and support my team to an insane level is because there’s a part of me hoping, deep down, that more female fans will come forth and express their discomfort with the sport. I hope that there are women, who, like me, feel uncomfortable enjoying a sport that perpetuates such a hypermasculine culture that only serves to hurt women.

Maybe one day I’ll stop justifying my involvement and stop watching altogether. For now, I can only hope that the league tries as hard to improve itself as it unwittingly did to make itself into the glorified monster it is today.