There's bunting across the street where I live. My local pub goes from pin-drop quiet to eruptions of "uurghhhoo" and "yeeaaahhhhh!". Still warm and fuzzy from the joy of the Olympics two years ago, I hanker to join an emotional ride with fellow spectators again, but the World Cup is different, as is the Tour de France. There's no Jessica Ennis or Victoria Pendleton to aspire to or root for because these events include male competitors only.

This puts me in a quandary. Men's football is loved in Britain simply because the players are men, and men like watching other men play football, and what men like to do and like to watch is, de facto, culturally important. Even the fact the men's World Cup is not explicitly stated to be a men's competition erases women – I predict there will be little fuss made of the Women's World Cup in Canada next year. So do we women sideline ourselves by boycotting the games or do we take up space and holler along because it is fun and exciting? You could argue that the Fifa World Cup is also ageist and disablist (footballers are doomed to retire as soon as their wisdom teeth fully descend and disabled people are tacitly excluded – let's not forget that a former England coach was even sacked for his dodgy views) and there is a difference in football's relationship with women.

British men's football is so deeply sexist that even the boss of the Premier League engages in email conversations where women are referred to as "gash". Male footballers are boys' role models, yet have been openly violent towards us.

Paul Gascoigne led a generation of males to sport the "Gazza" haircut, yet his popularity was only mildy dented by the sight of his partner Sheryl skulking past the paparazzi with a face swollen and bruised by his fists. Ched Evans was convicted for raping a drunk teenager, but incredulous fans started the #freeched hashtag and outed the victim. Football fans themselves create a demand for the trafficking of women and girls into prostitution.

Instead of boycotting football, the presence of women is key to breaking the uninterrupted circle of sexism. Any woman who has been humiliated by sexual bullying or harassment by groups of men knows it's the exclusion of women that fosters this male bond and makes it easy to stereotype us as "gash", wags or nags. The mockney trinity of "beer, birds and football" has been uniting men in retro-sexism across all divides of politics and class since the 1990s and this needs to end.

So why not watch the men's tournament to psych ourselves up for our World Cup next year? If it starts to get infuriating, as it probably will for any woman with her consciousness half-raised, imagine the players are women. Don't compromise "ladette-style" by joining in with cries of "gawaan my saaaahn!" at your local, but practise calling out "get in there, girl!" – for the sheer subversive amusement if nothing else. Steer the conversation with football fans to ask whether they are considering going to the World Cup in Canada next year. In fact, wherever there is men's football, just keep talking about women's football until everyone around you sees this man-focused football for the weird anachronism that it is.