My best advice for girls who like sport
These are exciting times for women (and girls) in sport.
Who’d have thought that the first AFLW game played a few weeks ago would be a lockout? Who’d have thought it would have won its timeslot on television – who’d have thought it would even have been broadcast – hang on a second – who’d have thought there’d even be a national women’s league? If you’d said three years ago that women would be playing in a league of their own and be plastered all over the sports pages and have their own footy show, well, you’d have had your temperature taken and been gently escorted out of the room.
These are indeed exciting times.
But as much as we should sing from the rooftops we also need to keep a perspective on things.
Girls (and women) still don’t have the same opportunities and pathways as boys, not by a long shot. Getting access to the best facilities is still a real struggle in many sports and female sporting role models, although more visible than they used to be, are less prominent than male role models. Media coverage is still heavily skewed in favour of men – as are the sponsorship dollars and then there’s the question of the whopping pay gap…
All these factors contribute to teenage girls dropping out of sport and all these factors must to be addressed – so here’s my advice to girls who like sport.
Believe in yourself. And believe that you should be valued as much as any boy who cares about sport - you deserve the same opportunities. You have every right to express your body the way you want to and to test it to the limit.
You need to create your own version of what it means to be feminine, what it means to be a girl – that’s what equality is all about. Having the freedom to be who you are.
Don’t get drawn into the feminine stereotype that’s been constructed for you – the one that says a woman’s true worth is attached to her beauty. Treat that nonsense with disdain. Don’t tolerate sexism – if you’re in a conversation and someone’s denigrating women’s sport, call it out. Call them out.
Women’s sport matters. Girls matter.
Get out there and support women’s sport.
Watch your role models. Be inspired. Empowered. There are now a few elite competitions to choose from. Strong and powerful women role models aren’t as hard to find as when I was growing up. I had to be a man when I flew for a mark or kicked (one of my many) miraculous goals in the front yard – and for me it was only ever the front yard or the street because girls didn’t play Australian football – or any ‘masculine’ sport for that matter.
And you can’t be what you can’t see.
Be thankful you’re a girl in 2017 and not any other time in history.
Sport’s typically been considered a male pursuit for as long as men have been playing with their balls.
When Baron Pierre de Coubertin resurrected the modern Olympics in 1896, not much had changed from Ancient Greek times: women were still excluded from participating. The delicate Baron clearly needed to get out more: ‘His aesthetic sense was shocked by the sight of lightly clad, sweating women engaged in strenuous activity.’
Some nineteenth-century doctors believed that menstruation and reproduction were so exhausting that women could not (and should not) participate in physical exercise. Sitting on a bicycle was ‘said to induce menstruation and cause contracted vaginas and collapsed uteri’ – not to mention deplete the energy needed to conceive and bear healthy children.
We should draw strength from the fact we’re living in more enlightened times.
There’s still a long way to go, but women in sport are fighting back and finally breaking the mould and now it’s up to you girls to continue the fight to make sure the Australian sporting landscape is fair and welcoming for all.
