Sport of Gentlemen, and Women.

 

So I just finished my glass of wine to celebrate New South Wales winning the first game of the State of Origin and it has me thinking; the packed stadium, the great athletes, the huge pay checks and sponsorship deals and the fact that this kind of thing only happens with men’s sport. There is actually no Womens sports events that compare to the scale of the State of Origin, and I do not accept the premise that there are no women in any sport that are as good as the men who play rugby.

 

I also have been known to enjoy the odd soccer game in my time as well. I’ve been to A league games and been amazed at the number of people who attend the games, even though soccer is not a sport that has always had huge followings in Australia. But I also watch the W league, which my first gripe starts with the fact that the Men’s football league is called the A, and the women’s the W. While the Womens games are played at small local size fields. But it doesn’t end there the male players are paid well enough that it is their career and the women hold down other jobs or study at University because they aren’t paid enough for it to be their living.

 

My hometown of Broken Hill a few years ago started a women’s AFL league and it has been a huge success, they have several teams and it is quite competitive. Although it reminded me of when I was younger and still living there where I played cricket until I was twelve and I was told I couldn’t play on the boys team anymore and that there was no women’s hard ball team. I was really unhappy about the fact that I was pushed out of the team that I had played in for several years simply because I was a girl.

 

While I was reminiscing over my dabble in sports and contemplating how crappy it is that women athletes are still overlooked I came to a realization and that is that women’s sports are at the stage that men’s sports were in the 70’s. Back when AFL players were garbage men so they could stay fit, and cricketers were all poor because they had to take three months off every year to travel. I have to admit I have my moments of enjoying watching the big games, when the State of Origin rolls around (and this year I can watch the blues win for the first time in years) and when Melbourne Victory play Adelaide United and I can hassle United supporters. I also have made an effort to watch women’s sports, I really can get around Canberra United they are a great team, and the Adelaide Thunderbirds who I am tipping to win this year. However you know I actually really enjoy watching the women’s leagues, they are great athletes and when they are paid on par with male athletes they will only get better because they will have more time to put into the game.

 

So I am happy that the gap is closing and sure that the gap will completely close shortly. I can only hope that it doesn’t take as long for women to be paid enough to make a decent career out of it as it did for men.

 

Mikaela Wangmann

National Women’s Officer 2013

The backlash isn’t over yet. It’s only the beginning.

I spend a significant amount of my time, both professional and personal, talking about female leadership. Why it’s important, why we need more female leaders and why, despite the fact we have a woman in the highest elected office in the country, women continue to have their leadership and authority undermined in society.

This is a problem that exists within almost every political situation and organisation. I speak to women who are presidents, convenors, elected returning officers and prominent within their workplaces and they tell me the same stories. They are being undermined by virtue of their gender.

Men continue to assume their supremecy in leadership, negotiation and relationship building. Worryingly, there are many women who also seem to believe this. They will undermine, undervalue and speak with disrespect about the abilities of female leaders in a way that they never do of men.

Julia Gillard was last week attacked by Germaine Greer on national television. Told she had a ‘big arse’ and that she needed to accept that. Sorry, what? That’s the level of the debate that we can now expect from one of the most celebrated feminists in Australia. Of our first female PM, you’ve got a big arse, accept it. A generation of women who may have looked at the Prime Minister and felt that the sky was the limit of their capacity can rest assured that the glass ceiling will remain, in the form of a feminist critique of your ‘big arse’.

Backlash against the gains made by women exists across the political spectrum, from the far left to the far right. A culture that celebrates and promotes women is a grand conspiracy against men. Affirmative Action targets endanger the assumed place of men within political organisations. Infuriating as it is, what we as women wear and who we sleep with continue to be used against us by both women and men.

We’re told to be quiet, sit silently and wait for the problem to be solved. Rowdy women seldom are promoted in the real world. This seems to go against how the fight has been won in the past. We need to speak up and stop being afraid of the consequences. If the worst thing someone thinks to say about me is I have a big arse and should deal with it, or that i’m a man hater, lesbian, slut then I’m cool with those consequences. Lord knows, I’d be in some quality company.

There exists an upside to this though, a community of female leaders that grows stronger with every part of this backlash. The women that tell me these stories and the women that support them. Because we have to fight to be recognised behind every strong and powerful female leader there exists a community of mentors, mothers, daughters, sisters, friends and allies who got her there. Strengthen this community, join it, our backlash isn’t over yet.