General News
3 September, 2023
Be strong and call out female sport abuse at first opportunity
LOCAL PERSPECTIVE By Cr WENDY MURPHY HOW fantastic is it that the Matilda’s, a women’s sports team, have inspired a Nation? A whole nation jumped on board to support the team. The Prime Minister was going to give us a public holiday if they won...
LOCAL PERSPECTIVE
By Cr WENDY MURPHY
HOW fantastic is it that the Matilda’s, a women’s sports team, have inspired a Nation? A whole nation jumped on board to support the team.
The Prime Minister was going to give us a public holiday if they won the Soccer World Cup. His Government has committed $200 million to a new Play Our Way program to improve sporting facilities and equipment specifically for women and girls.
But is it going to do much? Only a few years ago, $150 million was announced by the Morrison Government for the Female Facilities and Water Safety Stream program.
The principal objective of that program was to ensure that there were changing facilities and other facilities to support more girls and women’s participation in sport all around the country.
This program may have been caught up in the ‘Sports Rorts’ saga so it’s hard to know where all of that funding ended up (other than in colour coded spreadsheets).
Is the excitement of the Matildas just short lived hype? Aussies love jumping on a bandwagon, but can jump off just as quickly when the next thing comes along.
Remember the 2020 ICC Women’s Cricket T20 World Cup final played at the MCG where 86,174 people were in the crowd?
All the hype around how that would inspire girls to take up cricket. Ash Barty and the ‘Barty Party’ winning the title at Wimbledon in 2021 then the Australian Open in 2022 inspiring young girls to take up tennis.
The 2019 AFLW Grand Final in Adelaide before a crowd of 54,034 would, we were told, inspire girls to take up AFL football. Is $200 million going to do anything in the long run?
The Aussie Women’s cricket team won the Ashes in England in June and July of this year. The Aussie netballers won the World Cup less than a month ago. Flash in the pan success and on to the next story.
Things are a long way from change. The biggest change really needs to be attitudes and behaviours.
Two weeks ago at a local footy game, three men yelled abuse at an 11-year-old female boundary umpire because they didn’t agree with her call.
Even when pointed out to them they were abusing an 11 year old girl, they replied with ‘She’s getting paid for it’.
They thought it was okay to abuse a young girl because she was getting paid to contribute to a sport she loves.
While watching the Matildas play a comment was heard from some men that “Sam Kerr is good, but she runs like a girl”.
Of course she does. She is a girl. AFLW player Tayla Harris was captured in the iconic photo snapped by Michael Wilson kicking for goal. Instead of appreciating her skill, the image was manipulated and vial misogynistic comments made.
How does this make girls want to take up sport?
We are only just starting to come to the realisation that it might not be the facilities alone that encourage females to participate in sport.
Things like uniforms play a part. Not everyone is comfortable wearing a tight dress playing netball.
Puberty can add to the self-consciousness. Social media makes it easy to share unflattering or even embarrassing photos. It takes everyone to make sporting places a safe place for females to want to be at and feel safe to participate.
Above all it takes strong people to create that environment by calling out the abuse at the first sign.
* Wendy Murphy is the Loddon Shire’s Inglewood Ward councillor