Should a man’s game also be played by girls
Roar Guru
By Michael C, 6 Feb 2010 Michael C is a Roar Guru
- Tagged:
- AFL, football, Melbourne Herald Sun, Rugby League, Rugby Union
In Thursday’s Melbourne Herald Sun, there was a curious little article heralding what appears to be October 2009 ABS survey stats that suggest that more boys are now playing Australian Football.
Waiting until February 2010 to release the results seems a bit odd. That aside, we’ve had debates last year around Jeff Kennett backing women to play AFL, and we’ve seen Herald Sun columnist Robyn Riley invite debate around the subject “Men’s footy is not for women”.
And at some point, one wonders why all sports seem to have to have a focus on increasing both male and female participation. For Rugby 7s to make the Olympics, they had to illustrate a high level of womens participation (real or imagined?).
But what’s wrong with retaining one or two modern ‘men’s games’.
When a coach attempts to fire up his charges and hollers, “It’s a mans game!!!”, you don’t want Ethan up the back saying: “Well, actually coach, all my sisters are playing it”.
The ABS survey stats were referenced from the 2009 Children’s participation in cultural and leisure activities. This has been run previously in 2000, 2003 and 2006 previously.
The survey allows for up to three sport nominations per respondent for most frequently played organized sports in Australia, outside of school hours, by Australian children aged between 5-14.
Figures 2003, 2006, 2009
Boys
Aust Footy : 13.6%, 13.8%, 16.0% -> +2.4%
Soccer (outdoor) : 22.2%, 19.6%, 19.9% -> -2.3%
Swimming : 15.7%, 16.5%, 17.2% -> +1.5%
Netball : 0.6%, 0.1%, 0.3%
Girls
Aust Footy : 0.7%, 0.9%, 0.9%
Soccer (outdoor) : 4.2%, 6.4%, 6.2% -> +2%
Swimming 17.5%, 18.2%, 19.8% -> +2.3%
Netball 18.1%, 17.3%, 17.0% -> -1.1%
Clearly, there’s a boy/girl hand in glove relationship in many cases, with footy Vs netball. Many of us have grown up with that being pretty well obvious.
Football has overall remained stable at 13.4% to 13.2%, but boys participation has fallen while girls’ has increased.
Australian Footy overall has risen from 7.3% to 8.6%.
All of which raises the question: are boys absolutely happy to be playing the same game as their sisters? And is it actually better that there ARE games that are seen as being gender specific?
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Rocky Mountain Man said | February 6th 2010 @ 3:39am | Report comment
I helped to get women’s footy going in Canada in 2007, and after three seasons we now have more women playing than men in Alberta, 90% of whom are Canadian. Women’s rugby is a popular sport in Canada, and footy appeals to those who find rugby too physical and soccer too mundane. Last year new women’s clubs played their first matches in four of Canada’s biggest cities – Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver and Edmonton – and we’ve seen sustained growth in participation year-over-year of 50%.
The reason I bring this up is that in Canada, Aussie rules isn’t viewed as a “man’s game” because really there isn’t a good awareness of the sport’s demographic in Australia. In fact, most of the girls playing in Canada are surprised to hear that it’s primarily a men’s game once they’ve been playing for a few months. In my experience with women’s footy, it’s only a benefit that our sport embraces both sexes. Why deny half of our societies the chance to play one of the world’s great sports?
andrewMc said | February 6th 2010 @ 6:28am | Report comment
I assume that survey was based in the Southern states or only Victoria??? Can you confirm?
Michael C said | February 6th 2010 @ 8:22pm | Report comment
Australian Bureau of Statistics national survey.
I’m not sure what their sample size was – normally they run around 14,000 -15,000.
btw – theRoar editors have gone and dumbed the article replacing soccer with ‘football’ – - which is pretty annoying on the Australian Football (League) tab in which ‘Australian’ (and common English language) disambiguation is used (“soccer”).
ah well.
andrewMc said | February 7th 2010 @ 4:05am | Report comment
A national survey…? So no boys or girls in Australia play Rugby league or Rugby union?
Michael C said | February 8th 2010 @ 7:58am | Report comment
They do indeed –
the numbers for RL for boys:
5.6% (2003), 7.9% (2006) and 7.0% (2009)
this put it below cricket, basketball and tennis.
RU didn’t appear singularly other than for 2009 overall, 3.8% Male, 0.1% female and 2.0% overall.
Punter said | February 6th 2010 @ 6:30am | Report comment
I wonder if there is a survey out there showing how many women attend sporting events. In some sports I tend to see that more women attend the games than other sport.
Reason for this;
Mothers or sisters being drag along as babysitters for their young son or brother who, especially in the southern states, have wall to wall coverage of certain sport & are hero worshipping.
Women attending to watch fit athletes running around in tight shorts. Surely if they have never played the sport, at any level, they can’t truely understand the game.
Are the women supporters of some sport (not all) the majority just along fro the hype due to this wall to all coverage.
I don’t know the reason, the attendances in the Premier league in England are mainly men, is this because of the poor weather & only the hardy, strong men who can handle the elements.
Then there is the Asian Champions League & their attendances are huge, is this because is this because in some of the cultures in Asia, especially in the middle east, the women aren’t encouraged to attend sport, even discouraged.
Should we like the author here, who split the participation rate between genger also do so with attendances & show which sport is really followed by real men, who will discuss the stats, best teams, best players & history of their sport at every opportune moment at the office, pub, BBQ & bus stop.
True Tah said | February 7th 2010 @ 10:08am | Report comment
Punter
for some reason, Australian football engages with female fans far more than most other sports. Remember Australia and NZ granted womens suffrage before anywhere else.
I dont know why EPL attendances are dominated by males, although I dont think it has much to do with the weather, probably more to do with the culture. In England, if you do not have a huge interest in futbol, you are seen to be strange, playing other sports and you are considered a ‘poof’ – perhaps with that sort of culture, its little wonder women do not attend the game as much as they could.
Im not sure if its still in place, but in Iran women cannot watch men play sports. There was a big issue recently when it was disclosed that a mens futbol team played a womens futbol team.
Towser said | February 8th 2010 @ 10:02am | Report comment
True Tah
Women dont attend English football ,quite simply because its the culture of the English working class that created English football culture. That is it is traditionally a sport,adopted origonally by working class males to escape the mundane toil of their factory/mining/wharf labourer etc existence.
Women were then, by tradition, excluded from attending football matches. That tradition has by & large stuck.
Nothing to do with calling anybody a poof if they didnt play or follow football. In fact even In Sheffield a passionate football town many of my mates didnt play or follow football.
Seems to be a judgement taken from afar that everybody in England is tarred by the football brush. There not & dont get castigated because of it.
Forgetmenot said | February 6th 2010 @ 10:26am | Report comment
We need to do more to promote the participation of football by girls.
The reason is simple. They want to play it. My sister in primary/high school really wanted to play football. She along with her friends pestered the school, and the football coaches to let her play, but to no avail. She tried out umpiring, and didnt enjoy it as much. Eventually she took the route of most girls, and played netball (along with hockey, swimming).
And no she isnt some man of a girl. All her friends wanting to play were as girly as you can get. They were the ‘cool’ crowd if you wish.
While we shouldnt alter our game to appeal more to girls (only to remove un-necessary violence), we should give the opportunities to play to those girls who want to play. This means more structured competitions around Australia following on from Auskick, in primary schools and high schools, as well sports days on weekends. If the girls want to play they should not be turned away with the words, “there are no more competitions for you”.
Tinnie said | February 6th 2010 @ 12:44pm | Report comment
Agreed, something needs to be set up in local areas for most poular Australian sports. The grey area seems to appear when physical sports are mentioned. But to say to a child “your not allowed to play the sport you love because you’re a girl” is far more damaging to thier self-esteem than any bumps and bruises they might sustain on the field.
bever fever said | February 6th 2010 @ 3:06pm | Report comment
My daughter plays footy here in Perth, loves it, a team environment is great for many people who find it hard to get motivated to play sport and you can make life friends, my daughter never had a great interest in footy untill meeting some players from our local club last year.
I have been to training and some games when possible and let me tell you the skills that some of the girls have are pretty good, a girl who was running around for Sth Freo last year (No22) would have been able to play amatuers around C grade IMO. And, no its not my daughter.
More power to the girls for having a go IMO.
In Perth the womens clubs are basically run along the lines of the WAFL clubs and play mostly on WAFL grounds so in that sense are pretty lucky with ground allocation.
In Perth their are 2 divisions in womens footy and i believe this year a under 23,s comp.
School footy midweek for the girls is also growing, but how many of these girls join a club remains to be seen.
Andyroo said | February 6th 2010 @ 3:59pm | Report comment
I don’t think you can get away with not catering for girls. Reading between the lines of the Crawford report participation rates are going to be very important wether they man, women, boy, girl or animal sign them up.
I don’t see how you can turn girls away and then in 15 years expect them to support or sponser your code. The people in charge of huge corporations or government policy are just as likley to be women so why you would willingly cede advantage to another sport is beyond me.
Making your sports “man only” is a good way to become the next bull fighting or fox hunting…not a good way to remain the number one code in Australia.
Random aside the W league outrates the Shute Shield (both on the ABC).
Michael C said | February 6th 2010 @ 9:23pm | Report comment
W league goes national – Shute Shield doesn’t.
MV Dave said | February 7th 2010 @ 6:59am | Report comment
One is female and the other is ALL (real) men!
Andyroo said | February 7th 2010 @ 9:40am | Report comment
Yes they don’t bother playing the shute shield nationally but that seems based on demand. If the W league games were more localised they would probably do better not worse.
As it stands now every team is guaranteed being on TV so you get last vs 3rd last rather than 3rd vs 4th because it’s Newcastles turn. It’s also the same game in all markets so people in Perth re expected to watch Sydney vs Canberra.
@ Forgetmenot, it wasn’t surprising for me. I don’t know many people that watch the w league but then I don’t know anyone that watches club rugby (and i know a fair few rugby fans). Ironicaly I think the Shute shield is more entertaining than Super rugby because of the style of play.
Forgetmenot said | February 7th 2010 @ 7:53am | Report comment
Thats very odd.
Probably where i live, but i have never ever seen anyone even flick onto W-league for a even a few moments.
I have however seen a lot of people watch the shute shield.
Moonface said | February 7th 2010 @ 9:23pm | Report comment
AFL isn’t the number one code in Australia for participation – ask Crawford.
There are no rules in any of the major football codes that excludes females from palying and they should be able to play any sport they want – its just how commercially viable their league will be for punters to pay to see it.
Maybe lingerie AFL might take off (no pun intended) – but that’s a sexist male comment . . .
http://images.google.com.au/images?hl=en&source=hp&q=lingere+football&um=1&ie=UTF-8&ei=c6RuS-H7KMmekQXujY3VBw&sa=X&oi=image_result_group&ct=title&resnum=4&ved=0CCcQsAQwAw
ballboy said | February 6th 2010 @ 6:07pm | Report comment
You simply can’t exclude girls from any sport that they wish to do. What era are we living in here? I coached wonmen’s rugby union for 5 years and they loved it. I also have a mate who works in a girl’s school as a PE teacher and he reckons the girls are up for all sports. It’s the mysogonistic views of some men that think that women either aren’t built for particular sports or that it’s not lady like. What rubbish. And as far as your remarks go Punter, I presumme you’re trying to wind someone up with your post. Yes?
Punter said | February 7th 2010 @ 6:38am | Report comment
Yes Ballboy it was, the aim of the author has been to discredit the high participation rate of football in this country by trying to prove that football’s recent increase is plainly due to the increase in women participation. Why that matters is beyond me.
I trained the women’s football team last week & they were discussing Nani’s mazy run the weekend before & their favourite football team & players. They were also discussing how eager they were in getting the season started. So nothing really different to men talk at their first training run of the season. Oh no, there was a difference, there was talk that certain players weren’t backing this year because they were …. yes pregnant.
MV Dave said | February 7th 2010 @ 6:57am | Report comment
Spot on Punter!
Moonface said | February 7th 2010 @ 9:28pm | Report comment
Michael C seems to have a history of discrediting football under any guise he can by bringing up attendance figures.
Yes. We know AFL has good attendance figures, but that doesn’t make it the number one code.
Your “survey” doen’t mention any League or Union figures – do they make the AFL figures look bad?
So what if its called football or Soccer – we know what you are talking about Michael.
Michael C said | February 8th 2010 @ 8:05am | Report comment
In reply to AndrewMc above – I’ve included the RL and RU figures,
I didn’t bother too much about sports outside of the top 3 or 4 range becuase then it’d get too numbers heavy.
I didn’t ‘exclude’ anything for any sinister reasons. The primary focus is that we have a male dominated sport in Aust FOotball that ranks similarly to a female dominated sport in netball. Then we have a rather more mixed sport in soccer where the recent trend is a growth in female participation.
Perhaps that’s an ideal mix, a boys mostly game, a girls mostly game and a middle ground game.
I still believe that it’s important socially for girls to have ‘girls time’ and boys to have ‘boys time’. Similarly – I’m dubious about girls being permitted into the Scouts – - but, perhaps if the girls attend an all girls school – then some ‘mixed’ recreation is appropriate. However, girls in a mixed school might benefit more from Guides. Point of it all I guess is – - depending upon circumstances, I reckon there’s a need to retain a little gender specificity!!! (somewhere).
Andyroo said | February 8th 2010 @ 10:17am | Report comment
Michael I don’t know what you are going on about with the Scouts that doesn’t apply too football at all. Most football clubs the girls have their own separate teams and organization for players older than 10 or 12. It’s just facilities that are shared and not at the same time.
I definitely think football will benefit in the future by being inclusive as those players become older and get into positions of key decision makers. So while your footy team only has one field while the space next door is tuned into netball courts the other footy team has two fields and Sharons dad is helping out with the building of a club house.
Australian Football said | February 8th 2010 @ 10:49am | Report comment
Maybe you should join the Taliban.
Really what are you MC?
~~~~~
AF
Redb said | February 8th 2010 @ 9:48am | Report comment
Mooface’s sport of choice in his profile appears wrong – whats on the dark side of the moon?
rugbyfuture said | February 6th 2010 @ 6:20pm | Report comment
I wrote an article a few days ago and got scathed by most on getting more women in Rugby (union), as far as im concerned Aussie rules is more compatable with getting women involved and should be doing all it can, it could attract an equal amount of woman into the game as soccer does, im not taking the piss here but in america when marketing it they describe it as soccer played on an oval with ball in hand. it has a good chance more than any other games which have so far been Male dominated and marketed (especially the mothers marketing approach).
Tifosi said | February 7th 2010 @ 8:15am | Report comment
Why not, those girls from the Lingerie Football League go pretty hard !!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gZcSEE7TuGU
Brian said | February 7th 2010 @ 2:31pm | Report comment
Clearly the European/African/Asian/Latin American societies confirm that men are happy to play the same sport as women. The biggest sport among Africa-Americans is basketball and that too is played by women. Michael C, are you suggesting Australian men are more chavanastic than nearly anyone else in the globe, needing to play their own sports.
Michael C said | February 8th 2010 @ 8:06am | Report comment
see answer above to Moonface.
cheers.