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This article won’t be about the media, national sporting organisations or corporate business and the lack of recognition of women’s sport across sponsorship, media or administration.
I believe that to truly alter recognition in this area, we must start with the most fundamental change in culture that is being overlooked by all of us – in primary schools.
As Chief Executive of Hockey Australia, I have read with interest the various discussions about better equality for women’s sport in Australia. I have entered the discussion at times in my current role, focusing on how a sport like hockey has that equality entrenched.
As a starting point, we have athlete agreements, not Hockeyroos or Kookaburras agreements – the athletes are equal in Hockey Australia. We also put a greater amount of commercial income into the women’s program to ensure both our teams have equal success at the Olympics, as each gold medal is worth the same to us and we pursue both prizes equally.
I confess up front – in my previous sports administration roles in the football codes of AFL and NRL, this topic wasn’t high on my agenda. The leadership required of a great CEO to make fundamental change as well as being in a sport that is culturally as strong on gender recognition as hockey is in Australia has influenced my perspective for the better.
Thus I feel I have something to contribute to the ongoing discussion, but it mightn’t be what you expect.
One of the starting premises must be that the word recognition is more important than equality. Do we seriously lower the debate to equality in a society like Australia?
Point to an example where women in sport don’t pursue their aims as passionately as men.
No, the word in this discussion that is critical is recognition – women simply don’t get the recognition they deserve for the same output.
However, to instigate change I’ll try not to get too caught up in the semantics equality versus recognition. I want to look at this issue creatively, not reactively.
The basic change is in what I call ‘sport in play’.
At primary school, are girls being given an equal chance to participate in sports? I don’t mean in Physical Education classes, but in the playground?
Before school starts each morning, when a basketball is being thrown, a football is being kicked, even the non-Olympic sports of four square or downball are being played – how many girls are participating?
Even more importantly, at lunch time, when the mad scramble for sports gear begins, how many young girls are pushing to the front of the queue?
I believe this is fundamentally one of the cultural hindrances to involving more girls in sport and increasing recognition of girls in sport.
From the earliest age girls aren’t given the chance in that most basic of areas, such as sport in play, for recreation and social interaction. And we the adults aren’t intervening to make the correction that slowly infiltrates the whole sporting system and sets the bias occurring.
Unequal recognition of girls would never be allowed to occur in a maths class, an arts class or even in PE. Yet fundamentally kids learn and grow as much in the playground at primary school as they do in the classroom, yet we don’t ensure girls get the same chance in that area.
It is not a criticism of overworked teachers and potentially underfunded primary schools – all of us, men and women without the status of teacher or parent, are responsible for the cultural change required.
I believe it is critical that teachers and parents address this fundamental behavioural change now. We must intervene as early as possible to create change.
It might require that half the sports equipment be held over for girls, or parts of the play areas for sports held for girls at lunch time and before school.
It also mightn’t need to be that structured.
Teachers on duty don’t need to know sports or how to teach them the technicalities, but need to provide the space and equipment for girls to play sport more. Likewise, parents dropping off the kids in the morning, particularly Dads, can help facilitate that ‘sport in play’ opportunity by instigating more girls’ involvement.
But it requires intervention as it won’t happen without it, and we shouldn’t be expecting it from the children.
I have confidence that children will understand and accept it, and then make the generational change towards better recognition of women in sport as they grow older. They will become the next group of leaders and parents.
A bias towards helping girls in ‘sport in play’ will be more beneficial here than intervention at a later stage, where change is a lot harder and the culture of recognising male sport over female sport is more ingrained.
The basic social engagement, and the use of ‘sport in play’ instigated in primary school will flow through to all aspects of sports development, and to the high-performance outcomes at Olympic and professional level. Eventually this will works its way into the commercial space as well.
Fundamental cultural change like this occurs over a generation. But the generation of my nine-year-old daughter three-year-old son will see sport as a vehicle of equal recognition and equality, and break down any lasting barriers.
The Australian Sports Commission’s Sporting Schools Australia program that has recently begun, and will be in full swing in 2016. It is important for increasing participation in sport and encouraging healthier kids, and will help considerably, but it’s not designed to solve the cultural issue.
Real change can occur in those impressionable minds in primary school, and will ensure that the next generation sees sport like maths; purely as something important, but divorced from gender stereotypes.
Then we can leave the improvement strategy to recognise women in sport to carry on for the next decade through sporting administrators, politicians, journalists and sponsors, while this generational change occurs. We, the current leaders, still have our role to play, and there are tangible benefits in seeking this improvement.
Thank you my daughter Jorja who brought this issue to my attention.
As we have just celebrated Father’s Day, I would ask that more men enter this discussion. Women don’t need to be solely responsible for this topic. It is about cultural change for the better, for everybody.
Cam Vale is the CEO of Hockey Australia