Why can the guys strip down, but not the girls?

Interesting comment onside and nicely put. The question of course, then, is how do these women become recognisable? Andrew Symonds is recognisable, even to non-cricket lovers, because of regular media coverage. But women's sport rarely gets media coverage, except the swimmers. The usual argument is that 'the media only gives the public what it wants', but this might be a bit of a chicken-and-egg argument....I would argue that the media can very heavily influence what the public wants. Compare rugby league 30 years ago versus now. And why did so many Australians get up at 5.30am in the morning in 1983 to watch an Aussie boat win the America's Cup? Nobody could have given a rats about sailing until the media started hyping the 7-race event, as the Aussies got closer to a win we had full-on articles with photos, details etc until everyone was an expert on winged keels, Ben Lexcon etc. So it became as talked about as any footy grand final. I reckon that it would be worth an experiment to see if the media could do that to a few women's sports, eg netball - regular newspaper articles and tv soundbites, photos and articles as big as the weekly tripe we get about Michael Clarke etc etc, a bit of drumming up about big events just like the regular hype about footy matches. And who knows? In the process, maybe a few attitudes about women's bodies/sport may change in the process if we make women's sport more 'normal' and more recognised. Doesn't mean less men's sport - just more of everything!

Im all for as much nudity as possible!

Maybe you should lead by example, Natalie and actually pose like Katich; your Adelaide Thunderbirds shoot was hardly stripped down.

I completely agree with the article and most of the sentiments of the comments following. Especially Spiro stating that the angst is normally generated by sport hating killjoys is spot on. There is a massive disparity between the coverage of mens and womens sport (I know that's not a revelation). I don't think the TV stations help the female cause at all even when they do shot womens sport. The womens cricket world cup was a good example, if you didn't have FOX, would anybody at all have known what was going on? I used to be a fan of the Netball on FOX, after playing badly for a while I appreciate the speed and skills involved plus it doesn't hurt that most are fairly easy on the eye as well. Now it's on at different times and on ONE (which is not available in lots of places, don't get me started) I'm afraid to say it's fallen into viewing oblivion. Natalie, I'm impressed that you have expressed the view about female tennis players getting paid the same as male for potentially 40% of the work. I was having that exact argument at a tennis club recently and shot down by the feminista's after suggesting that women's tennis needed to be the best of 5 sets to get equal prize money.

though i do agree with the contention of the article, i dont think the examples are terrific. sorry... forgot to make that clear.

not that i love seeing semi naked cricketers... but to me it appears the cricket photos at most summer/beach related photographs of the male upper-body. fairly tasteful. on the other side of the spectrum, the netball photos show women is watered down s&m outfits. i love the female form but i didnt find the netball shoot fun or sexy. at least the cricket shoot appeared to be tasteful.

I'd usually put this in the too hard basket, but I've got time so I'll join the war er ah Roar ;) The problems deeper than just about Sport isn't it? Women still have to live up to a double standard and one which has only a nominal amount to do with men (unless all the world's women's magazines etc happen to be owned by all the men in the world...shareholders can be from both sexes anyway so...) They have to be attractive (pretty much in the company of all men and women) and they mostly still have to be the carers and the nurturers of our youngins, even tho stay at home dads are increasing. This leaves very little time/energy for leisurely pursuits and even less tolerance on the part of society as a whole or the media specifically in enabling them to truly be who they want to be, which means being in the body they are most comfortable with, which for most women means being both desirable/valuable (however you want to read it) and workable, as in living up to a realistic standard. It's because the pre-parental stage of a women's life is associated most with freedom Freedom to have sex, freedom to party on their own terms, freedom from immaturity more so than with guys. She must act free, while not being too free as that's still frowned upon, as it seems value and desirability are add-ons when you are your own free agent in this current age. Sport is not considered an arena of freeedom, rather a site of regimentation and taking shite while not dishing it out. Women are still seen as less capable of controlling their emotions (stupid Enlightenment) and thus incapable of controlling their desires: which is said to sexualise all of their behavious. Basically in my opinion sport is a cultural attempt to try and de-sexualise (even if we're only in denial about our real intentions) maybe connected with the old piety of the Victorian age, I dunno, but our culture seems to think that women's sport a threat to this status quo. Because if they're not playing to be valued for their sexuality then they're playing to de-sexualise themselves which is perceived to be another form of sexuality Oh and thanks for the compliment Spiro...

There was a documentary on streaking. They said when the guy gets naked. The public perception is because they are just having a laugh and a bit of fun If a girl gets naked, it because they are trying to sell sex, using their body for money and a lot of cynicism is associated with that. I'm afraid I don't think society will change that perception for a while.

I think the W-League has done a great job in their print ads of 'glamming' up the sport. I have two daughters and they like the ads - the players look sporty and glamorous. It works (in my opinion). http://wleague.com.au/

Natalie, don't wait for approval from anyone for the girls to get their gear off. Simply ignore the judgement!!!! The support will be overwhelming, well, at least from the boys and most of the girls. The only problems are the so-called feministas, who sometimes transgress into controlling behaviour and restrictions of freedom in the name of girl-power.

Part of the problem is not so much motivated by political correctness,or even double standards per se, but rather the ability of the public to instantly recognise a normal photograph of any athelete regardless of gender. Mens sport dominate the ratings.Andrew Symonds is instantly recognisable even if people could not remember his name."he's that Test cricket bloke that likes fishing". People would struggle to identify a normal photograph of the Australian captain of ,the womens Olympic Hockey team, womens Soccer team,(that play in world cups) or womens cricket team (our national sport) .There is an rule of advertising that goes something like this;the ad only starts to work when the viewer stops asking,'who is that talking to me ' and then after seeing the ad few times feëls comfortable with the advertisement and then starts to listen to the message.It is possible that comparitively unknown elite female athletles attract some critisism in calendar presentations more for the fact they are unknown ,and therefore perceived to be stripping for a gimmick,than would any well recognised counterpart ,male or female,that the general public felt they new. In other words as in my advertising analogy, the public look at somebody unknown to them and ask,"who is this talking to me with no clothes on" whereas they are more are likely to feel comfortable with athletes they instantly recognise and "listen to the message" Ofcourse there are only so many years when calender promotions are a realistic promotional opportunity , male or female.I am long past that age where the best form of contraception for middle aged people is nudity.

Spiro It would be nice to have women covering women's sport but why just women? Would the SMH give the same column ins to womens cricket as mens? Probably not. Hence no journos (women or men) writing about it

I agree with Natalie, and applaud an interesting article. A major problem against the implementation of what she wants is the opposition from feminists and PC men. The thought seems to be that anything that shows off a woman's body is somehow unnecessary and unjustified exploitation. Until we can get these killjoys (most of whom hate sports anyway, sports is equated with religion as an 'opiate of the people') we won't get the same sort of body equality (within normal sensibilities as Natalie suggests) that sports women deserve. As for the lack of female sports reporters and the lack of coverage of women's sports, the problem again is more with women who won't cover women's sports, like websites like The Roar. I wrote a column in the SMH on the first rugby Test match between Australia and NZ at North Sydney Oval a number of years ago. It was not regarded as a news or sports story by the rest of the paper or the other newspapers, even by their female journalists. Mark Ella watched the match and remarked that the NZ women played the most technically correct rugby he had seen. Now we have a Women's Rugby World Cup and the Women's IRB World Sevens. Where are the women sports journalists pumping out copy on these events?

BTW, forgot to mention, several years ago when my daughter was about 12, took her & several mates to see the Diamonds take on NZ at the Entertainment. The girls were agape at the speed & power of the play from both teams. I was mightily impressed also, & came away greatly respectful for the skills of women's netball.

Nat, I'm with you, but excuse me for being politically incorrect - females are meant to be more attractive than males. Attraction leads to procreation (with a number of other factors in between!). Otherwise, we would become extinct! Anyway, I'm all for promoting women's sport. And I reckon they're worth the same money as men in tennis & other comparable sports, because they put the same amount of time & effort in usually. Okay, so women have a best of 3 sets compared to 5 for men. But when I watch women's tennis, I'm looking at beauty & grace. I can get my power fix from watching the guys. A women's sports calender doesn't have to have them half-naked, plenty of other mags do that. But done tastefully, I'm all for it. BTW, great to have female involvement on the Roar.

I doubt you'll get too many people arguing against your case here, Natalie. I think though there is another side to this. IMO, these days it isn't seen as acceptable for men to look at women the way it is for women to look at men. At an office I used to work in a lot of the female employees had calenders and posters of half-naked men displayed in their offices or pictures of men as their desktop backgrounds, but none of the men had any pictures of women (scantily-clad or otherwise) anywhere in their offices. I think this was out of fear of being called a pervert, though I never heard or saw the female employees being called this, even jokingly. Having said that, I agree absolutely that women that pose for such calendars are seen in a different light by society as the men that do, and that is unfair and unequal. I know both a guy and a girl who have posed for calendars, and the reaction they got even from their families was very different.

Foegetmenot I think that maybe you have exposed another issue. I am not sure of the numbers but I think Netball is the sport with the most active participants. Its not about marketing & "to interest the male fans" but to get more "normal" media exposure.

I think it has to do with the fact that people see the calendars as one of the main revenue raising activities for netball, but with cricket it is more of a fun calendar that girls can purchase, and blokes can be embarassed at having around. I myself have no qualms about it. For netball to be more successful it needs to market itself as more of a 'glamour' sport in order to interest the male fans. If a calendar is the way that this can happen so be it.

Natalie I think part of the answer is the same reason that the Roar does not list any females as regular columnists and most of the correspondants are male. Is sport still really a "blokes" world?

I agree Natalie, in fact, I would rather see the Thunderbirds than the dead cat nailed to Katichs chest anyday. Womens sport doesnt get the same commercial and media support, so people shouldnt be so judgemental about such things.