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Why criticise when we should be celebrating women’s achievements?

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Roar Rookie
13th February, 2020
34

Why are Australians so critical when a woman aspires to be great, particularly in sport?

There seems to be this lingering resentment or a feeling that what men see as ‘their territory’ is being trampled on by the success of women.

Congratulations to those women who have pushed the boundaries, pushed themselves to start something new, taken a risk and taken up playing a sport they may never have thought of playing, because it certainly isn’t easy.

Women have said enough is enough and are breaking down the traditionalist’s barrier by playing AFL and cricket, throwing them into a spin and it’s wonderful to see.

What are men doing in the meantime? Sitting back and ridiculing their success when they could be doing their own great things, like promoting the fact there is a national men’s netball team.

The thought of a men’s netball team won’t sit right with a lot of people, but it’s funny, women want more men involved and they would celebrate the success of a group of males going out of their comfort zone, not ridicule them.

The uproar regarding the AFL changing its name to AFLM is ridiculous, however, there does need to be a name change.

That change should be to drop the ‘W’ from AFLW.

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Why? Because at the end of the day, whether you are male or female, you are still playing AFL.

In a society striving to be equal, wouldn’t it be logical to have everyone under the same banner?

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It would then be common knowledge that all the women currently playing would agree that low scoring games aren’t a pretty look.

But people need to be patient, let the game grow, let the women learn and they will continually improve.

It’s taken cricket a lot of patience and persistence to develop the game to where it is today and the women playing are better than ever.

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Let’s work together, not separately, because they are striving for something special and to sit here and make a mockery of all the success they are having is simply outrageous.

Let’s embrace and celebrate how strong women are to put themselves out there and attempt something no other women have done.

To all the women out there, keep pushing the boundaries and keep striving for greatness – you are the pioneers, leading the way and making the charge and if you stop, you’ve lost what you want to achieve.

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