Gender Equality in Sports

Today I am honoured to be your team captain, more honoured to lead you this season. There is another honour to be bestowed upon you, that is the answer that comes with a question. Who am I? I am a champion! I need you to remember that all throughout the game. Join me as I share my vision for a society where there is gender equality. I’d like to invite everyone. Men included, to help re-contextualise the current inequitable roles which, men and women have in western society. Powerful men and women are the catalysts which will rapidly help transform and modify our perspective to win the grand finale. Gender equality is not just about economic empowerment or making women more powerful than men. It is a moral imperative. It is about fairness and equality in terms of respect towards women and building a society free from the weight of gender social constructs. Gender equality is about normalising and recognising women in power positions.

Western society has continually propagated unjust social standards and ideals which are often unattainable and counterproductive to their wellbeing. My first encounter with the glaring disparity between boys and girls came at a young age. I was quite competitive and enjoyed sports as a young girl. I was the only girl on my soccer team. I quickly realised that girls weren’t as encouraged to participate in sports as much boys are. Society taught me that anything physically active was “rough” and “for boys only”. By participating in sports, I was usually classified as a “tomboy”. Later as a young female I ask why we must create social standards where girls are considered delicate and emotional and boys are considered powerful and dominate? Let’s define ourselves. I will gladly go out into the field of battle and I will move, and do everything I can do to not be defeated by my opponent. Through sacrifice, through sweat, through tears never will I let my teammates fall. Never will I let them down. Who am I? I am a champion!

These unachievable standards are rooted deeply in patriarchal western society and place a number of barriers upon women which are not experienced by their male counterparts. Discriminatory attitudes and practices regarding the role of women in society, such as the limited inheritance rights, lack of decision-making power in the community or at the national level, women’s physical security, inside and outside their homes accorded to women are some of these significant barriers. Women’s control over resources are restricted and therefore their wellbeing is compromised. Many windows to success are sealed shut by these traditional family & social constructs and enfeebles women’s ability to change her social status. Women are less economically & socially mobile, in contrast men move up the social strata more freely. Women hold 13.7% of chair positions and 25.8% of directorships, and represent 17.1% of CEOs and 30.5% of key management personnel according to WGEA 2019, Data Explorer. It reminds us of stories we heard from our mothers and grandmothers about how, back in their day, the boss could say and do whatever he pleased to the women in the office, and even though they worked so hard, jumped over every hurdle to prove themselves, it was never enough. For example, Heather Reid was the CEO of the ACT football federation. She was the first woman to lead an Australian state football association, and, at the time, she represented 11% of women’s involvement in senior football leadership positions. When she left the job and was replaced by a man, that figure dropped to zero. She used her influence and power to effect change and create a more inclusive environment for women. However, she was bullied on social media. She was described as being incompetent, gender biased and a fraud. Defeat, retreat those are not in my vocabulary. I do not understand those definitions. But I do understand this. I understand victory and I understand never surrendering. No matter how bad things go. Who am I? I am a champion!

As a female athlete competing in a traditionally male dominated arena, I have for too long witnessed a stagnant sporting industry comfortably allowing men to dominate and to get paid disproportionately more. Gender inequality in sports is far more complex then you’d initially expect. Women get little recognition for their achievements. The idea that game money should be contingent on effort spent or revenue is a valid argument, but in some cases this idea hasn’t been applied. In march 2016, in a wage-discrimination complaint filed with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, five top players on the US national women’s soccer team accused U.S. Soccer of paying them and their teammates about a quarter of what their counterparts on the men’s national team receive. Using the federation’s own financial reports as evidence, the women outlined a compensation and bonus structure that they said tilted heavily in favour of the men and pointed out that their team’s on-field success had produced millions of dollars in revenue for U.S. Soccer and have consistently been one of the top teams in the world; they have won the gold medal in three of the last four Olympics and were the most recent FIFA World Cup champions. In contrast, the U.S. men’s soccer teams have failed to qualify for the World Cup more times than they’ve participated, with their best result being a third-place finish in 1930. Despite the obvious fact that the women’s team is more successful than the men, their prize money doesn’t reflect that and while this is a standout case similar incident happen all the time even on the local club scale. Women are not asking for equal pay regardless of revenue women simply wish for equal percentage pay and an increased emphasis on equity in both the workplace and the sports field. History will remember us. And we will not have to worry about it being kind. We will define ourselves. We will write our own praises. And no one will tell us what we can and cannot be. We will never go home, not without giving everything we got. Because who are we? We are champions!

We need gender equality now. We’re edging close to the grand finale. I will lead you through the tunnel into the stadium. The roar of 100s of thousands of women demanding change, deserving change. Aspiring for respect. You start right here and when you start you start right now. Because the idea isn’t going to execute itself, and the book isn’t going to write itself. You have to do it and you have to do it now. Who are we? We are champions!

Limitations exist only in our minds and if you start using imagination, then your possibilities become limitless. You will realise that you are greater than your circumstances. That you don’t have to go through life being a victim. We must respect women and continue to recognise their achievements. I imagine a world free of gender constructs where no barriers preventing you to reach your goals exist and equality in every aspect in society and the world is achieved.

What are you? You are a champion!