Spoiler alert, women are good at sports

Mind blowing I know.

Yesterday afternoon I got a call from Breakfast. They wanted me to have a yarn with them about an article that suggested that rules may need to be changed in women’s football in order to make things fairer for women.

This premise was based on a study from 2019, which working to the basis that women, being at a physical disadvantage to men, should be provided some physical concessions in order to even the playing field.

This was a pullout graphic from this article in the Economist.

Please give me a minute to allow me my eyes to stop rolling.

I am going to assume you have done me the solid of watching my full yarn above with Breakfast, so I won’t rehash these points but gosh don’t we love talking about the detail and not the context.

It is true that some sports have variations for women. Shotputs are lighter, WNBA plays with a smaller ball, NRLW currently plays a shorter game. Have any of these interventions dealt with the overarching issue though?

A level playing field is not a physical thing as research such as this suggests but rather a concept, a goal.

One of the biggest myths in sport is fairness. There is a relentless tweaking of participation rules and regulations to make things so. There is debate such as the one I had this morning, that suggests a ball that weighs slightly less will solve sexism. Fairness is subjective and largely informed by what we do and don’t accept is an advantage. What we attribute to athleticism over privilege.

I can’t even have a debate about cis women’s physical differences with cis men in sport as up until recently the science simply didn’t exist. Given we have only just recently acknowledged that training folks to the point they lose their periods is probably not a chill vibe, how can you tell me what women are capable of?

What’s the one thing I would do to level the metaphoric playing field? Put to death the pervasive myth that women aren’t good at sports.

Thankfully this Football World Cup has given it a good kick in the guts.

What does it mean to be good at sports? Is it winning? Is it fair play? Is it scoring points in spectacular fashion? Is it engaging an audience? Is it selling out stadiums? Is it inspiring folks?

If so, then tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, BOOM for this tournament.

Is being a good sport coaching a team that quits on mass due to your treatment? Is it not paying your players? Is it not having a duty of care about the funds you’re investing? Cause thats the story of a selection of men in sport at this tournament. But rather than generalise about their collective abilities, we continue to let them run things.

And while it sucks that this stuff is happening, it’s not new. What is though is that people are talking about it.

But rather than just talk about it, let’s start doing something to.

Let’s have a zero tolerance policy for bad behaviour from coaches and for sexism in general. A proper process for complaints to allow for intervention earlier. Let’s also select more women head coaches, who have been proven to out perform their male counterparts at World Cups. Let’s hold those that hold the pursestrings on investment more accountable for their accounts. Let’s challenge those in power in our nations to deliver on the platform of the momentum built by the fans.

Let’s believe that women are good at sports and plan accordingly.

With you,

Alice