After a big week for women’s sport, a good friend, fantastic ambassador for equal opportunities in sport and Olympic hockey gold medalist Alex Danson tweeted something a few days ago that very much resonated with me.
I couldn’t agree more. Any campaign that makes a positive difference to people’s experiences of sport and physical activity is a good thing. Women’s Sport Week and other similar initiatives are inspiring and exciting tools for women’s sport in particular, and wider sport in general. Unfortunately, they’re also a powerful indicator of how much progress is still required.
I suppose I should also add my reluctant thanks to Donald Trump for providing me with some other ammunition for this blog over the weekend. For anyone who has managed to avoid the circus of the US presidential race, a recently released video of Trump has added to his already outrageous collection of sexist, racist and offensive soundbites. Luckily, all can be forgiven now he has issued a half-hearted apology and explained that it was just, “locker-room talk”. Let’s be clear, Mr Trump: this does not make it okay and what I’m about to say next doesn’t get you off the hook either. History and society create an environment where such justifications exist. I think Trump is a first class idiot, I have a big problem with his rhetoric in general and it’s not exactly an accurate representation of what sportspeople talk about… but I’m just as concerned about the fact that he can cite ‘locker-room talk’ as an excuse at all.
This is something I’ve touched on before. The current reality is we do need campaigns like Women’s Sport Week and This Girl Can, and we must continue to pressurize the media into valuing female sport properly and covering it accordingly. However, the real challenge runs much deeper than this. Measurable statistics on gender representation – increasing participation levels and column inches and the number of active female coaches/commentators/referees – are all very important. True gender equality, though, is about more than what sport and wider society look like. We can only get close to it when our subconscious biases and thought patterns change too.
I’m talking about the deep-rooted, often unnoticed prejudices that pervade our perceptions about sport. This is usually framed through our language, both internal (in thoughts) and external (in speech) – for example in the subtle differences in words used in men’s and women’s sports commentary. I see myself as a supporter of women’s sport, but if I‘m honest, I know I’m affected by these underlying prejudices too. I try to add another little whisper to the growing voice of women’s sport, but the majority of examples I use in most of my blog posts are probably from men’s sport – either because the media has pushed more of them into my brain, or because I have a subconscious awareness that these examples might be more readily known or interpreted by you as a reader. I have a feeling it’s all more ingrained than we realise. As well as saying and doing some powerful things, even the most ardent of feminists might somehow have to learn how to evolve socially, mentally and emotionally too.
Of course, it’s a fine line. Some fundamental aspects of sport are framed in terms of gender and this isn’t always a bad thing. The best example of this is probably that most competitions have separate men’s and women’s events. I accept that perceptions of what is or isn’t acceptable to label, analyse or categorise according to gender will probably differ from person to person. What I don’t accept are the barriers to opportunity and fairness that are created not just by what sport looks like but also by deep down, how we actually see it.
I hope there will be a day when an Andy Murray of the future hires a female coach and it isn’t newsworthy, it’s normal. It took 272 years for Britain to have its first female Prime Minister. On that basis, the first female coach of the England Men’s football team may have to wait another couple of centuries to get an appointment. A female coach for the men’s national football team!… Imagine the uproar in the press and the ‘light-hearted’ jokes in the pub. Or better still, imagine she just gets the job because she is the best candidate, and the fact she is a she… well, it would be irrelevant really, wouldn’t it?
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