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Sport and women's sport: addressing sports ground invisibility

By Jocelynne Scutt - posted Monday, 24 September 2012


Miller concluded:

'I am writing to urge you to continue to embrace the enthusiasm and inspiration of London 2012 and continue to give space to women's sport.'

This problem is not isolated to the United Kingdom. Australian media suffers from the malady, too.

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Together with (then) Senator Robert Bell, in May 1992 former Senator Rosemary Crowley initiated, and Senator Crowley chaired, a Senate Inquiry into Physical and Sport Education. Submissions from around the country poured in, with interviews were held in capital cities and centres. A report tabled in Parliament in December that year carried recommendations for positive change in sport, games and physical education for girls and boys, women and men. A major impetus to the Inquiry was 'a very big sense of girls dropping out of sport with the onset of puberty'.

Rather than seeing this 'dropping out' as signifying failure on the part of the girls, the report recognised the importance of peer pressure and assumptions about the 'masculine' nature of sport. The role of the media was a significant factor. Thus the following year an Inquiry was held into Women, Sport and the Media, addressing (lack of) media coverage and presentation of women's sport. Research descried the regular absence of sportswomen and commentators from sports pages and sports programmes - print, radio and television, or minimal coverage.

Ironically, whilst these Inquiries were ongoing, the media was replete with stories of the 'doom' and 'failures' of Australian cricket: the (men's) test team was regularly losing test matches and the Ashes. It was not until 1989 that men's test cricket recovered, with an Ashes win for the first time 'away from home' since 1934, the Australian men's team then holding the Ashes for a straight run of some 16 years.

Simultaneously with the gloom accompanying 'Australian test cricket', Australian test cricket was in fact doing well, with regular wins. The Australian cricket achieving positive results was the Australian women's team; that which was failing was the Australian men's team. Yet the women's team was invisible to the media, and the men's team was the Australian team, always reported as 'the Australian test cricket team', the (men's) tests reported as 'the tests' or similarly. 'Women' were not designated as 'the' team or 'the Australian team', nor were women's tests 'the tests'. Rather, whenever the women's test prowess reached the sports pages or programmes, invariably it held the stage only as 'women's cricket', not Australian cricket.

Yet women's cricket tests began in Australia in 1934 in Brisbane between the Australian and English team, and the Australian national women's cricket team has won the Women's cricket World Cup no fewer than five times, more than any other team.

Meanwhile, netball has the highest participation rate of any sport in Australia. Women play and compete in their thousands. The Australian team won the World Cup in 2007, yet television viewers did not see the win in real time. Australia beat Aotearoa/New Zealand 'in a tightly fought contest in Auckland', yet viewers were forced to wait 'hours' to see the win, because the ABC delayed the telecast. Consequently, 'sports' administrators accused ABC management of acting with shocking disrespect, saying this is no way to treat Australia's latest world champions'. Four years of rebuilding the team after losing to Aotearoa/New Zealand in 2003 led to the win, with Liz Ellis, retiring captain, describing the team as now 'at the peak of its powers, a team bursting with talent, enthusiasm and … great women who will … dominate Australian and world netball for years to come …'

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The telecast delay was attributed by ABC management to the need 'to honour the commitment audiences have with regularly scheduled programmes'. Yet the apparent reluctance of the media generally to treat women's sport with the deference extended to sport and sports played by men is bound to have coloured viewers' disappointment.

What is the problem?

Male tennis players have expressed the view that the women's game 'doesn't rate' because in that sport, at top levels, women's games constitute fewer sets than men's. Hence, women tennis players are not entitled to the same level of prize payments, runs the argument. Yet marathon runners are not paid more in prize money than competitors in the hundred metre dash. Nor are swimmers competing over shorter distances claimed to be worth less than those swimming longer races and, hence, thereby entitled to differential levels of prize money.

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About the Author

Dr Jocelynne A. Scutt is a Barrister and Human Rights Lawyer in Mellbourne and Sydney. Her web site is here. She is also chair of Women Worldwide Advancing Freedom and Dignity.

She is also Visiting Fellow, Lucy Cavendish College, University of Cambridge.

Other articles by this Author

All articles by Jocelynne Scutt

Creative Commons LicenseThis work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.

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