Can you imagine the CEO of the main sponsor of a sport ignoring half the players in the room during a special event announcing said sponsorship if they were men? And then responding it’s not a big deal when they got upset? Can you imagine a cricket pitch not being prepared for a test match between England and India if they were men? That’s just two of the situations women in sport faced this week.
In exciting news, congratulations to Bailey Te Maipi who is a finalist at the Wellington Sports and Recreation Awards this year for leadership (the only female finalist in this category) for helping wāhine and takatāpui learn to skate.
There were more articles this week on the subject of transgender community participating in sport. A very thorough article that goes through the science in detail is here. A shorter version by Prof. Claire Breen from the University of Waikato is here.
And this week in Herstory a number of key events including in 2019 the first indication from Sport NZ that failure to meet the 40% gender targets for boards may affect funding, in 2020 only 1 out of 31 international governing bodies of Olympic sports have over 40% of women on their board, and a fascinating history of the development of what we know now as a rape kit – how it came to be, how it almost didn’t come to be, and an insight into how sexual assault was first treated by Police and continues to influence the process today. (I have a copy of the article if you get the paywall).
Check out all the media headlines in women’s sport for the 18 June right here.
Alida Shanks 