I’ve spent the last three days at the Sport Management Association of Australia and NZ conference online, which was hugely inspiring – there is so much exciting research taking place. I look forward to sharing these findings as they are published. One publication that you really need to bookmark for when it comes out is the new book Sport in Aotearoa New Zealand: Contested Terrain, in particular chapter 8 – ‘Symbolic equality in Aotearoa/New Zealand sports organisations’! I’m super excited because this is my first academic publication, based on research from my PhD thesis and written with the support of my supervisors. It’s available online and in real life at the end of December so unfortunately not available for Christmas presents! You can check out a preview on Google Books for a sneak peek.
Tonight is the first match for the first ever women’s Wellington Phoenix team in the A-League women’s competition (kick off 7pm on Sky Sport and Prime). This is a momentous occasion for women’s football. Stuff’s Andrew Voerman outlines the path taken to get here, with a women’s team first mooted in 2011 and Phillip Rollo profiles the team taking the field tonight. It’s still not an easy path, with a front of shirt sponsor only coming on board in the last couple of days despite all the research that shows sponsoring women’s sport is a brilliant idea and encouraged by ANZ’s chief executive. Research shows investing in women’s sport is the way of the future, but there seems to be a disconnect between what should be happening and what is actually happening. A lot of the finger pointing from sports organisations seems to be at the potential sponsors, which seems an odd move given that’s who they’re trying to woo, and I wonder if some self reflection on expectations might be better. Regardless, there is a big disconnect here that needs examining. Still in Australian-based leagues, despite efforts the Vodafone Warriors don’t have a women’s team in the NRL season coming up. However, the Newcastle Knights have signed nine New Zealanders to their team so we may have to adopt the Knights for the 2022 season!
There was an article this week that caught my attention by Radio NZ on research carried out by Talbot Mills for ANZ. It was apparently initially supposed to focus on women in sport but was broadened to women generally. The headline said “confidence, fear of failure and fear of judgement” are holding women back in business. But in the story they said “motivation and role models, encouragement and solutions, and benefits to increasing participation and development were key to helping women to succeed rather than natural ability.” I don’t have the details so I’m not sure if the negatives mentioned in the heading were specific findings, but it looks like the findings have been flipped to the negative. First off, of course natural ability isn’t the problem, because women have the goods! And second, the way I interpret role models, solutions and increasing participation and development talks more about the system – the lack of gender equity and the lack of visibility of women in leadership roles. The problem with flipping to the negative puts the onus back on women. This is supported by other results shared in the article, which states, “the survey has found two thirds (64 percent) of female respondents felt successful women did not receive as much recognition as men and were more likely to experience self-doubt in three-of-the-four areas studied – work, social settings and schooling, but less so in sports.” The self doubt or lack of confidence comes from the lack of recognition, i.e. from the system. Therefore, if you address the gender equity that sees men receiving more recognition than women this will address the issue rather than putting the onus on women needing to be “fixed”!
This week in Herstory, in 1893 women in Aotearoa voted in the general election for the first time. The election took place only 10 weeks after the Electoral Act 1893 was signed but despite this short time frame for enrolment, 84% of the female population enrolled to vote in the election and approximately 82% voted. In 2005, this week was the deadline for the target of 20% female representation introduced by the International Olympic Committee (which wasn’t met) by all IOC members. In 2018, NZ Parliament launched its review into harassment and bullying, in 2019 research told us that there were (and probably still are) more men named Mark running companies than women. And in 2020 Kiwi Sarai Bareman was named in global list of most influential figures in football.
Check out all the key media headlines in women’s sport for the week of 3 December right here.
Alida Shanks 