I've been coaching women's sport for a bit over a decade (namely lacrosse) and in that time I have made the leap from someone who watched almost exclusively men's sport, to some one who watches a whole lot of women's sport too.
While I wanted to call this piece "Why Marty Sheargold needs to remember his arse isn't a hat and should pull his head out of it" I decided on the above because I feel it is to the point, concise and is friendly enough that men won't become overly emotional at reading it and become hysterical to the point of feeling they need to drive nails through their nethers.
If you haven't heard about what has prompted this piece, I won't give it the light of day beyond what I have said above. I'm sick of hearing the names of the men who bash women's sport and become the only name elevated in the ensuing chaos. I have been thinking about what I wanted to say, and what is mine to say. I wondered where the line is between where women in sport need their voices elevated, instead of replaced by men, and what things are for men to step up and say. I then stopped wondering because my brain isn't the best, even at its best.
1) When you bash women's sport, it's the women around you who hear it.
This is obvious to anyone who has more than a handful of neurons to rub together and many who lack even that. Most of the Matildas won't hear you talking shit about their form. The Opals won't either. You know who will hear it? The women you work with who are managing playing sport with their working lives, the ones who have those telltale scars from ACLs long ago torn, the ones raising young women who know that turf burn is a sign of a hard fought game and the ones who are thinking about getting back into sport after taking time away. You probably won't ruin the day of the pros you choose to bad-mouth, you'll ruin the day of the women around you.
That shouldn't be needed as a means to stop your BS, but if you've read this... please think about it.
2) "But they are playing a lower level of game."
Listen here champ. You know what else was a lower level of game play? Every fucking league you watch!
Look at the early days of the AFL, the NFL, the MLS, and I assume professional jai alai. All of those leagues were playing a lower skill, less refined version of the sport we are watching now. You know what it takes for the level of skill in leagues to improve? Generational growth amongst players, funding, higher levels of coaching, exposure, and for the sport to be viable as a full time job. The women playing sport in almost every league in the world right now are decades behind in many of those factors. It will take time for those now pros to be leading the way for the next generation of players, it is said all the time but feels true. Based on the interviews I carried out with some of the amazing women at the lacrosse club I am a part of for IWD on March 8th, most of them didn't have female sporting idols in their own sport while growing up. You can't be it, if you can't see it.
The last aspect of the lower level of play argument is this, if you aren't complaining about third tier local cricket being treated as a real sport, then shut the fuck up about women being less skilled.
3) "Teenage boys are more athletic than professional women."
Yeah, some of them are... what's your point?
Why the fuck should that mean female athletes should be treated as fourteenth class citizens? The value of watching women's sport, and supporting women's sport is that women deserve the chance to play on the world stage. Professional sport is an entertainment form, and entertainment isn't a series of metrics where one supreme athlete should be the only one given glory. That's profoundly stupid.
Somewhere out there, is the single most athletic human in the world, unless they should be getting the sole ownership of our attention and support, why the fuck can't people watch the sport they find entertaining and that makes them happy?
Sport is good for people. People who are members of healthy and supportive communities live longer and happier lives. Sports can be that. Yet again and again we see men making sport a hostile environment where women don't feel safe. How dare we take that opportunity from them.
4) "But their leagues lose money."
Yep. Some of them do. You know what else loses money all the time?
Hollywood movies. Many of them fail.
Male sporting teams. Yeah, their owners are sinking money into their investments. Lots aren't recouping their expenses.
Your shitty investments. Invest in ETFs (they're better in the long run, but that isn't the point right now)
What this is about is opportunity. Equal pay should be the aim long term, but that will take the time it takes for leagues to grow, players and competitions to develop, and investments to follow. In the mean time, let it bloody grow.
National teams, funded by tax payers should be paid the same amount. If you represent your country at the highest level, your country should support that. National playing is an entirely separate issue though, and the point here is not national sport funding, it is supporting women in sport.
5) Why on earth is it only when the comparison is men vs women that we get this way?
I've never heard a radio host get on air and lose their mind about the fact that one art form is getting more attention than the other
"Why are we funding the local symphony orchestra when (insert pop artist) earns fifty times as much each year?"
"A new impressionism exhibit, haven't these clowns heard about modern art?"
"Another art house film, explain how it fits into a multiverse?"
Some people like different sorts of music, multiple types of art have value even if one is more commercially viable, and movies can be more than box office numbers.
Why can't it be the same for women's sport? It obviously can be. Men's sport is still the standard, it is a behemoth, it is the establishment. You know what I love to watch though, and what heaps of people love to watch? The amazing wome out there kicking butts and taking numbers on the courts, fields, rinks, and any other sporting venues of the world. Both men's sport and women's sports can coexist and they aren't competing. People who get into basketball because they see Juju Watkins crushing it for USC, will probably discover Steph Curry, and if they don't, Steph's Under Armour contract will still be fine. When I worked at a store selling Converse sneakers, the best thing we could have was people coming to the Nike store across the road and then thinking "I like these, but I want something else." They'd walk outside and see our store, walk on in and check out our options. Nike and Converse both seem fine so far, and you don't have to like them equally, but the existence of one isn't diminishing the existence of the other.
6) Girls have the right to have professional sport as an aspiration. Women have the right to play pro sport.
What we as men don't have the right to do, is shit on women's sport for cheap points. Or because the idea of women being athletic is gross to you. Or because you find powerful women imposing (and yes, this is my assumption of all men who hang shit on women's sport). Losers on radio, TV and anywhere else should keep their hate to themselves. If they want to hang shit on athletes I have some suggestions for targets.
Professional male athletes getting away with sexual and gendered violence because they are good at sports ball.
Athletes selling bs while they dope, cheat and lie their ways to success while tearing down their competition.
The male athletes who make their sporting clubs hostile and toxic environments for female members (many to the point where those women leave).
The guys who partake in "locker room talk" which promotes toxic shit and misogyny.
I don't have much of a following at this point, though I hope one day to be reaching the masses. I hope if you are reading this at any point you have taken something from it and that next time you hear a man speak ill of women in sport, you call them on their bs, and ideally tell them to fuck off and leave their misogyny in the 60s where it was already old and shitty.
I would like to take this chance to apologise to my mother for the profanity in the above text. Sorry mum, love you lots.
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