WHO IS AFRAID OF WOMEN WHO PLAY SPORTS? A REFLECTION OF MY PANELS AT THE F1 AUSTRALIAN GRAND PRIX AND THE FUTURE FORTE CONFERENCE
Over the weekend, Melbourne puts on the Formula One Australian Grand Prix, another major international event that welcomes hundreds and thousands of international, interstate, and local visitors.
I, alongside several Future Forte team members, had the pleasure to attend at Study Melbourne's invitation. I chaired a panel discussion titled "Diversity and Inclusion in F1 and aligning industries" to a room of audience from international education, sports, business, and science.
The panel featured three speakers: Sally Curtain, CEO of Bendigo Kangan Institute, Sarah Styles, Director of Office for Women in Sports and Recreation, and Faye Romero, Electronics Lead at RMIT Motorsports and an international student.
The conversation from this panel made me reflect on the role that sports has in community, and who gets to play sports.
Where I grew up, in Malaysia, sport wasn't always accessible. Certainly not elite sports - both to play and to watch. Additionally, sport was socialised to be as a masculine activity. Girls were not encouraged and, more importantly, enabled to do so. Later, I learnt about and witnessed the vast benefits of playing sports even recreationally. The teamwork and resilience you get to develop, and the mental and physical health benefits, were invaluable. I wish I had the chance to play sports.
In our last year's Future Forte Conference, I interviewed Fatima Yousufi, the Captain of the Afghan Women's Soccer Team, whose team were evacuated from Kabul in 2021 and have since played under Melbourne Victoria. She said that as a girl, she was forbidden to play soccer because women who play sports were seen as despicable.
She had a strong determination, and her mother's support, to continue to play, despite being ostracised from her friends and teachers. As a teenager, she became the Captain of Afghanistan's National Women's Soccer Team, a country that has since banned women from playing sports. Under Taliban, they were persecuted and were forced to leave the country as girls without their families. Fatima has since become an outspoken activist and a strong leader for her team and community.
Who is afraid of women who play sports?
In Australia and other Western countries, women's sports are still chastised as second grade due to long running negative gender stereotype. Tennis was the first international sport to offer female players the same prize money as male players consistently since the 2000s.
After a very long campaign, U.S. Women Soccer Team in 2022 finally received pay parity as male players. The Matildas, Australia's National Team, captivated the nation in 2023, leading to a wave of girls signing up to soccer teams.
In motorsports, the show Drive to Survive opened the door to millions of female audience who previously were not catered to. It drove huge profits to the sports - but we still haven't yet seen the code making the access more diverse or inclusive. This includes the drivers, engineers, mechanics, broadcasters, business people and other players that are integral to the delivery of such mammoth sporting events.
While we stand on the shoulders of giants who paved the way for this generation, there's still a long way to go towards gender equality in sports.
Further reading:
Change Our Game campaign by Office for Women in Sports and Recreation
