Professor Shirley Randell, Ambassador Women’s International Cricket League (WICL)
Issues Related to Women’s Sport in Australia and around the World
As Ambassador for the Women’s International Cricket League (WICL) I was pleased to make a contribution to this year’s United Nations Commission on the Status of Women (UN CSW61) parallel sessions in New York. Given my ambassadorial role with WICL my presentation concentrated on cricket, highlighting the experience of three wonderful women cricketers. Cathia Uwamahoro (photo) captain of the Rwanda Women’s Cricket Team, was born in 1993 in Kigali Rwanda. Her father was killed in the genocide against the Tutsi when she was six months old, and her single mother Cathia raised her. In 2008, she passed a group of boys playing and became interested.
She learned by watching and “fell in love with cricket”. A national team player, Eric Dusingizimana, current captain and holder of the Guinness World Record for batting (51 hours continuously at the net) noticed Cathia and encouraged her to begin training with men as there was no women’s team. The Rwanda Cricket Association soon established Kigali Combine for all girls from the various schools around the capital, coached by Dusingizimana. In 2009, Cathia was selected as a member of the first national Under 19 team competing in several International Cricket Council (ICC) Africa U19 Women’s Championships. She became captain of this team in 2013 and then captain of Charity women’s team. In 2016, with a record 90 runs from 45 balls, she was named Woman of the T20 series won by CharityCC, and was recruited to Kampala Institute of Cricket Clubs Ladies. In 2017, she broke the Guinness World Record for Women by batting in net for 26 hours, both to promote women’s cricket and to raise funds for Rwanda’s new cricket stadium. Heather Knight, England’s women cricket captain, and Cathia’s role model, bowled in the record attempt. Now Cathia is juggling sport and undergraduate studies. She says, “My secret is hard work and patience, whenever I step on the pitch, I always want to perform as if it is my last day on the pitch…my aim is to continue to work hard and improve game per game…My dream is that one day, I will lead the Rwanda national women cricket team to the ICC Division 1.”
Jahanara Alam (photo) was born in 1993 in Khulna, Bangladesh. She played volleyball and basketball as a young girl because cricket was not very popular for girls and many people discouraged her. Not her father, however, who has always supported her, and now she has many fans. They pray for her in the mosques when she plays for the national team. Jahanara became a member of the Bangladesh national team in 2008 and was a member of the team that won the silver medal against the India women’s cricket team at the 2010 Asian Games in Guangzhou, China. She has played in the One Day Internationals (ODI) cricket competition since 2011, capturing 16 wickets in her 17th T20 match and 17 wickets in her 25th ODI matches. In 2016, Jahanara was captain of the Bangladesh national team in the Women’s ICC World T20 match in Bangalore India.
Born in Pune India in 1969, Lisa Sthalekar (photo) was an orphan who was adopted and raised in Australia. Her father, who loved and followed cricket, played with her outside, took her to watch matches, and ensured the best coaching. Lisa played with Under 10 boys' teams and at first tried to hide the fact that she was a girl, dressing in long pants and wearing a cap even while bowling. Later she played with and then captained the Combined High Schools Girls’ team. In 1998, Lisa made her State debut in the Women’s National Cricket League (WNCL), played in 16 straight WNCL Finals between 1997 and 2013, in a record 145 matches, taking 166 wickets for an average of 22 runs, with a batting average of 34. Juggling study, sport and work, Lisa had to pay nearly AUD 3000 for flights, accommodation and other expenses in order to play for state junior teams in the 1990s. In 2006 she captained Australia in three ODIs against New Zealand, and was a member of the Australian teams that won the 2001 and 2011 Ashes – Australia/England. While playing, Lisa was also a coach and administrator at Cricket NSW. A legend of Australian women’s cricket, having played for her country 187 times, Lisa is the first female board member of the Australian Cricketers’ Association (ACA) and has been part of the ACA’s Women’s Executive since its inception in 2009. She oversees the men’s coaching program at Mosman and is the first Australian woman to commentate for men’s Test cricket, beginning in 2015 for Channel Nine and ABC radio with the Indian Premier League (IPL), for the South Africa v Australia series, and now for Channel Ten. She says, “I love cricket, I am a cricket tragic. I think a female perspective on the game certainly can’t hurt because there are so many women watching it as well.”
Following the success of WBBL over summer and the burgeoning interest in women’s sport in general, ACA has been under pressure to ensure cricket is a viable career pathway for female athletes. In a new five-year Memorandum of Understanding (MOU), ACA has offered an immediate average pay increase of 125 per cent for female players. The average salary for an international Southern Stars player is set to jump from $79,000 to $179,000, with the average for domestic female players from $22,000 to $52,000. The offer is an attempt to move towards gender equity by ensuring that the minimum and average hourly pay will be the same for state men and women in 2017/18. For the first time, prize money is being offered for the WNCL of $258,000 and the WBBL of $309,000 this coming summer. The agreement is also set to see investment in grassroots player development rise, with ACA committing itself to finding an extra $25m so that the total funding for grassroots cricket would rise to $76m. The difference in conditions between male and female athletes is not new and is reflected in publicity for women’s sport, which receives about 7% of Australian TV sports programming and 9% of sports coverage on the news. Low media coverage is reflective of the status of women’s sport generally, perpetuating a lack of visibility of female role models in sports: a great many Australians – young and old, boys and girls - miss out on seeing what women athletes are capable of. Thankfully this is changing.
The struggle is not only in Australia. The US Women’s National Ice Hockey team (photo) that has been one of the country’s most reliable winners over the last two decades, never having left an Olympic Games without a medal, usually silver or gold, while also winning seven of the last nine world championships, announced earlier this year that it would boycott the upcoming world championships over the ridiculously low wages and lack of support it continues to receive from the national governing body, USA Hockey. There is an urgent widespread call for change within the US Olympic world in the 21st century and respect for women in a sport led by men and for the acknowledgement of a job well done by a nation that craves winning more than almost anything else. Solidarity from both women and men’s sports has led to a four-year deal for women in the national ice hockey team, with compensation of about $70,000 per player per year, a stunning jump from the pathetic $1,500 per year the players were getting. USA Hockey has also agreed to pay the players new performance bonuses and their income could rise to six figures annually if they win an Olympic gold medal or world championship. For the first time ever, the women’s team will receive the same level of travel arrangements and insurance coverage as the men’s team and there will be maternity support. There are provisions to advance women and girls’ hockey at the youth levels, a cause that was important to the national team players. US Soccer has now announced that it has ratified a five-year collective bargaining with the women’s national soccer team, ending a year-long contract negotiation following their Equal Play, Equal Pay campaign to highlight the pay discrepancy between the women’s and men’s national soccer teams.
Football. Major sponsors are bringing women’s sport to our televisions and into the mainstream. The Australian Football League’s (AFL) inaugural women's competition opening match between Carlton and Collingwood overwhelmed the organisers who predicted about 12,000 fans would attend. Instead it was a lock-out - 24,500 fans and AFL chief executive Gillon McLachlan went outside the gates to apologise as hundreds more were turned away. Close to a million viewers tuned in to watch the match from their lounge rooms. Women’s matches are now being rescheduled in larger venues. The start of the first AFL Women's match was full of hard tackling and ferocious energy (photo).
The AFL executive's decision to back women's football has already had a profound effect on women's sport in general, boosting its profile, bargaining power and competition for athletes. It is genuinely groundbreaking and has taken too long. Young girls who dream of playing football now know it can become reality. For decades, the men's game has had clear development pathways to help boys progress to senior football — the level of coaching and support at Under 18 level is immense. Women have not had that. Some local clubs don't even have female-friendly change rooms. These women are in it for the love of the game and realising their dream is a dream for so many others; for the 380,000 girls and young women who are currently playing AFL; for the hundreds and thousands of others who are now going to see it as an option; for parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles who, for their sons and daughters, want role models like Tiarna Ernst, the 28 year old Western Bulldogs player who is a full-time doctor and a part-time athlete. Or Moana Hope, Collingwood's marquee player, who works 18 hours a day juggling her job with her footy training, while being a fulltime carer for her younger sister who has a rare neurological condition. Or Daisy Pearce, a 28-year-old midwife, who will captain the Melbourne Football Club. At the end of the season it was the Adelaide Crows (photo) who were victorious over the Brisbane Lions, winning the first AFL premiership by one goal. Erin Phillips, a former basketball star, added the AFLW trophy, a best-on-ground award and the AFLW inaugural best and fairest award to her two Women’s National Basketball Association titles and an Olympic silver medal from her time with the Opals.
On the other hand, the National Rugby League (NRL) chief executive Todd Greenberg has said that despite the AFLW success the NRL that will not rush the launch of a women's rugby league competition. Currently Australia has about 40 elite female rugby league players. "I think in this space we're spending a lot of time and energy on the Jillaroos to make sure our elite female pathway is strong…We have absolute aspirations to introduce more competition pathways for females, but in saying that we want to build from the ground up…I don't want to start a competition without having the substance below it." This is in spite of the fact that female participation is the fastest-growing area of rugby. As of last year, 482,000 women were involved in playing rugby league, which is a 27 per cent increase on the previous year. The code has aspirations of introducing a competition by 2020. The NRL has vowed to spend more money in country regions than ever before to help boost participation numbers in the game that has been overtaken by football and soccer.
Tennis. Venus Williams described her sister Serena William's Australian Open victory (photo) as a "beautiful thing" and believes her younger sibling will add more major singles titles to her tally of 23 before she decides to retire. Serena achieved an open-era record for major singles crowns when she beat Venus 6-4, 6-4, moving in front of Steffi Graf but still sitting behind Margaret Court (24) on the all-time list. Venus showed joy rather than disappointment when reflecting on Serena's victory, explaining it is as much a win for the Williams family as it is for her sister. "I really enjoy seeing the name 'Williams' on the trophy." she said. A humble Venus acknowledges her place in one of sport's greatest stories, saying it has been "momentous" to have the opportunity to compete against her sister in nine major singles finals. "I don't think we're going for the greatest story in sports. We're just going for some dreams," she said. "In the case that we are, what an honour. What an honour."
Sports boards. While women have seats at the table where major economic and financial decisions are made, they have not yet reached the top leadership positions in sport. Minister Baklai Temengil from Palau (photo) has been elected the first woman Vice-President of the Oceania Olympic Committee. A woman has never led the International Olympic Committee (IOC) or FIFA, football’s international governing body, widely regarded as the most prestigious and influential sport organisations. Men hold a staggering 93% of chair and president roles in international sport federations, and 81% of CEO positions. The consequences are serious. These sport organisations not only often fail to adhere to democratic or ethical business practices because some stakeholders are underrepresented, but also their performance is likely to be compromised. Less diverse boards lack multiple perspectives that promote sound decision making, problem solving and strategic planning. Having a critical mass of women bodes well for an organisation’s performance, including the level of innovation. The sooner sport governing bodies acknowledge the value of a critical mass of women on their boards and commit to achieving this, the better for sport worldwide.
The reason I am writing so much about women and sport is because or my role as WICL Ambassador. WICL endeavours to create a fully sustainable organisation that helps enable and empower women to pursue the professional field of their choice, and be remunerated fairly and equally. We are sponsoring an event with SolarBuddy, "Gloves Off for Opportunity" gala dinner at 6.30pm on Wednesday 7 June at the Sofitel Wentworth Sydney (photo). Funds raised will allow us to create the next episode of our documentary series FairBreak in Rwanda, and provide SolarBuddy solar lights to third world communities in an effort to end energy poverty. This will be a night of music, entertainment, guest speakers and a Gloves Off panel discussion and auction of signed cricket gloves. The WICL webpage has details.
Извор: WUNRN – 17.05.2017
