What would have been good is if “the first cult figure in the women’s league”, Moana Hope, had challenged one of the AFL's towering living legends, Mick Malthouse, to an arm wrestle. It would have cleared the air about the punishment a "girl" could take – and what she could dish out.
Instead, when Malthouse said footy is a men's game and he doesn’t like the way the ladies play it “as it is”, Hope lost a chance to put that guy back in his box with a bit of side-eye, a cool riposte like "when we want your opinion on our game we'll ask for it, thanks Mick", and a not-so-subtle snort. Instead, she stormed out of the footy panel they were on and you can hardly blame her.
Moana Hope says she was disgusted by Mick Malthouse’s comments on women’s footy.
This on-field warrior and off-field champion has put her body on the line, over 23 years, showing the boys and men that girls and women can not just play the sacred game but attract a crowd; yet lately she and the battlers beside her have had to witness the season potentially curtailed, the rules potentially watered down, and now a man Hope could probably pick up and carry the length of the MCG, at a light jog, mention "netball skirts" and women's AFL in the same breath.
Not that there is anything wrong with netball (which is getting feistier by the minute, especially behind the play), or skirts. But what attracts so many strong women to footy is this game allows them to run wild with physical self-expression in comparison; for one, there is no dainty stopping after just two steps. There is no old-school "three-feet" to be kept between defenders and the goaler they are trying to disrupt, no "arms before distance", and you are allowed to actually touch your opposition player.
Women and girls have flocked to footy precisely because it isn't netball. And I say that as a long-time goal keeper who still has the skirt. If the dudes don't like seeing ladies get injured then surely the same advice Gina Liano famously offered Andrea Moss on Real Housewives after the latter complained, "I actually get offended even looking at you", applies to Mick and co: "Well, don't look, darling!"
Throwing themselves around with no limits like the guys is a choice sportswomen fought for. Yet, there is something eerily familiar about the backlash against them having won the freedom to compete on the same terms as men.
Women fighting for, and winning, an equal right to join in on a tough, male-dominated profession, women having an equal chance to learn by doing that thing (and to adjust their own tactics by learning from their own, costly mistakes) and, once the honeymoon/self-congratulation period enjoyed by the governing body/employer has expired, a backlash against the actual progress made is a continuum we've seen before.
Gender equality backlash has been noted across the private and public sectors. It is so evident, everyone from the Federal Sex Discrimination Commissioner, Kate Jenkins, to the Male Champions of Change executive group, and even the health advocacy group VicHealth, has made statements about the need to prevent one-step-back being forced on women who have finally made two strides forward.
In September, Jenkins said the backlash against women speaking up about harassment at work is strong enough to be stopping women from taking action. The chief executive of Women and Male Champions of Change group had a round table in July on how to deal with the "growing backlash from executive men who feel threatened by the gender-equality push in Australia's biggest companies and professional services firms".
The Victorian agency VicHealth noted such widespread push-back to gender equality initiatives, it created the (En)Countering Resistance toolkit this year. The kit contains strategies to deal with backlash experienced by individuals within organisations attempting to boost equality and diversity.
Its target audience is wide and includes "the people working for gender equality in a range of sectors – education, sport, workplace, local government, health and media". "Every person or group pushing for progressive social change understands that at some point in our journey we’ll come up against people who don’t agree with what we are doing," the authors noted. "Yet it still often takes us by surprise when people we thought would be our allies deny the problem or look away."
Moana Hope knows exactly what VicHealth is talking about. Next time she sees Mick behind a table, let's hope she's in the mood to roll up her sleeves and pull up a chair. I'm sure I'm not the only lady sports fan (of sorts) who'd like her to take that elbow down.
Wendy Tuohy is editor of Daily Life.
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