Sport Has No Gender.
What do I mean by Sport Has No Gender? Well, I’m talking about the fact that a report compiled for the Australian Sports Commission revealed a stark difference between both male and female sporting coverage and participation rates.
While participation has always been fairly level, the report found that females aged between 15-30 were dropping out of sport and physical activities at a rate 15% quicker than their male counterparts. What’s worse is that coverage of male sport accounted for 81% of television sports news coverage compared to 8.7% for women’s sport. To put this into perspective, horse racing received more coverage in 2014 than all women’s sport combined in Australia.
What this basically all means is that there is a significant gender gap in a country where sport is king, and this needs to change. Being a small-scale operation though, this campaign is not designed to challenge the way the large media organisations broadcast their sport, as this is financially driven and very much out of my control. The aim of this is to focus on bringing to light the lesser-reported and celebrated achievements of women in sport, in the hope that this will create engagement across a sport loving public, create strong positive role models for women in the community and encourage young women, particularly across this 15-30 age range, to either remain in or seek out local sporting opportunities so they too can enjoy all the benefits sport can offer to their lives. With any luck, this campaign is the first step to achieving this.
I look forward to bringing you more content across the next few weeks to hopefully change your perspective of women in sport, and show that while we may only be shown in the majority what goes on in men’s sport, that sport is truly gender-less.
Sport Has No Gender.
sporthasnogender 
Interesting article here, I’m all for highlighting women’s achievements in sport, because sport is sport and it’s all good. My viewpoint on this is that given the lack of coverage in womens sport as you stated, is vastly limiting the exposure of woman athletes and subsequently having a detrimental effect on young womens participation in sport. It’s kind of a downward spiral, if no women athletes are being covered, then the young women of today have no role models and therefore will not be inclined to participate. So while I understand that the television companies receive more money from male sporting events, they could always use the female events to precede the male event instead of having 1-2 hours of pre-game rubbish.
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A very interesting point Sam and one that I think should be addressed in the future. We’ve already seen AFL and Cricket ‘curtain raisers’ that involve the women’s sides and they’ve been received quite positively, so hopefully it’s a sign of things to come. I can’t stand the extended pre-games either!
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Up the female athletes!
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Who is Russ?
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i love this campaign! lol Sport Has No Gender!!!
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You state that women between 15 – 30 are dropping out of playing sport at a rate that is 15% quicker than males. I’m a 23 year old male who is a die – hard sports fanatic, however size and injuries have prevented me from playing anything bar social sports (where laughs and good times are the real winner) as well as attempting to play golf. Are there any differences in the drivers as to why women are quitting sport that significantly vary to that of males?
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Great exposay into female athletes mate! Check out my page on drinking less and getting out side more for more coverage on staying active: https://shapeupforspring.wordpress.com/
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Great read, interesting perspective.
I enjoy male sport more, but this has got me pondering for sure
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Girls volleyball is great!
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Great article highlighting an alarming rate of young women dropping out of sport. I have seen first hand young women (15-30) being encouraged by women outside this ages bracket to recommit to a sporting team. Softball allows women of all ages to compete in social and representative teams, this breaks down age barriers and adds another social dimension to women’s sports, allowing the likes of mums and daughters enjoying sport and competing together. Could be an interesting look into encouraging more woman to play sport and why women quitting sport is a much higher percentage than men.
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The Australian Diamonds were named the A-Team of the Year at the Women’s Health `I Support Women In Sport’ awards on Tuesday. I think it’s so great that an awards night like this exists to celebrate the success of Australian female athletes.
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