Sport and Feminism collide....this time in Rugby

This is not an unusual occurrence. Most organised sport is male dominated both in participants and the decision-makers. They don't tend to have women's best interests at heart although they throw the odd carrot in our direction. So my feminist hackles rise quite regularly. However this latest revelation of nincompoopery* within Rugby really does merit analysis. And although this post is a bit after the fact, it is a really good example of male privilege in action and an unawareness of said privilege.

I recently started following @WRUWomenSupport on Twitter (Welsh Rugby Union Women's Support). From their tweets it became apparent the the Welsh Rugby Union were about to make a decision to the detriment of their Women's national team. They were proposing to remove the women's team from the six nations tournament along with Scotland and Italy thereby creating a 2-tier event with England, Ireland and France in a "top" division. A divisive proposal in more ways than one. Thankfully they came to their senses and the motion was defeated on the 10th April 2013. But how was this even an option? Can you ever imagine the removal of the Scottish, Welsh or Italian mens' teams from their respective tournament, even if they were continually losing? In fact the Scottish and Italian men regularly end up fighting for the wooden spoon yet no proposal has been ever been made to removing them.

A brief history of the tournament: The 6 nations competition for women began in 1996 as a 4 nation tournament for England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland. France and Spain joined in 1999 and 2000 respectively. However in 2007 RBS took over the tournament and substituted Italy for Spain to bring it in line with the men's tournament. Whilst I am sure the increase in sponsorship was very welcome and did a lot of good for the chosen teams, it was more than a little ruthless to discard Spain like that. They were certainly collateral damage. And bringing it in line with the men's tournament does still make men the default.

Following this year's tournament where Scotland lost two games 76-0, they and the Welsh Rugby Union put forward a proposal to split the tournament. Whilst I appreciate that it must be soul-destroying to lose by that much, regularly and in fact have not won a match since 2010, why is the reaction to this to cut the funding and sponsorship for the team by splitting the tournament? Surely a more logical approach would be to support one of your national teams to greater effect. Unless of course, they were disposable.

Well from the WRU's annual report from last year it does in fact appear that the Women's national team is indeed disposable. From page 9 of the report:

0. Elite Rugby includes our funding, staffing and support of the national team, the national age grade teams, the sevens team, the national academy, the regional academies and a £6.2m sum to the four Regions for international player release, in addition to £1.2m to the semi-professional Premiership Clubs.

I would like to think that the national team refers to the women's team but that would be a folly. In a 104 page document the word "women" is mentioned 11 times; there are two photographs of the women's team, one playing and about 2 1/2 pages including photos devoted to the women's game. Although it is only an Annual Report it is yet another example the eradication of women in daily discourse. In this instance men is really the default. In fact the women's team is always referred to in the report and in media as the Women's National Team. The men's team has no reference to their sex.

It is laughable really that anyone would actually think that "the national team" refers to the women given the amount of spending on the two national teams. Men's Team: millions; Women's Team:10's of thousands. And of course the amount of media coverage both teams get is pretty much incomparable as is the pay. The Welsh women's team is self-funded and not allowed personal sponsorship. No pay and no leave entitlement. Absolutely disgraceful. They also have no development squad, no U19s or U20s either. This proposal could have decimated women's rugby in Wales. The fact is, that any further support and finances that could be devoted to women's rugby would be seen as a detraction from men's rugby. And let's face it, that's what is important here.

So how did a proposition to remove the Welsh team from the 6 nations even gain any ground. Well if we look at the Scottish RFU Board and the Welsh RFU Board we can see they are all men. Every one of them. No representation of women at all. Is it unsurprising that women are disposable, their voices eradicated? I did find a woman, Julie Paterson on the Welsh RFU Executive as the Director of Compliance. The irony of that job been given to a woman is not lost**. And there is a woman, Kath Vass on the Scottish RFU Council, representing Women's Rugby. There appears to be no direct representative at all from Women's Rugby on the Welsh boards.

But surely some reference/collaboration/consultation was made with those who manage and run the women's game or even some recourse made to the players. Apparently not. How divisive is that? Not unsurprisingly the players themselves felt unimportant and dispensable. And despite vocal opposition from players and other teams the proposal was still viable until a couple of days before the meeting, when Roger Lewis, the WRU Chief Executive finally came out and said he would oppose it.

From a more structural and societal aspect this is another example of men believing that they can tell women what they should be doing and making judgements on women's sport (generally subjective ones). Within sport there seems this constant reference to men's sport and not treating women's sport as an entity in its own right. Constant references to competitiveness, training workloads, skills all in comparison to the default of men. Women's sport is not allowed to grow by itself, is not allowed to be given similar credence, proportional spending or in fact any kind of equality unless men say so. That is not equality, it is benevolence and pretty sexist benevolence at that. As a woman I don't want my equality being decided on the whims of men. I want women to decide it and women to structure it so the world is more suited to women (in this case the world of sport) rather than us having to fit in with the existing world that is structured for men. Men: Hands off our sport!

*A lovely and fitting term co-opted from TheRealSGM.

** That is in no way meant to be derogatory towards Julie Paterson and her work. It is just a reference to the word "compliance" and how women are trained and stereotyped into being compliant from an early age.

Are we really having this same argument again?

So it is Wimbledon fortnight 2012 (yes that is 2012) and five years after women finally received equal pay in grand slam tournaments some people (Gilles Simon) are still arguing the toss about this. “Equal Pay for Unequal Work”, the cry from the detractors, superficially could be, a convincing cry. However, along with that is much misogyny and the definite implication that women are inferior.

First of all it isn’t pay that we are talking about, it is prizes. It is perfectly normal and reasonable for men and women to receive the same prize within sport. Take the Olympic Games for example, all winners (and runners up) receive the same prize, no matter what their sport or their event. But the argument against paying equal prize money centres on the fact that women only play best of 3 sets in Grand Slams and men play best of 5. So women are only doing 3/5th of the work of men so should only get 3/5th of the pay of men.

Well let’s take that logic to its conclusion. Athletics is a good example. A marathon runner therefore should be paid how much more than a 100m runner? 10s compared with 7500secs (2:05 hrs - men’s marathon world record). So marathon runners should receive about 750 times the amount of 100m sprinters? Really? No, because of course that would be ridiculous. They all work hard in their own event, no matter how long it lasts. And that hard work is rewarded with the same prize. The hard work is also recognised as not starting and finishing on the competitive field. The misogyny is in the implication that female tennis players don't work as hard as men.  Well that is an age old argument outside sport as well as within it and worthy of a blog  post by itself.  Suffice to say, its veracity is not held in solid foundations.

Whilst still on the 3 sets vs 5 set argument, within Grand Slams women aren’t allowed to play 5 sets. It isn’t because they can’t or because they won’t, but because they aren’t allowed – like recalcitrant children. They obviously need to prove their worth to the men in charge.  And of course timetables would need to be altered and that is obviously too much of a logistical obstacle. More misogyny. It is of course male privilege that allows men to play 5-sets. If women were considered equal to men then it would be bizarre that men and women didn't have the same competition parameters. Yet here we are and tennis is by no means the only culprit within sport.

Most tennis tournaments for men and women are only best of 3 sets and most tournaments are single-sex. As a result women already get paid a lot less than men on tour because the prize money is related to the revenue the tournaments can get. Women’s tournaments are less supported. More misogyny, under the guise of women’s sport just not being good enough or not interesting enough or too shrieky or whatever is flavour of the day. The whole revenue argument is skewed in favour of men anyway, because men are revered for their sporting talent, women not so much. Men have had a monopoly on sport for so long, women are just breaking into it.

Then, of course there is the quality argument. As we all know women’s tennis just doesn’t compare to men’s tennis. The standard is infinitely lower and there is no strength in depth. In fact, why don’t they all just quit now? Well first of all quality and standards are pretty subjective. Then, who gets to be arbiter of whether women have reached a sufficient standard that they are now equal. If, indeed, that mythical standard could ever be achieved (because after all women just aren’t men). At this point it is important to note that there are many more barriers for women than men in entering sport. There is societal pressure and gender stereotyping, lack of media attention, lack of funding and encouragement and also the legacy of women being banned from certain sports and events (some of which is still in evidence today) which means women are behind the men in terms of numbers and probably strength in depth. However, women’s tennis is probably on a par with men’s tennis say 30 years ago, yet men weren’t being denied their rewards for their labour then. More misogyny.

However, this is constantly comparing women to men which seems pretty pointless as they don’t play against each other. It also sets men as the default, as usual. If tennis was a women-only sport then the emphasis on quality of play would be in comparison to previous years/decades. And if you look back over the decades then there has been huge improvement in women’s tennis.

Even accepting that women's tennis may not be as competitive as men's tennis, why does this matter? The women involved are still doing the training, still putting in the effort to win. In fact, why would a discrepancy in prize money be the best way of increasing the quality and player base?  Maybe giving equal pay, increasing revenue, better coaching, participation initiatives and further encouragement of women within sport might be a better way of going about it. Penalising women financially, isn't going to be an incentive to increasing competitiveness, if that is of course the goal.  If the goal is to put women back in their box then financially penalising them is entirely the right way of going about it.

Male tennis players have not had to forfeit any privilege, power or revenue in order for women to be paid equal amounts (Wimbledon prize money since 1968). So they have given up nothing yet they still argue against it. They really just don’t think women are equal or deserving. And of course they want the final word as to when the female tennis players are worthy. Really, this could on for decades. Any excuse to justify why women should not be paid as much as men. It's all a bit chilling.