Strong Back, Soft Front, Wild Heart.

I'm reflecting on a wonderful week. Not only did I get to be with people in real life all week, but my day at the Scottish Women in Sport Conference on Weds was unforgettable. Probably because Maureen McGonigle is a fabulous host, probably because I got to meet some incredible kick-ass women from across the world of sport and business, and definitely because I left feeling so hopeful that change is coming. ?For women, for sport, for inequality.

David Tanner MSc started the day recalling that when he had interviewed Megan Rapinoe at Tokyo recently he had been inspired by her ‘strong voice, and strong backbone’ . It reminded me of a quote by Brené Brown, encouraging us to live with “a strong back, soft front and wild heart”. In Edinburgh on Wednesday, that was being modelled to me in high definition.?But what does that even mean? Strong back means having integrity, knowing and living by your values, even when they are challenged and it would it be easier to compromise on them. Soft front means not leading with ego, not puffing up to get what you want, but showing vulnerability and kindness even when you are being tough and brave. And a wild heart. That’s my favourite. For me, a wild heart means walking the wilderness. The Wilderness is where we go when we challenge the status quo. When we question what is right. When we go against the grain. When we question ‘the way it is’. When we are no longer able to just accept things the way they are. About the wilderness, Brené says, ‘the walk out there is hard, the authenticity out there is life’. Amen. There was abundant authenticity and wild hearts in that room on Wednesday (and ironically, the conference was held at Herts Football club).

So what did I learn from these amazing people at the conference? So much! So much to fuel my wild heart!

First we heard from Observatory for Sport in Scotland who reminded us that whilst there is lots of data out there on inequality in sport, that’s not enough. It needs to be pulled together, and communicated in a way that MP’s can understand, be compelled by, and then turn into policy. They emphasized the need to put the data in ‘policy speak’ so that we have the best chance of changing data into policy, and policy into action.?We simply don't do that well enough at the moment.

They presented survey data on leadership in sport. And depressingly, if the rate of change continues at the same pace as the past 3 years, equal gender representation on boards within sport, will take 25 years. It will be approaching 2050 before boards reflect the gender split of the people who play and work in their sports.?

And in those organisations whom, from the outside, have improved female representation on their boards, what the survey often found was that boards had tended to add women (sometimes a token single female), without reducing the number of men on that board. I’m no maths genius but even I know that’s not a strategy which will efficiently achieve a 50/50 gender split on boards.

Some of the suggested actions from The OSS survey were:

-Appoint a Women and Girls Sports Director to oversee gender equality within the organisation.

-Develop anonymous reporting systems so that people within the organisation can speak up about the inequalities they see and feel.

-Explore the quality, quantity and outcomes of female leadership and coaching courses, so that we give women an equal chance to be considered for these roles. (which also means busting the bias that men are often appointed to positions based on potential, women appointed based on competency).

Julie- Anne Jamieson from ‘Change the Chemistry’ gave us some tangible advice on how to get more women on boards, and what that means for organisations. ?A McKinsey report shows that boards with better gender and ethnicity balance have a better bottom line – the company is more successful financially. If we can’t convince the heart, there’s data to show that equality is a strong argument for the head, too!?

Julie also encouraged us to take the implicit bias test from Harvard University implicit bias test, because no matter what our thoughts and beliefs about sexism or equality, the world around us, and how the world has worked for generations before us has, without our permission or knowledge, implanted in us some fairly strong social stereotypes, and it’s really interesting to explore what they are and how they might influence you.

ChangeTheChemistry.Org helps women find board positions, and prepare for the recruitment process to get onto boards. Check them out, they are doing great things.

Robert Nesbitt reported back on the collaborative project between Scottish Women in Sport and the Scottish Association for Mental Health (SAMH), and on the power of mentorship for young women.?The project has delivered mentorship for 18-24 year old women, to help them:

-Develop a confident and ambitious mindset

-Be aware of their mental health and develop resilience

-Develop leadership qualities

-Develop a toolkit of tangible skills to help them in work, and in life

Some of the most interesting data that came out of their survey on mentoring, was the importance of role models and visibility.?77% of young women said that inspiring talks from role models were important, and that the diversity of those inspiring speakers was also very important.?They reported that hearing about the struggles they faced, and how they overcame them, was the insight that young women felt most powerfully, from these inspiring talks.?78% of girls surveyed said visible role models were important to them.

It was fascinating to hear from Cliona O'Leary , Deputy Head of TV Sport in Ireland.?Cliona opened her talk by saying that we would not, and we don’t, accept such visible inequality in other sectors of the media such as news or current affairs, so why do we blindly accept it in sport? Women’s sport is so poorly covered by the media (UNESCO reported about 4% of sports coverage was of women’s sport), and women are also poorly represented as experts and commentators, and women hold only 10% of sports media roles more broadly.

Sadly, when women are in the sports column, a Cambridge study found that words most commonly used when describing women were ‘married, older, participate and pregnant’, whereas for men in sport, the words most commonly used to were ‘fastest, dominate, win and strongest’. Oh Dear.?

Cliona describes a real struggle to increase the visibility of women’s sport in the media. Apart from lots of men in power, who don’t prioritise it, and a lack of investment, some of the other reasons she shared I had not really considered before. Take the timings of the events. You can get 4 times the audience if you show a sports match after 7pm. Yet lots of sporting federations are not open to the idea of scheduling women’s games in the evening, instead choosing a kick off time in mid-afternoon, which is in fact when viewing figures would be much lower.?

Cliona told us about her work on ‘Reimagining Sport as Equal’ ?a handbook which designed to help those looking for a strategy to address gender inequality.?It explores?topics such as on-screen coverage, the under-representation of women in sport broadcasting and the portrayal of female athletes in the media. Importantly, the report provides recommendations, inspiration and concrete case studies from public service media to help everyone drive change within their organization.

Everyone has a part to play in improving women’s representation in the sports media – obviously the media outlets themselves, but also the governing bodies and organisations involved in scheduling, partners and sponsors need to put more investment into women’s games, and we, as supporters of women’s sport need to keep tuning in, and clicking on articles. The more we can show the powers that be that the fanbase is out there, the less likely they might be to ignore us.

After I gave my own talk, the awe-inspiring Katie Sadleir ?talked about her experience as General Manager of Women’s World Rugby. She joined an organisation which was led by a board of 30 men. As one of her first moves in the development of her strategy to get 30% more women playing rugby globally by 2025, ?Katie put 17 women on the board.?This is someone who gets sh*t done.?She also made other big (and some said bold) moves forward, like dropping the gendered title for women’s rugby for the World Cup and unbundling the commercial rights for the game, so that rather than the women’s game being devalued by being ‘thrown in’ as a freebie in a commercial deal, now World Rugby can find partners and sponsors who really value and want to evolve the women’s game and are willing to pay for it. Katie also made the distinction between getting more women to play the game, and normalising women in rugby as a whole.?She also shared a fantastic quote from a conversation she had with Jacinda Ardern, who said ‘waiting for equality is like watching an iceberg melt, so it’s time we got our hairdryers out’.?

Whatever you choose as your metaphorical hair dryer, whether it’s speaking up against gender inequality within your organisation, whether its asking what your organisation needs to do so that women can thrive there, whether its investing in women, challenging unconscious bias and not normalising social stereotypes which fuel inequality, mentoring or being mentored, or any other way to accelerate the rate of change, lets turn up the heat.?

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