Women’s sport needs more frauds, fakes and charlatans.

On Wednesday this week, I spent an inspiring, enlightening and at times, an emotional day at the Sport New Zealand Women + Girls Summit which was delivered by Women in Sport Aotearoa (WISPA) and the Shift Foundation.

I noted there were well over 300 attendees, and based upon a scan of the ‘virtual name tags’ I’d seen earlier in the meeting hub area, the vast majority of participants were female. I’ll be honest and admit I did feel that I might be out-of-place and out-of-my-depth. Was I going to be welcome here, was this the right event for me; was I an impostor? Lucky it was online, with participant cameras automatically switched off, so I wasn’t going to stand out, as I surely would have done if the event had been staged in person.

In her brilliant welcome, Raelene Castle talked about feeling like an impostor when she started her current CEO role at Sport NZ. Bloody hell I thought, this is the woman who’s led Netball NZ, the NRL’s infamous Bulldogs club and Rugby Australia - how could she be concerned about a self-perceived lack of government experience with everything else on that stellar career CV?!

The opening keynote session was from the awe-inspiring Arizona Leger, my new favourite superhero. She delivered her insight and powerful messages in such a calm and measured manner, that she had the “room” in the palm of her hand. We’d have all willingly followed her wherever she proposed we should go next – talk about a natural leader! Her kōrero or story included repeated scenarios of feeling like an impostor, incongruent situations and questioning her presence within certain forums. I thought, what?!! This woman could hold her own at a world leaders conference, and probably persuade all parties to commit to whatever cause she chose to put forward.

It wasn’t yet 10.15am and I was already feeling embarrassed and stupid for my earlier timidness. How could I even consider feeling apprehensive or misplaced here among this group of equality and equity advocates. “You’re pathetic Howarth”, I told myself. Listen to these dynamic changemakers, look at the barriers they’ve already overcome and the better futures they’re building. Arizona the trailblazer also talked about the need for allies to gear up and play their part. Yes, I’m male, pale and [closing in on] stale, but it’s my duty, my responsibility, to join the equality campaign that Arizona so expressively spoke about.

Sue Anstiss, founder of the Women’s Sport Trust; author of Game On: The Unstoppable Rise of Women’s Sport and presenter of the Game Changers podcast advocates that male allies of women’s sport need to be proactive and anti-sexist. That it’s not enough to just believe in equality, but men need to act to promote equality and encourage others to do the same. ?

In the last six months we’ve undertaken three quantitative research studies covering gender equality, women and sport. We’ve shared this information with Bex, Jaime and Sheryne, subject matter experts in women’s sport marketing, media, participation and cultural intelligence. It’s been fascinating listening, learning and naturally we’ve welcomed them into our working teams on a range of sports equity and equality topics. We’ve also sought out sector insights from the USA, UK, Ireland, Europe and South America – wow, there’s some terrific initiatives out there.

Now, after being inspired and challenged by Raelene, Arizona, Leilani, Georgie, Brooke, Chelsea and two Rachels at the Women + Girls Summit, we’re going to build and manage an online qualitative study in November and invite fifty women from around New Zealand to participate, so we can trial and investigate how what we’ve learnt recently can be most effectively implemented in Aotearoa. The hono in Honoco means to join, link or connect, so if you want to be part of this project, we’d love you to join us? That could be as a participating respondent, stakeholder, question-asker, or subject expert.

My key insight from the Women + Girls summit was the need for collective action to implement change. So, let’s welcome the impostors, doubters, pretenders, frauds, and charlatans. We need you. Sport needs you. Equality needs you. You are we.