Australian Womens Sport and Recreation Tasmania

The latest Scorecard on Womens in Sport on Boards an update from IWG

The IWG's Sydney Scoreboard reaches a new score!                                                                                                                                        

More than 20 countries from all regions of the world have now provided data for the Sydney Scoreboard.

Did you know that in Norway nearly 40% of Board Directors are female and over 30% in Finland and Sweden?

Finland has 30% of women on Boards as Chairs, and UK: Wales has 25%. Chief Executives (highest paid position) account for 40% in Finland and 38% in New Zealand. The number of Federations in each country should be taken into consideration when reviewing the table.

Johanna Adriaanse, IWG Co-chair says: "It's fantastic that the diversity of contributing countries continues to expand and includes Bangladesh, Iceland, Iran, Mauritius, Sri Lanka, Zambia and Tanzania."

The Sydney Scoreboard, legacy of the 5th IWG World Conference on Women and Sport, documents the number of women in key leadership positions of National Sport Federations of countries across the globe.  The objective is not to be "first"; rather it is to provide a platform and real-time means of progress and showcasing good practices with regards to the boards of sport organisations.  

Comparison on National Statistics and Tasmanian Female Board representation

Statistics on female participation in Tasmania gathered from three different reports conducted by Sport and Recreation Tasmania.

Women Leaders in Sport

• There are 70 SSO's in Tasmania, 28 are funded by Sport and Recreation Tasmnania (SRT). SRT report that of these 28, 34% of the board membership are female. This figure makes up only a fraction of the number of sporting boards in Tasmania.
• There are over 550 sporting clubs in Tasmania each with its own board and there is no information gathered that can report on how board membership is made up.
• Whilst this report looks at females on boards there is no information that looks at women in other leadership roles such as coaching, officiating and technical positions.

(Determining the gender balance on Tasmanian state sporting organisation boards- Prepared by Ms Julia Tomat, Sport and Recreation Tasmania , August 2009)

 The table below shows you what is happening with women on board around the world.

   Events of Interest

Latest news

Expressions of Interest to participate in a Womens in Sport Leadership Training Course

WSRT will be calling for expressions of Interests for women in coaching, officiating nad administrative roles to join a Womensport Leadership Training Course to be hosted by WSRT tin 2012. Keep checking this page for updates.

The Hon Mark Arbib's speech for the launch of Women's Health "I Support Women In Sport" campaign

On this page is copy of The Hon. Mark Arbib's speech at the launch of the Women's Health "I Support Women in Sport" campaign on 19th January, 2011.

To read the speech please click here 

How to spend $45 million on women's sport!

After the recent outcomes for the Football World Cup, the Australian Womensport and Recreation Association has been putting together some ideas on how the $45 million for the bid could have been spent to increase female participation in sport, and reduce some inequalities, in Australia.

Click to read the media release.

Women's Sport and the Media

It is very difficult to explain the lack of balance in coverage of Australian sport. Why is it the about 90-99% of all sports coverage (depending on whether you look at print, radio or television) is devoted to male sport? Is it entrenched sexism of the media outlets, the journalists and sports editors or is it a matter of prejudice and dollars involved to cover only the sports that have a personal or financial interest/gain?

Lack of media coverage of women's sport is a major issue for the sports industry, not just for women involved in sport. Until there is a better balance the Australian sports industry is not going to develop to its full potential.

Australian female athletes and teams have had may great achievements at the Melbourne Commonwealth Games in March 2006 the women won more gold and silver medals than the men despite having fewer team members yet women's sport still receives little media coverage. It is an old saying to many in the women's sport movement but still accurate "that greyhound racing gets more coverage in the newspapers than women's sport". While equity of opportunity has increased playing and competition opportunities for girls and women, it is most disappointing that there is ongoing poor coverage of women's sport by all media.

An Illusory Image (1996, ASC) showed that print coverage of women's sport had increased from 2% in 1980 to 10.7% in 1996. A South Australian study in 2004 however, revealed a lower figure of 4.1%, despite a number of high profile women's events occurring during the study period. Radio coverage of women' sport is still very minimal to non existent.

None of the commercial free-to-air television networks would provide data on sporting coverage to the 2006 Senate Inquiry on women's sport. However, Fox Sports claims approximately 10% of its sports broadcasts is women's sport and the ABC is much better with about one third of its national televised sport being women's competitions (netball, basketball and bowls mainly).

The ABC is to be congratulated and applauded for its commitment to women's sport because if there was not this coverage the Australian public would virtually fail to see any women's sport on free to air television.

The limited media coverage of women's sport means limited commercial opportunities for women's sport. This severely affects a sport's revenue raising capacity and limits interest from broadcasters. Lack of revenue prevents both expensive competitions (for example flying teams around Australia for national league competitions) and puts mainstream advertising (such as television spots) out of commercial reach. This also affects venue quality and that can affect attendance at games. These factors all in turn reinforce a lack of media exposure and thus a lack if coverage. This is a vicious circle which many think needs some government intervention, possibly in the area of mandatory minimum coverage of women's sport or some kind of affirmative action.

Lack of media coverage also affects the exposure of girls and women to role models and the encouragement girls and women get to participate by seeing active healthy competitors.

While the quantity of media coverage is one aspect, another is the way the media portrays women's sport, often reinforcing gender stereotypes or undermining women's achievements. A long standing concern is that women' sport is more likely to be sexualised and women are more likely to emphasize their sexuality to achieve some media coverage.

What can be done?

 From the Senate Report About Time! Women in sport and recreation in Australia: 

1. It is hoped that through the increasing availability of additional television channels (subscription and multi-channelling) these channels will need more product and will turn to women' sport for new opportunities.
2. Many women's organisations support media content regulation by the government and while there may be some support in principle for this there is little political support for media regulation, and the Senate Report did not support this.
3. Better coverage of women's sport is possible if the Australian Government provides financial support for initiatives that provide specific opportunities for greater ongoing coverage of women's sport. The Senate Report recommended that the ASC should administer funding of up to $3million a year and that the initiative be reviewed after 3 years. It is thought that sporting organisations would form partnerships with broadcasters and then approach the ASC with proposals and the ASC would provide support to partnerships that result in agreed media coverage outcomes.
4. That the government allocate up to $1 million to the Australian Paralympic Committee to assist with the production and costs of television coverage of the 2008 Paralympic Games and that this arrangement is on the condition that there is balanced coverage of male and female athletes.
5. More consistent efforts are required of sports administrators in regard to media awareness and training.
6. There is a need for improved relationships and partnerships between the media and sport.
7. The Senate Report recommended that the Australian Government provide financial support, to be administered by the ASC, for the training of athletes and sports administrators to better utilise media opportunities.
8. An annual survey of media coverage of women's sport is required to track progress.
9. That the government funds the ASC to replicate in 2008-2009 the surveys and analysis performed in the 1996 report An Illusory Image.

here

  Where are all the Women?  

This article written by Stephen Mayne discusses the low number of women on Australian company boards. It was published in The Mayne Report on September 30, 2010   Click here to find out more

AWRA provides a response the the Crawford report

Australian Womensport and Recreation Association (AWRA) provides a response to the release of the Crawford report.