OPINION: My only experience of sexism during my time as a journalist has been at a South West football ground.

In more than four years of being a working journalist across regional WA, I’ve only had one experience of sexism — and it was at a football ground. I’ve had the privilege of covering many sports throughout the Kimberley and South West, from football to netball to touch football to motocross, and usually I am able to come along to matches and/or tournaments, take notes and capture photos without any sort of problem. But in the midst of an investigation into racism and sexism at one South West Football League club, I had an experience that put a dampener on my faith in how far we have come in allowing women to have a seat at the football table. Like every other weekend during the SWFL season, I was fulfilling my journalistic duties and travelled out to Collie Recreation Ground to cover a league match between Collie Eagles and Harvey Bulls. Normally whenever I arrive at any footy ground, I am usually left alone to do my job or I have a casual conversation with the odd coach or club official. However, when I moved up the boundary line from the interchange benches during the last quarter of this match to take photos from a different angle, I heard a number of voices yelling out to me. I could hear a small group of seemingly young boys who were all watching their fellow club members from a prime position on a clubhouse balcony directing me to turn around and “take photos of the real action”. Before I could respond to one of them — who tried declaring how “f…ing hot” I was — an older lady, who was also taking photos from a bench at ground level, turned around and told the boys to stop and they complied. When I approached her to thank her for coming to my defence, she reassured me that “they’re good kids” and they just needed to pull their heads in, particularly with what was happening with another club at the time. While I felt as though the incident had been dealt with in the moment and did not feel the need to make a complaint, seeing and hearing about the abuse female players and umpires have allegedly been dealing with lately has left me with feelings of anger and disappointment. This is also the first time in all my years as a working journalist when I have been catcalled while I am minding my business and doing my job. It has been previously reported an unidentified South Bunbury supporter hurled sexist and misogynistic comments towards a female boundary umpire, adding to the growing list of controversies surrounding the club — including a league player, whose identity still remains a mystery, using a racial slur against an Indigenous Carey Park player during a match, and a club leader being forced to apologise to its now former women’s team for remarks he made during the team’s season launch, comparing his presence at the event to being at a strip club. I’ve also heard reports of female players from other clubs copping abuse during their matches ranging from ageist remarks to body-shaming. We’re about to enter the seventh season of AFLW, there are so many football clubs that have a women’s team, female umpires are starting to emerge and there are plenty of female journalists who are just as passionate about sports as I am, and yet we still seem to be stuck in a time where sports, football in particular, is a boy’s club. Since Simone Nani stepped down as SWFL general manager at the end of the 2021 season, there is no female representation within the league’s executive committee. Clearly this needs to change, we already have a WA Football Commission report recommending just that. While I generally have positive interactions with the players, coaches and officials I come across at matches, I am calling on the South West Football League and its clubs to have meaningful conversations with its members and supporters surrounding female representation and treating us with the decency you give to your male contemporaries. When people make sexist comments, that is someone’s daughter, sister or mother they’re hurting and I am sure those same people would certainly have more than a few words to say if it were to happen to someone close to them, or if the roles were reversed.