The AFL executive steering industry-wide change to address the game's relationship with women says the penny has finally dropped at league headquarters on the complex and historically vexed issue.
Speaking to Fairfax on the release of a groundbreaking report that reveals how women have felt professionally stunted in all areas of the industry due to their sex, Dorothy Hisgrove said the AFL was wholly committed – and some way down the track – to rectifying the situation.
The sole female on the AFL's 10-member executive who was appointed general manager of customer, community and people last year, Hisgrove said the AFL could not afford to pay lip service to the matter. She also raised the prospect of AFL and club leaders signing a charter that would commit them to achieving tangible change on gender.
A 56-page report containing the candid reflections of almost 60 men and women working in the industry – a joint initiative of Richmond, the Australian Sports Commission and the AFL that has been co-authored by Dr Pippa Grange and Paul Oliver – found a pervasive "blokey culture" continued to impede women working in the game.
While acknowledging the report made for uncomfortable reading in parts, Hisgrove said she is convinced the AFL, under the leadership of Gill McLachlan, is committed to tackling the issues meaningfully.
"If this report is what it takes to shine a light on what we need to do, fabulous. That's my response to it," Hisgrove, who has arrived at the AFL after working in similar roles for Australia Post, BHP and the National Australia Bank, said.
"I think it validates what's already known in the industry – that we do need to change.
"I don't think there's any point in pretending things aren't the way they are. This is about acknowledging the reality. It is what it is.
"Other industries are definitely further advanced, I think, in their acknowledgement for the need to change. But I also think that the sporting industry is no different to corporate Australia in terms of the paucity of women in leadership teams, and the culture and systemic barriers that women experience."
Hisgrove, who has travelled around Australia throughout this year to talk about the AFL's new gender strategy with leaders at all levels of the game, said there was now an "explicit acknowledgement" of the need to address problems the Grange-Oliver report outlined baldly.
She said the AFL Commission was engaged on the topic and that club CEOs would become increasingly involved.
While Hisgrove said she does not support quotas, she said the setting of targets was crucial to boost female involvement at all levels of the game. "Do I think we have enough women in leadership roles yet? No I don't," she said.
"Do I think that we have the right kind of response now and that we're building the right kind of strategy to achieve that? Yes I do. Will that take time? Yes."
As part of a three-year project, Richmond has committed to transforming how it recruits, promotes and looks as an organisation. The Tigers have set a target of having a 50-50 male/female staff corps within 10 years.
Hisgrove said she believed that any leadership or management group should have at least 30% female membership.
"That's to actually get true, significant differentiation in thinking. That's my view because I've seen leadership groups change," she said.
"When you've got 10 people in a room, seven are men and three are women you'll get a different outcome. When you've got 10 people in a room, one woman and nine men, that woman is dwarfed.
"I'm not [dwarfed in the AFL executive] because I've got too much to say for myself. But generally speaking, if you're the only female voice you're shouting louder, you're shouting harder and you feel marginalised sometimes. And I don't want it to be like that at the AFL.
"And I really do believe that if half of your fans are women there's a price to pay for not getting this stuff right. So I want to have a conversation around that with all of the club CEOs. And maybe have us, as an industry, sign a charter around what we would commit to change."
A sample of de-identified quotes from interviewees for the Gender Equity: What Will It Take To Be The Best report, co-authored by Dr Pippa Grange and Paul Oliver for Richmond Football Club, the Australian Sports Commission and the AFL
"Face it, women are still dismissed as largely irrelevant in football."
"Decisions are still made by elite, powerful men who like to control things."
"...There is no general sense of goodwill on gender; men don't let go unless they have to."
"What was it about having a kid after five years with the organisation that made me less knowledgeable, less capable or less senior than the bloke who had been doing the job for six months but was there fulltime? It was as if I lost every inch I had gained up until that point. My responsibility was less, I was never kept in the loop and I certainly felt that my commitment was questioned. To be honest, I never recovered from it in the organisation. I felt constantly guilty and when I did raise it, my concern was answered in terms of my legal rights not my status. I just felt like a whinger – black mark against me."
"It (the sense of being welcome as a woman in AFL industry) starts to change when you press against the established power – that gets resisted strongly; leadership is less acceptable when women start getting the rewards."
"His attitude to me was something I sensed first. I think he viewed me as a groupie. I got the sense of being an intruder in his eyes, not welcome. When he actually said it, I felt an overwhelming revulsion and anxiety inside. And even after all these years I had to think about whether I would say anything."
"This organisation is built on being male and built on a culture of masculinity that means excluding women, that's what they're about. It won't change unless there is serious commitment to it and a recognition that the position isn't 'why can't more women fit into our environment' – but instead – 'we've got to change our environment'."
"You don't ever relax. It's not like a vigilance so much, but just a constant awareness that you are different."
"You pay a lot of mental rent just to fit in. It's just as simple as the fact that it is easier if you already know some people and are old teammates."
"I feel that the way some girls present themselves physically is really symbolic and they are dressing to the stereotypes that they say they want to avoid. Perhaps they enjoy the sense of power and legitimisation that brings them, but it makes it tricky all round."
"If the woman is solo on the board, she really doesn't want to be 'banging the pink drum' very often."
"It is still women sitting around a table talking to other women about how we can change this."
"…we undervalue or underestimate our own competence all the time, and this ends up with us doing 'extreme apprenticeships' in footy that involve twice the workload and twice the results, earning less money trying to prove ourselves and still feeling like imposters. If a man thinks he has 6 out of 10 'ticks' on a job description, he rates himself enough to have a go. A woman needs 10 out of 10."
"You know you have made it as a woman in footy when you have learnt to stand up and pee, because there is no alternative offered at the grounds."
"Men are described as passionate and boisterous, and if women don't find their voice and get silenced, it is seen as their own fault because 'this is how it is' in footy. Of course, I forgot it's your game...I'll make the f**king lamingtons shall I?"
SNAPSHOT OF THE REPORT
- . 'Gender Equity: What Will It Take To Be The Best' , co-authored by Dr Pippa Grange and Paul Oliver
- . a three-year affirmative action project developed by the Richmond Football Club, in partnership with the Australian Sports Commission and Australian Football League
- . interviews conducted with almost 60 women and men, from inside and outside the AFL from a variety of posts.
