20x20.ie hosted the Choose What’s Next podcast which aired on Monday, discussing what still needs to be done to further the cause of women in sport.
Cliona O’Leary, Gavin Cummiskey, Mary O’Connor, Ryle Nugent and Elaine Buckley discussed how women’s sport fairs in Irish society and what is needed most to drive progress.
As part of the podcast, they discussed the unconscious biases that people have against women’s sport and how vocabulary is important in changing those biases.
Cliona O’Leary, deputy head of TV Sport at RTE did not realise that she had an unconscious bias against women’s sport, particularly because of her background in gender studies.
“I found that myself, I didn’t realise that I had an unconscious bias on gender equality, working within the media for so many years,” O’Leary said.
“I joined [the media] 23 years ago, I did gender studies in college, [I] would have seen myself as a feminist.
“[I] entered into sports media, I still feel very privileged to be a part of it, but it wasn’t until 2013 when I met Sharon Hutchinson from Sportswomen.ie [that I started to realise my biases].
“She was in the audience council with RTE at the time, and she questioned me about our women in sports coverage.
“She asked me to speak at a women in media conference in Ballybunion.
“She asked me to answer the question: ‘Can sports journalism be the Trojan horse for women’s sport?’”
O’Leary, who is the chair of the European Broadcast Union’s (EBU) Women in Sports Expert Group, said that it was only after she had read through what she was preparing as her answer that she realised the biases that she had.
“Once I started to write that, I started to see what I was thinking,” O’Leary said.
“I started to write it out on a page and I was quite shocked at what I was saying.
“I started to question women’s interest in sport, I started to question women’s support of other women, I questioned everything.
“I started to blame women and I couldn’t believe that’s where I was going with this.”
Vocabulary combats biases
The 20x20.ie podcast discusses the importance of acknowledging these biases and working to break them down for the future of women’s sport.
Former group head of sport for RTÉ Nugent talked about how the men’s and women’s teams are differentiated in the media.
“One of the things I’ve been disappointed with is to see in some cases we haven’t moved away from using vocabulary like ‘ladies’,” Nugent said.
“Differentiating sport between the rugby and the women’s rugby.
“We need to step away from that. There absolutely needs to be differentials, it’s a requirement.
“When you’re talking about the soccer from last night, you may need to say the women’s but you may also need to say the men’s.
“Why would it be: ‘so here are the soccer results and here are the women’s soccer results’?
“That’s again a small point, but in terms of the language and the psychology of what we’re trying to achieve here ultimately it needs to be addressed.
“It’s just sport. So, if you’re going to differentiate the women, why not differentiate the men?”
While the 20x20 campaign has made a lot of progress in promoting women’s sport and reducing the biases, it is only the beginning of creating an equal sporting landscape.
Listen to the full podcast at 20x20.ie.
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