Team sport provides postpartum mothers with opportunities to build community, enhance health and well-being, and counter the often unrealistic and self-sacrificing expectations of motherhood.
The presence of women and girls was on display in all aspects of the tournament and the fresh air of empowerment could signal a new dawn for women’s and girls’ hockey.
For too long, Black girls and women have been made to conform to the largely white and male-centred ideas about how sports should be played and how Black athletes ought to present themselves.
The dynamism, diversity and leadership the Black Ferns display on the rugby field now needs to be matched in the boardrooms and strategies of sports organisations.
Canadian women’s and para hockey have long been woefully underfunded. Management changes at Hockey Canada are an opportunity to correct the unequal way the game is supported.
The US National Women’s Soccer League was recently rocked by revelations of sexual abuse. But research shows that physical and verbal abuse is also disturbingly common in organized sports.
Fears around the masculinisation of women is central to A League Of Their Own, and reflect how women’s appearances are policed in the pursuit of an ‘ideal’ femininity.
While things are improving for the women’s game in terms of equality, a series of depressing instances of blatant misogyny show there is a long way to go.
A new wave of women in sport science is helping us see how women can perform at their best with their menstrual cycle. But there are still gaps and silences – which is why Lydia Ko’s comment matters.
A trailblazing group of women sports reporters were early advocates for women’s sport in the 1930s, particularly during the first Ashes test series against England.
Research Fellow, Institute for Health & Sport, member of the Community, Identity and Displacement Research Network, and Co-convenor of the Olympic Research Network, Victoria University