The past week has brought some positive news about community and elite sports getting back to the field and court in the not too distant future. We’re keeping everything crossed here that we’ll soon see our favourite athletes back doing their thing.
In the meantime, while we wait patiently we’ll keep telling stories, talking to women in sport doing great things and sharing remarkable stories from the history of women’s sport.
But we’re also throwing our support behind Football Federation Australia (FFA) and New Zealand Football (NZF) in their bid to host the FIFA Women’s World Cup 2023 ahead of the announcement next month.
The As One bid is one that we enthusiastically support, particularly the desire of the FFA and NZF to ‘drive gender equality, diversity and inclusion’ and the push to create more opportunities and increase participation for women and girls in sport. You can read more about the bid in Siren Call.
If you’d like to become a Siren Supporter, you can do so for just $5 a month or you can get a yearly Siren Supporter subscription for $60 upfront. We run on the generosity of our supporters, we do what we do because of you so thank you!
In this issue
Kirby Fenwick spoke with Netball Victoria CEO Rosie King. Netball Vic has weathered the COVID-19 crisis incredibly well and Rosie has lots to share about leadership and the value of sport.
Keeping up the netball theme, Kasey Symons caught up with Adelaide Thunderbird, Sam Gooden and Kasey picked up the women’s sport history batten, talking with Katie Taylor about her research into the history of women playing American football.
And if you’re looking for some inspiration to get moving, Gemma Bastiani has put together a list of ten Australian songs guaranteed to get you up and about.
We’re also continuing to share the women’s sport coverage numbers from our partnership with Swinburne. We’ve pulled all this data together into the one place for you. Check out all the numbers here.
Women in Research: Katie Taylor and women’s American football history
By Kasey Symons
The Eastern State Women’s Football Team, 1945. Photo source: Barbara (Stearns) Turner
“It is hard to put a definitive date on when women started playing, as some newspaper reports mention women playing ‘football’, but a lack of detail makes it difficult to confirm what code they were playing. However, as early as 1892 female students at the School of Design in Philadelphia played the sport, although in a modified version using tags as tackles.”
Netball Victoria’s Rosie King on leadership, allowing others to shine and the value of sport
By Kirby Fenwick
Not only is Rosie King the CEO of Netball Victoria, she’s also on the Paralympics Australia board and has previously worked at the Geelong Football Club and for Sport New Zealand. Not to mention that she was the joint winner of the 2019 Administrator of the Year at the Victorian Sport Awards. It’s an impressive resume.
Samantha Gooden on Family, Netball and New Beginnings
By Kasey Symons
A new instalment of our series showcasing Super Netballers, Kasey Symons spoke to Adelaide Thunderbird Sam Gooden about the move to Adelaide and what that fresh start has meant for her.
10 Australian songs to soundtrack your at home workout
By Gemma Bastiani
Some restrictions have begun to lift but it will be a while before our gym classes return. In the meantime we all have to continue to get creative with our workouts. Why not soundtrack it with ace Australian tunes? Here are ten tracks that will get you up and about by local artists.
You might have seen this new piece from The Conversation circulating this week, discussing how ‘best of’ sport lists are filling the live sport vacuum, but women take the sidelines once again. Siren’s own Kasey Symons worked on this one and it’s well worth a read. The downturn in women’s sport coverage during this shutdown has been dramatic, and this article pinpoints one of the reasons why.
Kasey was also Gemma’s guest this week on podcast I See It But I Don’t Believe It. The pair spoke about the Eagles joining the AFLW competition and what that means for fans of the club.
Netflix has secured the movie rights to Jere Longman’s book “The Girls of Summer: The U.S. Women’s Soccer Team and How It Changed the World” to develop into a feature film on the 1999 US Women’s soccer team. We cannot wait to see who is cast!
The selection of the host(s) of the FIFA Women’s World Cup 2023™ by the FIFA Council will be made on 25 June 2020—we have our fingers crossed!
Alyssa Healy wrote for The Age on why now is the time to invest in women’s cricket, not cut back. Samantha Lewis also wrote on the recovery of women’s sport post-coronavirus and we so appreciated the mention of our mainstream media coverage project in the piece.
Lewes FC posits that in a post coronavirus-risk environment, why can’t sports broadcasting be restarted with equal coverage to men’s and women’s football? Lewes FC’s work on equality was also referenced in this piece for the ABC by Amanda Shalala with a great interview with the wonderful Helen Tyrikos.
Interim NRL CEO Andrew Abdo has confirmed women's rugby league remains a priority for the code.
The Netball Scoop posted a fantastic thread on female athletes and fertility. Thanks to the athletes for sharing their stories.
Meet the 'Para Queens'—the multi-sport dream team training together during lockdown.
Hear Akec Makur Chuot in conversation with Craig Foster chat all things football.
Meg Hutchins speaks about how the VFLW squad is sticking together in testing times.
Britni de la Cretaz is a freelance sports journalist with a newsletter ‘Still Out of Your League’ where she recently reported on The Athletic pausing the work of their WNBA freelancers. She has followed up with another newsletter on this issue and if you’re also into a mix of sport, gender and queerness, subscribe to her newsletter.
The latest Outer Sanctum podcast offers a powerful discussion with Natasha Stott Despoja on domestic and family violence. A difficult but always important issue. Sally Phillips writes on ‘Is bullying alive and well in sport? Oh yes it is!’
Did you catch Liz Cambage’s killer DJ set on Triple J? Get this in your ears for when you need to get moving in isolation!
The #WISPAA competition closes in less than two weeks, photographers are being encouraged to enter action images of women playing sport that were taken between 1 May 2019 and 30 April 2020. Enter now!
We’d like to also like to extend our condolences to the family of Phyllis George, a pioneer for #womeninsport media in the US who this week passed away at the age of 70. RIP Phyllis and thank you for being a trailblazer.
“Yeah I miss footy but I love Bunnings”
Darcy Vescio. Making isolation entertaining since 2020.
Runner up
Whenever we’re sad, we head to Megan Schutt’s twitter feed for a dose of happy :)
Support us
We really appreciate your support in signing up to our newsletter. If you’d like to further support us in our mission to build Siren we have a few options.
For $5 a month, you can become a Siren Supporter where you’ll receive access to our exclusive AFLW stats database and our Australian women’s sport calendar. We’ve recently added the option to pay a full year’s subscription up front if that works better for you!
You can also make a one-off donation of $10 if a regular subscription isn’t your thing.
If you can’t financially support us, just sharing the word about our newsletter would be wonderful. Forward Siren to all your women’s sport loving friends and encourage them to subscribe!
We are also open to discussions from businesses and organisations about sponsorship and collaboration opportunities. Contact us at contact@sirensport.com.au to start a conversation.