Siren: A Women in Sport Collective 01
Siren launches, the collective, WNBA's landmark CBA & more
Welcome to the first Siren: A Women in Sport Collective newsletter.
Thank you, thank you, thank you for subscribing and joining us on this journey.
Your passion for women’s sport, and desire for a sports media that reflects that passion, motivates us to create something really special with Siren. We’re excited to have you along for the ride!
Since we announced Siren last week, many of you have followed us on twitter or instagram, subscribed to this newsletter or become a financial supporter.
We’ve received so much love and our hearts are full.
We’d like to share more about the collective, our work in women's sport and what you can expect from us.
What is Siren?
Most of us have our own projects trying to add to the coverage of women’s sport—mostly women’s Australian rules football and mostly for free—for the love of the game. We had been talking for years about how great it would be to join together and work in this space as a team with the capacity to cover more women’s sports, and elevate more voices. So we did it!
Siren is a collective. It’s a space for our projects to come together and for new ones to start. We’re all about collaboration, creation and community.
Right now, we’re in our start-up phase. We will build our capacity to cover as much women’s sport as possible without perpetuating the free labour model that many people covering women’s sport experience.
Our mission
Our mission is to elevate women’s voices, alongside other diverse and marginalised voices through in-depth storytelling, analysis and opinion, and deliver feminist content that challenges the status quo of sport media.
Our mission is also to ensure those voices are paid! That’s what we’re working towards right now. Stay tuned for future announcements about this.
What do you want?
We conducted a survey in late 2019 of over 600 sports fans to learn more about what you want. The results showed a desire for more diverse voices in the coverage of women’s sport, nuance in statistics and analysis, compelling features, engaging interviews, uninhibited opinion and a deep dive into the rich and remarkable history of women’s sport. We’ll use this to drive us forward and inform our content as we grow.
Our coverage over the next few months will be focussed on the upcoming AFLW season.
We’ll also be doing all we can to promote other sports and athletes.
And, behind the scenes, we’ll keep working to expand our capacity to cover as much as possible.
In this edition
You’ll learn more about us and our previous #WomenInSport work.
We’ve also curated some top women in sport content that we want to amplify.
The Siren collective
Gemma Bastiani has been a keen follower of Aussie rules since childhood. The start of a national elite women’s competition in 2017 made her determined to adjust her focus from a career in music management to footy and the cultural crossover between the two. Gemma runs online radio station Play On Radio where she hosts The Play On Preview and Review each week, discussing each round with a specific focus on statistics and on-field analysis, and I See It But I Don’t Believe It, all about guests’ favourite footy stories. More recently she has written in-depth statistical analyses ahead of the 2020 AFLW season, including AFLW: your club’s leaders by the numbers & Just how good were the 2019 Crows? and wrapped up the decade of footy and music in this three part series.
At Siren, Gemma’s focus will be what happens on the field, and what the numbers can (and can’t) tell us about the footy we’re watching.
Megan Brewer first saw a women’s VFL match in 2016 and was hooked from that moment. Over the next few years she photographed all 3 seasons of AFLW, documented VFLW club Melbourne Uni (MUGARS) and worked with the Outer Sanctum podcast for their first season at the ABC, helping produce audio and keeping their socials supplied with photos from AFLW. Also a big fan of cricket, Megan is excited about attending the upcoming ICC T20 Women’s World Cup and looks forward to being there for the anticipated record breaking crowd at the MCG Final (hint hint).
Tiarna Ernst chases down Tilly Lucas-Rodd. Western Bulldogs v Carlton, 2019.
Megan’s work was also a finalist in the inaugural Women in Sport Photo Action Awards.
Kirby Fenwick is a fan first and an award-winning writer, editor and audio producer second. Throughout the last three seasons of the AFLW, Kirby has written for The Guardian, Eureka Street, The Footy Almanac and Girls Play Footy on everything from being a fan in the stands to failing lights. Her essay about the inaugural AFLW season, ‘Taking to the field’ was published in Balancing Acts: Women in Sport. In the lead up to the second season of the AFLW, Kirby launched her independently produced audio documentary The First Friday in February, which tells the story of the historic first AFLW game. Throughout the third season, she produced the Voices from the Stands segment for Triple R’s Kick Like A Girl AFLW show, where she interviewed people at games, giving voice to an often ignored but vital part of the sporting community: the fans.
Kirby’s work around AFLW and particularly the history of women’s Aussie rules has sparked a keen interest in the history of women’s sport more broadly and that’s where her focus will be at Siren.
Dr Kate O’Halloran is an award-winning journalist, editor and academic researcher. She has a PhD in Gender and Cultural Studies and is passionate about gender equity and social justice, particularly in sport. In 2019, Kate launched her AFLW radio show, Kick Like A Girl on Melbourne’s Triple R. She has written extensively for the ABC on women’s sport. In 2019 she won the VicHealth Outstanding Reporting of Women’s Sport for her work on Kick Like A Girl and her ABC columns covering the most recent AFLW season. In 2019 she was also short-listed for a Quill Award for Excellence in coverage of Women in Sport and was Highly Commended for the same VicHealth award in 2018. Kick Like a Girl was also shortlisted for the 2019 Excellence in Sports Programming at the CBAA Community Radio Awards. Kate is the former deputy sports editor at Guardian Australia and as a freelancer continues to make regular appearances on TV and radio including ABC’s News Breakfast and Mornings with Virginia Trioli. Kate is also a former state cricketer.
Alison Smirnoff has been described as a women’s footy tragic, filmmaker, activist type. It’s true, she is all of these things… and more.
In a previous life she was a video producer in the AFLM machine, but in more recent times has run a media organisation called Change Her Game, hosts the This AFL Life podcast and has worn various hats at the Darebin Falcons from board member to footy operations manager.
In 2020, she is taking a leap into feature documentary filmmaking. Teaming up with Melbourne filmmaker Bill Irving, their film, Kicking Against the Pricks, is about women’s footy (surprise, surprise), reclamation of the body and the feminist revolution happening in local towns and communities across Australia.
Alison also came up with the phrase ‘shipwreck the patriarchy’, but it’s not a competition. A rising tide lifts all feminist boats.
Dr Kasey Symons is long term Aussie rules fan and has covered each season of the AFLW and is keen for Season 4 to begin (particularly as her club, the West Coast Eagles, finally have their AFLW side in the competition!). Kasey worked closely with Alison Smirnoff in AFLW season 1 for Change Her Game and on season 2 for The Footy Almanac where she also co-edited the book, The Women’s Footy Almanac 2018 with women’s football advocate Yvette Wroby. For Season 3, Kasey regularly contributed to The Guardian’s coverage of AFLW and was passionate about the removal of Tayla Harris’s photo from social media and the fan activism that achieved its rightful reinstatement. Kasey also covered the unveiling of the Tayla Harris statue, marking the historic moment for women in sport in bronze.
Kasey’s passion is sports fan culture which she has researched in her academic career as well as contributing an essay to the book Balancing Acts: Women In Sport. She is also a literary lover and writer of sports fiction. Her Aussie rules short story won the 2016 Elyne Mitchell Short Story Prize.
Danielle Warby knows stuff-all about Aussie rules but she does know Darcy Vescio is pretty good at photoshop. She prefers the football where you just use your feet and her passion for promoting women in sport probably started because of a passion she had for one of the Matildas. We all have to start somewhere. She started with Sporting Sheilas (on MySpace!), went on to be managing editor of SBS Zela, got published in an actual book, killed off the idea that sex sells women’s sport, produced, directed, filmed and edited the pilot episode of a women’s football web series (and would still love to make this), and actually, there was this one time she wrote about the AFLW. She’s done a bunch of other stuff, talks a lot about women’s sport and won some awards.
Siren call
Our Siren call is a weekly wrap of women in sport and shout out to people doing the work in this space. Got a story that you think needs elevating? Email us (contact@sirensport.com.au) or tweet us (@siren_sport).
Basketball
The announcement of the new WNBA collective bargaining agreement last week was a big achievement for women’s basketball in the US. There’s lots to celebrate about it but also some things that need further campaigning and advocacy. Tamryn Spruill writes about the deal from the perspective of women in colour, which represents 88% of the league. Lindsay Gibbs breaks it down in her sensational newsletter Power Plays (which you should also sign up for!) and we also recommend reading this edition from Gibbs about allowing female athletes to be jerks in 2020.
Tokyo Olympics
Mary Konstantopoulos (The legend behind Ladies Who League and Ladies Who Legspin) interviewed Australian women’s waterpolo player Keesja Gofers about the lead up to the Tokyo Olympics. Speaking of the Olympics, it was amazing to read how Carlton’s Chole Dalton will return to rugby sevens at the conclusion of the AFLW season to potentially add another Olympic gold medal to her collection. The other issue in the lead up to Tokyo will be watching how athletes respond to the IOC’s position on protesting, we’ve heard from a few already including the amazing Megan Rapinoe, but we know sports are not apolitical so we’ll be watching this space with great interest.
The grass ceiling
Kate Jacewicz made history on the weekend as the first woman to referee an A-League match. Check out this excellent profile from Liana Buratti about the game changing ref.
Cricket
The T20 World Cup squad has been announced and Brittany Carter has brilliantly analysed the inclusions. The world’s best cricketers are going to be in our backyard here in Australia soon so make sure you get along to see some world class cricket. And of course, grab your ticket to the final and be part of history *when* we break the world attendance record for a women’s sporting event! We believe!
Tweet of the Week
Ever hang up on the Tennis World Number 1?? Yeah, us neither! We loved seeing Carlton AFLW skipper Kerryn Harrington have a laugh after she hung up on Ash Barty when Barty answered the phone of her partner, journalist Joel Peterson, in a presser.
Runner up:
This very cute tweet from Naomi Osaka from last week’s #RallyForRelief
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 subscriber where you’ll receive access to our exclusive AFLW stats database and our Australian women’s sport calendar.
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.