by Anna Kessel
But not everyone is a fan. Her autobiography describes her beating a former boyfriend after she discovered he had been taking naked photos of her in secret. Ronda claims he wouldn’t let her leave the house, she felt trapped and that’s why she hit him. Others say she is a hypocrite for flagging up Floyd’s domestic violence record when she has committed her own offences. She drew staunch criticism from the trans community after saying transgender UFC fighter Fallon Fox should not be allowed to fight women because of a perceived, albeit scientifically unproven, advantage. She competes in a sport more violent than boxing. And her view on sport’s gender pay gap is unsympathetic to many female athletes whose events attract less commercial investment than their male counterparts. ‘I think that how much you get paid should have something to do with how much money you bring in,’ said Ronda ahead of a press conference in Australia. ‘I’m the highest paid UFC fighter not because Dana and Lorenzo wanted to do something nice for the ladeez; they do it because I bring in the most money. And I think that the money they make should be proportionate to the money they bring in.’
On the face of it she’s right, of course. But Ronda fails to mention the many centuries of discrimination, barriers and oppression faced by women who tried to play sport. The fact is that sport has always been a feminist issue, whether sportswomen wish to acknowledge it or not.
And that’s where Serena Williams swooped in and blew us all away with a powerful speech on winning the Sports Illustrated Sportsperson of the Year award in 2015. An athlete like Serena could opt for a quiet life and decide not to use her platform of influence as a voice for change. Few sportspeople – men or women – do. But, in the vein of Ronda, Serena is not like other athletes. She is fearless, and heroic. And she chose to use her moment in the limelight to send a powerful message to those who routinely ignore and undermine the achievements of sportswomen, and in particular women of colour.
Incredibly, Serena was the first sportswoman to win the SI award in three decades, and the first ever to win it outright as an individual. Brilliantly, she highlighted this fact in her winning speech. And she didn’t sugar coat the truth about just how hard she’s had to fight for recognition. ‘I’ve had people look down on me, put me down because I didn’t look like them – I look stronger,’ she said. ‘I’ve had people look past me because of the colour of my skin, I’ve had people overlook me because I was a woman, I’ve had critics say I [would] never win another Grand Slam when I was only at number seven – and here I stand today with twenty-one Grand Slam titles, and I’m still going.’
At the end of the speech she quoted the poet Maya Angelou, selecting stanzas from ‘Still I Rise’ which were so charged with the history of slavery and discrimination that listening to her recite the words out loud made me weep. Your insults, she seems to say, are as old as the hills, steeped in slavery and America’s struggle with the civil rights movement. Because Serena’s success, as she sees it, connects directly with the effort to bring women of colour out of oppression. In a world where celebrities are expected to say the most marketable things, the lines that fit in with PR plans, mass appeal and profit, Serena is brutally honest.
She didn’t read out Maya Angelou’s stanza about black female sexuality being an affront to white society, but she didn’t need to. She’d already posed on the front cover of Sports Illustrated, one bare leg casually slung over the armrest of a mock throne, to cries of ‘prostitute’ in the US national media. She didn’t need to say it, but the subtext was clear: the rules of this game are set so that she cannot possibly win. One minute she is accused of being so masculine that her body provides her with an unfair advantage over her opponents, the next she is so sexually female she apparently looks more like a sex worker than the world’s greatest-ever female tennis star.
We can only be grateful that Serena has chosen to pick up this mantle. Sport is a vital platform for change. Why else did US sprinters Tommie Smith and John Carlos give the black power salute at the 1968 Olympic Games? The United Nations have declared that sport will play a leading role in the fight for gender equality in the twenty-first century. If every athlete could use their voice to create change the world would be a better place. Clare Balding agrees. ‘Women’s sport helps break down a lot of barriers for women in other areas. Sport in schools was the beginning of physical freedom for women and it is terribly important still, particularly for women in the Middle East. If you’re not allowed to run or sweat in public, that’s part of your freedom that’s being eroded, but if you are allowed to go to the Olympics then I think it’s massive. It’s part of the catalyst for social change. It’s to do with being allowed to be judged on your talent, but also it’s to do with clothing. If you look back at British history, women being allowed to play sport in schools meant they could change their clothing. They couldn’t be running around in their long skirts and corsets.’
Clare’s right to point to history. Because rewriting our history is an important part of all this. Women’s sporting achievements have long been absent from the history books. So while I learned about the suffragettes at school, I had no idea that the real reason there is no female Wayne Rooney banking £300K a week is because women’s football was banned in this country from 1921 to 1971. Prior to the ban 53,000 people turned up to watch women play football at Goodison Park in 1920. Throughout history, right into the twenty-first century, women have repeatedly been prevented from taking part in sport. And I’m not just talking about developing countries. Right here in the west we have only just secured a spot for women ski jumpers to compete in the Winter Olympics because the president of the FIS, Gian Franco Kasper, was still arguing that the sport was medically dangerous for wombs. Meanwhile in the UK just two statues of sportswomen are on public display: tennis player Dorothy Round and pentathlete Mary Peters. And in 2013 the Royal Mail celebrated 150 years of football with a series of stamps of exclusively male footballers.
Serena has told us before that she stands on the shoulders of other women’s achievements, but most of us probably have no idea just how many centuries the fight for women’s sport spans. It is virtually unknown that the Heraean Games of Ancient Greece were the Olympic equivalent for women, or that in Sparta women were encouraged to wrestle, or that in medieval England nuns played cricket, or that Anne Boleyn was watching tennis the day she was arrested and taken to the Tower, or that Mary, Queen of Scots was a talented golfer. Meanwhile, in the twentieth century, legendary fashion designer Coco Chanel tore up fashion rules as a result of being influenced by tennis and sportswear design in her now-iconic couture.
We are often told that sport is unnatural for women, that there is no history of women participating, or even being interested in sport – unlike men. But while the barriers have been huge, women still sought to break them. And while we’re reviewing our past, we should probably rewrite our present too, celebrating the multiple female mega celebrities who love sport – from Mary J. Blige’s passion for running, to Helen Mirren’s support for women’s football. The more we can do to normalize women’s relationship with sport, the better chance we have for change.
In redefining the limits of women’s sport, one of the most exciting opportunities for a level playing field lies in sports where women can compete against men. And in 2015 there was no better example of that than Michelle Payne’s historic win at the Melbourne Cup, Australia’s first-ever win from a female jockey in a major race. Michelle used the exposure to make her point about female jockeys being equal to men – when they are lucky enough to be properly supported. But her success wasn’t an isolated moment. Just a few months before, a trio of women jockeys had won the Shergar Cup, racing’s team riding event at Ascot, Emma-Jayne Wilson, Sammy Jo Bell and Hayley Turner blowing away the male competition. Meanwhile Katie Walsh, younger sister of the legendary Ruby Walsh, became only the third woman to win the Irish Grand National. For Katie, the opportunity to compete against men is to be relished. ‘That’s what’s unique in horse racing, I can take on a level pla
ying field,’ Katie told me. ‘It’s great to have that uniqueness. It’s everyone for their own out there, it’s not like women’s tennis or women’s golf, we’re all there together. You’re seen as good as the next person on the day – you just have to produce it. I think it’s great, I love that we can do that.
‘Horse racing is not just about the jockey, it’s about the horse. And no matter how successful you are, if I get up on a horse and it’s a way better horse than a horse that Ruby might get up on, Ruby’s not going to win just because he’s Ruby Walsh. I would probably win if I was on the better horse.’
It’s getting the rides that remains the challenge for women jockeys, with Katie hearing first hand just how prejudiced some can be in the sport when she interviewed British Race School tutor Michael Tebbutt in a special report for the BBC, in which he denigrated female jockeys as lacking in physical and mental strength compared to their male counterparts. Women in Racing, an organization for which Katie is an ambassador, were outraged. Sally Rowley-Williams, founder and chair, explained why Michael’s words could not be taken as a joke – particularly when female jockeys still face an uphill struggle to be given the same opportunities as men. ‘There hasn’t yet been a big owner hiring a female jockey on a retainer. Not one, over the flat, or the jumps. And that makes things very difficult for female jockeys because they’re not getting the best rides. There’s a lot of work to do around changing hearts and minds.’
Hopefully the tale of Victoria Pendleton, the two-time Olympic gold medallist in cycling turned amateur jockey, is helping to shine a light on the potential of female jockeys. Certainly, the sport is in flux. There are more female trainers than ever, and the British Horseracing Authority is the first major sports board to announce a 50 per cent gender split in its directors.
All good progress, but until the opportunities are there across the board, the salaries are never going to match the men’s. Ultimately, what Ronda – and others – need to understand is that when women aren’t paid the same as men in sport, it’s not because they don’t earn it, it’s more often than not because their sport hasn’t benefited from decades – centuries – of privilege, development and investment. Most sports fans are pretty comfortable with the idea that Wayne Rooney earns more than England captain Steph Houghton, because there is more money in men’s football and so the wages reflect that. When women’s sport attracts greater investment, goes the argument, then sportswomen will receive higher salaries. Except that once you start to get down and dirty with the figures, it’s not so easy to sit comfortably with this logic. For example, how can it be right that the US women’s team won the Women’s World Cup, destroyed the men’s US World Cup viewing figures, and were given a cheque for $2m., while the men’s US team went out in the knockout stages the summer before and earned themselves $8m.? You can talk about market forces until you’re blue in the face, but that just doesn’t add up.
It’s clear, then, that we need a different approach. If we are going to have a sensible discussion about pay and women’s sport we need to understand that the market forces cannot be our starting point. We need more imagination than that. Helena Morrissey, founder of the 30% Club and CEO of Newton Investment Management, literally threw the spreadsheet out of the window when she began to invest in women’s sport. I love the way she tells the story of some hapless agency bringing her the same old boring male sports investment opportunities, ‘the usual thing of buying a rugby shirt for a vast sum of money. We weren’t exactly bowled over,’ she says, drily.36 Most corporates are falling over themselves to get their names on the shirts of the male sporting elite. Not Helena: she finds it pointless. Because how much financial return do you actually get after paying out all that cash? Instead she demanded that the agency look into a sport where her investment would make a real difference. They came back with the story of the women’s Boat Race, two penniless teams with no profile and no exposure. Helena listened, and jumped at the chance. Thirty thousand pounds later and she had secured both Oxford and Cambridge’s women’s teams. But rather than sit back and watch what might happen next, she waded right into the heart of the action.
On hearing that the women had never been allowed to compete on the Thames tideway, unlike their male peers, she marched down to the various deans’ offices and demanded to know why. ‘And they would harrumph and look down, shuffle from one leg to another,’ she grins, ‘and then someone said to me: “You know that’s the question you’re not really supposed to ask?”’ But the race location was duly changed. Then she asked why the BBC couldn’t show it live alongside the men, and despite some quibbling about the practicalities of getting the camera back to the start line in time, they also caved. Before long Clare Balding had quit the Grand National so she could host this now-historic event live on the BBC, and suddenly the women’s Boat Race went from total and utter obscurity to front-page news, the biggest sports story of the week. Better still, for Helena, Newton Investment Management became a household name, proving that the 0.4 per cent of sponsorship that goes towards women’s sport in the UK is not only appalling, embarrassing and archaic, but also grossly short-sighted. Helena tells me that Repucom estimated her financial return at tenfold the original investment. That seems like a pretty smart piece of business to me. The challenge is, as Helena brightly puts it, that women’s sport requires a new way of thinking, ‘a vision, not a spreadsheet, because women’s sport requires you to create something, to campaign, not just sit in a corner.’
Helena’s message is one that I’ve tried to relay to everyone who will listen. For me it is the key to solving this dilemma of how to convince investors to put assets into women’s sport. Helena’s words sum up the excitement of an evolving sector, the opportunities that brings, and the chance to be actively involved, actively shaping history. By contrast, sticking a corporate name on the shirt of a men’s team seems a pretty passive investment.
The wonderful thing about women’s sport is that most of those involved in it are not looking at the spreadsheet first and foremost. Often, they don’t even care about the money – they wouldn’t be in it if they did. They’re involved because they’re passionate and committed, and that’s a pretty special workforce to harness. These are people who want what Helena’s talking about: a smart approach, a structure that will grow and develop their sport, a plan that leads to money, but first relies on ingenuity over investment. Because while men’s sport can plough pounds into the women’s game and change individual lives, that alone will never be enough to truly change women’s sport forever.
After an incredible tournament for England’s female footballers at the 2015 World Cup, including a record two million viewers for matches that she presented on the BBC, Jacqui Oatley is one of those stalwarts desperate for the sport to finally realize its marketing and investment potential. She believes those elements are key in order to secure its long-term existence. ‘As long as women’s football is not self-funding there’s always a concern that the bubble could burst and we could go back to the way it was before,’ she says. ‘Maybe not players paying to play, but you’ve always got to worry it might go back to being semi-pro.’
In a column for Glamour magazine, she urged women to get off their sofas and actually go to watch live women’s sport. If you believe in it, she argued, then you must actively support it. ‘We still don’t have a culture of people going to watch women’s football so you’re trying to get people to change their social recreational habits and that won’t happen overnight,’ she tells me. ‘But I still think a huge amount can be done from a marketing point of view. It’s becoming a spectator sport on the TV because we’re getting great viewing figures, but we need people to go to the games and know where to get tickets.’ To that end, Jacqui is forever tweeting about kick-off times, where to buy tickets, prices and transport. She believes, as England and Chelsea striker Eniola Aluko and others do too, that more needs to be done. Best of all, she’s bubbling over with solutions. ‘It’s not just about media coverage, th
e FA still put money into the Women’s Super League – they are literally paying clubs to exist which a lot of people don’t quite realize. They pay £70K to each club in WSL1 [core funding] which the clubs have to match, and £35K to WSL2. But it has to be self-sustaining and that’s why I get the bee in my bonnet about marketing and the clubs not doing enough. I don’t think there’s enough initiative and creativity. They don’t use the men’s Twitter feed enough or send a male player like John Terry down to [Chelsea ladies’ ground] Staines to sign autographs. A lot of Chelsea fans don’t even know where the women play. It’s frustrating. A lot needs to be done to drive traffic through the turnstiles; it can be done, but it’s not happening.’
It still feels as though some of the best solutions lie outside the sports industry. Like the phenomenal poster campaign that went viral during the World Cup following Lucy Bronze’s winning strike to take England through to the semi-finals. ‘2015: the year boys all over England score goals in their gardens, whilst pretending they’re called Lucy’, it read. Genius. The campaign worked so well because it told us something new about women’s sport. It didn’t bang on about women’s sport being a purer, more virtuous, morally superior version of the men’s game – which is often how women’s sport is cloyingly described. Instead it just told us: this is the coolest thing, and even the opposite sex think so. Because they really do. Like the boys in Spike Lee’s film pretending to be Mo’ne Davis, the campaign tapped into a very modern way of thinking. Women’s sport is getting big, and everyone wants to be a part of it.
Thank goodness, then, that we have people like Jacqui on the case. Clare Balding aside, I honestly can’t think of another TV presenter who rolls their sleeves up to promote women’s sport quite like Jacqui does. Why does she do it? ‘Injustice, I absolutely hate injustice,’ she tells me. ‘Which sounds a bit grand when you’re talking about football. But I do. For example, look at [England star] Kelly Smith, look at the talent she has got. And she had to go to America to get the recognition she deserves, to play at a certain standard. What a shame she couldn’t play more in this country to that standard. When she played for Arsenal Ladies she’d play in front of crowds of eighty people. That was standard! That’s injustice, to me. She could probably walk down the street in this country and most people would not know she is Kelly Smith, the greatest female player this country’s ever had. That annoys me. I get so frustrated by that. And that’s gone now. We’ve seen the best of her now. Look at Rachel Yankey who pretended to be a boy called Ray just so she could play! You just hope the new generation gets a better deal. Look at the recognition Fran Kirby got for scoring one goal at the World Cup, and she’s on a good wage and doesn’t have to work now; you just hope it continues.’