I also have an enormous passion for being involved in sport. I played rugby for 25years (knee finally gave out), coached a variety of sports, and am currently trying to learn (not very successfully) how to juggle a round ball. For the past 5 years I have been coaching miniroos and my daughter Rosie and I have become a convert to the world game. In 2019 I became a member of Melbourne Victory’s W-league team and am an avid supporter of women’s football. Regularly nutmegged at training I have witnessed first-hand the incredible growth and confidence playing football can give girls and as an advocate for gender equity I am enormously proud of Football Victoria’s goal to achieve 50/50 by 2027.

We used to play a small sided soccer game called ‘gol caixote’. The posts were made with flip flops, and the uneven terrain, houses and people passing by made the game even more fun. I grew up playing football and flying kites with friends who lived in favelas (slums in Brazil). I met so many good friends while playing football. At that time, I had no access to football clubs in my city. After five years of playing on the streets, my family moved to another city where we finally found a club that welcomed girls. I played at a local level for eight years in my city. I remember all the barriers we faced. For example, I remember my coach having to pay for our uniforms while the boys’ uniforms were funded by the club. On rainy days, I remember cleaning off the water from the outdoor court in order to train while the boys trained indoors in the gym, but I also remember everything we learned through football. I learned so many values including teamwork, collaboration, and trust. My experience playing football led me to complete a PhD at the University of Sao Paulo in 2014 during which time I explored critical pedagogy and feminist studies in order to co-create a football program that better addressed youth from socially vulnerable backgrounds. I became passionate about how we can prepare coaches/teachers to deliver pedagogies aligned with the idea of social transformation. To learn more about it, I did my post-doctoral fellowship at New Mexico State University (US) in 2015– 16 after which I moved to Australia and joined VU as a lecturer in 2018. I believe Change Makers creates a space for me to keep trying to impact young women’s practice and their future participation in sport. However, this project is special because I am not alone; we are a group, a community that shares the same emancipatory interest. Collectively, we could create spaces for girls to name, critique, and negotiate barriers to participate in football. I think Change Makers offers a unique opportunity to give back what we have learned to the football community.

At university I was introduced to sociological thinking and these tools allowed me to see that sport experiences and opportunities were not the same for everyone, and that in many ways I had been very fortunate in my access to opportunities to play sport and the  encouragement I had received from teachers and coaches to practice and continue playing. I also became aware that I had tolerated a lot of ingrained sexism that I had not questioned at the time – I had just taken for granted that my brothers and my male peers had even better experiences, more opportunities and greater rewards in sport. These realizations turned into a quest to better understand and change sporting structures and culture.  In my job I work every day to use and translate my knowledge of inequality, discrimination and injustice to help try and make sport, physical education, exercise and physical activity experiences more accessible, safer and better experiences for all. I am particularly invested in working towards gender equality and am so excited to bring the Change Makers project to life through this partnership with Football Victoria to help them achieve the bold target of 50/50. I can’t wait to meet you, and work with you on this mission!

Before my last year of university, I had the chance to trial and train with the Argentine Women’s National Football Team as the daughter of a mother born and raised in the South American country. It was then I realized that my experiences in football in the US had not been the ‘norm’ but rather the exception to the rule for most young women around the world. Having never faced overt stigmatization or exclusion from the sport I loved, I was shocked to find that in a country so passionate about ‘fútbol’, women had been left out of the national pastime. My Argentine teammates told me about the almost nonexistent funding of their club teams, the absolute lack of youth teams for girls, the times they’d been repeatedly mocked and marginalized for playing a sport for men, yet what amazed me most was how they’d overcome, and continued to overcome, these obstacles to be able to play even in a most precarious competition. These players were the exception in a culture which explicitly excluded women. This experience led me to move to Argentina and eventually pursue a PhD in Social Sciences at the University of Buenos Aires, where I am currently a doctoral candidate studying elite level women’s football as a player and researcher. The past few years in Argentina have been revolutionary for women in general, but particularly in football; a revolution I was honored to take part in alongside my teammates from club and country. Following playing with Argentina in the 2019 Women’s World Cup in France, I began looking for opportunities abroad to grow both as a footballer and as a social scientist, a search which would bring me to Melbourne, Australia and VU in 2020.  The Change Makers project is a unique opportunity to blend academia and sport in a practical way with the aim of making football clubs safer and more inclusive spaces not only for women but for all. However, the most interesting and promising aspect of this project is that it is not one sided but rather a collaborative effort with the Victorian football community to empower leaders, ‘Change Makers’, to ‘make change’ in their local clubs, change that will hopefully become contagious to all of Victoria and the rest of the country.

Past research projects have focussed on the challenges of change within sport, with a focus on cycling, and governance and leadership. As an athlete, I reached the elite level in two sports disciplines: Basketball where I (briefly) played WNBL for the Dandenong Rangers, and road and track cycling where I raced professionally in the USA.  I have ridden across Canada, cycled around France, and raced as the only female in the team that won Race Across America (RAAM) in 2007 which set a course record. I am a passionate advocate supporting growth of women and girls’ participation in cycling, leading gender equity changes across the sport while serving on the board of Cycling Victoria and having previously chaired Cycling Australia’s Women’s Commission and Cycling Victoria’s Women and Girls’ Commission. I am a Change our Game Ambassador through the Victorian Government Office for Women in Sport and Recreation’s Change our Game program. Beyond cycling, I was co-founder and inaugural President of HypoActive, a charity devoted to supporting people with type 1 diabetes in becoming more physically active. A photo of my backside (below) has appeared in the New York Times, where I advocated for people skipping work to become full time athletes.

I have been involved in football since I was 11 at a playing capacity and then at 13 changed into a leadership role within the sport. As one of 2 female referees in Ballarat it has been challenging but it has also pushed me to fight for more evolvement and a stronger voice for women and girls in football, right through from admin to players and leadership roles. I completed my university placement with Football Victoria, working in the department of Women and Girls and worked on a successful Change our Game grant application to help undergo further research into Female referee participation within Victoria. For my second placement I worked in the Office for Women in Sport and helped coordinate the International Women’s Day Lunch and Symposium. Being part of an event this scale allowed me to see what other sports are doing to support women and girls and see the leadership of women in their sporting fields and understand that my voice can be heard. After my experience in placement and through my own person experience in the sport I have seen so many positives and a shift in the space of Women and Girls in sport but I have also seen my fair share the negatives that are still embedded within sport at all levels from game day to the decision making and if not looked at or challenged will stay that way.

During my studies, my sociological research experience was strengthened when I undertook an internship as a research assistant with the Sport, Diversity and Social Change research group as a part of my placement on a project with Wyndham Basketball Association. This project investigated the issues regarding gender equality in basketball in Melbourne’s west. Currently, I am playing, coaching and dedicating a lot of my time into making a change in the culture of my own basketball club. I was responsible for the co-creation of a committee within our association called Women in Sporting Environments (WISE) which aims to reduce the gender imbalance in participation and provide a supportive environment where girls feel encouraged to play or become involved in the sport of basketball. I have also been involved in many programs encouraging inclusion such as running girls only skill sessions and assisting in coaching programs initiated by the Centre of Multicultural Youth providing ways for young people from refugee and migrant backgrounds to build a sense of belonging. Achieving gender equality, particularly in my own sport of basketball, has always been a passion of mine. When the opportunity arose to use my experience and dedication to take part in the Change Makers project partnering with Football Victoria, I jumped at the chance to work alongside fellow researchers who together, were striving to make a positive change in female participation. I never thought what that I started years ago at my own basketball club would eventuate into a major part of life and what I stand for. Through this project, I can’t wait to expand my research knowledge and make a difference in the wider population.

After completion of a Bachelor of Exercise Science (Sport Practice) at Victoria University (VU) in 2019, I have joined the Sport Diversity and Social Change research group at VU as an Honours student. My Honours research is focused on women playing Australian Rules football at a local club level, aiming to understand their experiences and their pathways to playing football. I am a fierce advocate for women’s sport, and I believe all women should have the same variety of sporting options as their male counterparts. Through my research, I am learning about the many challenges women and girls still face in sport, but more importantly how sport enriches their lives and why they keep coming back. I am confident my research on AFL will help me to understand effective ways to contribute to achieving gender equality at Football Victoria. I am excited to evolve as a researcher and professional while contributing to making lasting changes in such an innovative program. For me, the most exciting part about the Change makers program is the sustainability of it. It is not a quick fix program, and the aims of education and empowerment of football clubs in Victoria will contribute to lasting change.

It is only now as an emerging researcher in the area that I realise this is a common barrier for females participating in sport, coupled with a society that tells girls either consciously or not, that sport is primarily for boys and that’s OK. This is one of the primary reasons that I am passionate about being part of a project that can create genuine change in sport for females and hopefully be a catalyst for other sports to follow. Although I have been in equestrian since I was 7years old, I was not athletic, I was not involved in a team sport, nor did I have a positive PE and sport experience in school. I went traveling at age 21 and realised how unfit I was and when I returned, joined a gym and started researching nutrition and health. That was a decade ago and I have remained committed to this lifestyle ever since, and of course the equestrian side of my life has only improved as a result. After having my daughter 5 years ago I decided to commit to working with young people and ensure that they have equity in their sport and PE opportunities and that these are positive experiences which result in a lifelong affiliation for health and fitness. I continue to work in the equine industry and coach young people in this space and look forward to working with your club in an ambitious yet exciting goal of 50/50.

Growing up the social pressures to act ‘like a girl’ were overwhelming and I made the difficult decision to quit playing sport as a teenager, this is something that I now regret in my early adulthood and I hope to make an impact in my later years as a professional in the sports and psych industry to ensure that young girls don’t have to make the same decision between being bullied or foregoing their love for physical activity. Throughout my degree, I found a passion for volunteering and am now a Wellness Coordinator for a football club in Melbourne’s West, which I hope to continue for years to come. My love for learning has evolved throughout my senior years of high school and tertiary education, I always want to know as much as I can about anything that grabs my attention and I also love teaching others about the interesting things I’ve learnt. In my final year of my Bachelor’s Degree, I completed a unit about sociological thinking in the sporting world, something which engaged me beyond any other unit I had completed beforehand; as an avid activist for women’s rights, animal rights and human rights overall, sociology has grabbed my heart and soul completely. I aim to complete my Honour’s in Psychology next year, followed by a master’s in clinical psychology. In addition to this, I also want to work on research projects regarding Sport Science, Sociology and Social Change. Joining the Change Makers team has been such a learning curve already and I am very excited to watch this evolve into something truly transformative.

Further, both my positive and negative experiences within the sporting world have shaped a desire to work towards gender equity within the sporting industry and to help others overcome some of the common barriers faced when navigating the many layers of sports participation.

Having recently been introduced to sociological thinking I am eager to expand my knowledge base and continue to grow within the sociological landscape and challenge expectations. Overall, I am so super excited to be involved with the Change Maker’s project (despite a lack of football experience!) and I can’t wait to contribute further to achieving Football Victoria’s amazing goal of 50/50!

Basketball is perhaps more advanced on its journey towards equality, but there is still a significant gap that I experienced throughout my playing years. 

My club was lucky if we were able to string together one girl’s team, whereas the boy’s counterpart would easily have five or six. Men’s teams were appointed high-up coaches, whilst we were left with parent volunteers- and this is just scratching the surface in a sport that does typically have a high female presence. The males in my family were also heavily invested in AFL, which I always dreamed of playing too but the female league in Canberra was non-existent at the time, so I stuck with basketball instead. This unfortunately solidified an understanding of the segregation between men and women’s sport from a young age. The progressive explosion of women’s AFL signifies that this separation is artificial, and we have the power to change any male-dominated sport with the right education, support, and resources.

Since moving to Melbourne for studies, my focus has shifted from playing sport, to educating myself on the theoretical, psychological, and sociological aspects of sporting culture. I am eager to take this knowledge and apply it to a momentous issue, alongside a team of passionate researchers and Change Makers. Football Victoria’s goal of 50/50 by 2027 is a change that I am confident will happen, and the opportunity to be a small part of this project is beyond exciting.

As a child I played several different sports, my main sport being (Australian rules) football. I grew up playing football alongside the boys until I was 14 years old, being the only girl on my team didn’t faze me at the time. I was just a kid kicking around a ball no different to my teammates and they never treated me any different. As I became older I became more aware that it wasn’t quite normal for a girl to be playing in a boy’s sport and I experienced the comments, reactions and opinions that came with it. 

As I made the switch from playing with the boys to joining the newly developed girls league I became even more aware of all the different barriers girls face in the sporting world (like lack of equipment, access to facilities, funding etc.). These were not the kind of things I encountered when playing with the boys, yet this never stopped the girls from putting a team out on the field each weekend. While I don’t have much of a background in soccer the Change Makers project sounds very exciting to me and I am looking forward to being involved!

Since moving to Victoria I joined a Women’s AFL club and enjoyed learning and playing the game. I am currently in my last year of completing a Bachelor of Physical Education and Sport Science. 

My first realisation of gender inequality in sport was on the touch rugby field, playing a mixed sport made me feel as though I had to really earn my spot to be able to “keep up” with the boys. This feeling was exhausting and when comparing it to my experience with the Womens AFL team it was completely different. I felt as though I completely belonged and was an equal member of the team. This was the first of many interactions with gender inequalities in sport and I am excited to help make a change to Victorian women’s football opportunities. This opportunity to contribute to this sociological research is so wonderful as gender equality is something I am personally passionate about. With recently engaging in the sociological units at Victoria University it has allowed me to analyse and understand the “why’s?” behind sport issues. I really look forward to working alongside this program and finding a solution to achieve 50/50 for Football Victoria.