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- Jul 24, 2015
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I am all for encouraging women to show greater interest in fields which they have traditionally been under-represented, for industries that matter. I'd like to see more women involved in STEM. That I think is important for society going forward. Do I care what proportion of the workforce for a footy club is male or female? Not so much.
However, I do appreciate there is a section of the community that does and feels like it is something of significance, for whatever reason. I generally think people will go work in fields and at employers where people will feel that it is a good career path and traditionally speaking, working at football clubs was a dud root and most people in the past that worked at clubs hamstrung their career for the love of the game or club itself. I think with the professionalism if football and the vast wads of broadcasting revenue coming in it now appeals to people outside of diehard fans and when you look at the paid roles we have at the club now, it is massively greater than what it was even 10 years ago.
My initial reservation was that I thought we had already taken great strides to become more equitable, the environment has been changing and we have changed with the times. I didn't feel that we needed to do anything other than just continue doing what we had already been doing. When you look at our footy club, outside of coaching, we have representation of women at every level and I am sure everyone is there on merit alone.
I am not against what we have been doing, just don't know why we went public about this particular policy. Who knows, perhaps there is a stigma around still and the club feels not enough women are applying for roles.
That being said, I do feel having our own female AFL team will do wonders for making more women feel that the club is part of them and they could possibly be a part of it if they wanted as they have more inspirational women who represent the club at the ultimate level, on field.
I think the announcement itself probably had something to do with this bolded bit.