Toast Melbourne hire second female AFL coach

[Cannon82]

That's why AFL clubs need to be dynamic, and Melbourne is one of those. Cowan has coached our female side every season, and has plenty of experience in woman's footy. Her CV is as good as it possibly could be considering the fact that she's a woman, and the club is giving her a go accordingly. I'm not quite as offended as autocol or MWNN, I just don't see why gender has to be brought into it when there's literally nothing else she could have done.

Who's bringing gender into it? I believe that'd be the people celebrating hiring a female coach. The flip-side is to that is we've hired an inexperienced, part-time FIFO consultant. If the backslappers aren't celebrating her gender, what are they celebrating?

She could have been an assistant at an AFL club, coached a VFL team, or led a semi-professional team to multiple Premierships. Nothing stopping her from doing that, so there are literally plenty of other things she could've done. There are certainly far more tested, proven candidates out there, probably plenty with just as much "quality" as individuals.

 

[Proper Gander]

Who's bringing gender into it? I believe that'd be the people celebrating hiring a female coach. The flip-side is to that is we've hired an inexperienced, part-time FIFO consultant. If the backslappers aren't celebrating her gender, what are they celebrating?

She could have been an assistant at an AFL club, coached a VFL team, or led a semi-professional team to multiple Premierships. Nothing stopping her from doing that, so there are literally plenty of other things she could've done. There are certainly far more tested, proven candidates out there, probably plenty with just as much "quality" as individuals.

The article only looks like it's bringing gender into it - it's a bluff. In reality people are celebrating not hiring James Magner.

 

[autocol]

It's not sexism, it's pragmatic to favour someone who is proven at a higher level.

If you have a game rigged to massively advantage men, and then create selection criteria based on people's results in that game, then you are being sexist, not pragmatic. It's exactly the same as saying "we will hire whoever has the longest penis", and claiming that not to be sexist, even though it specifically excludes all women.

Further, it seems that playing at the highest level is not actually a prerequisite for a head coaching role in the AFL, as Brendans Macartney and Bolton have demonstrated. And yet, despite there being many thousands of women around the country with the analytical mind and people skills required to perform the role, none has ever been hired.

Is that just pragmatic?

 

[Cannon82]

If you have a game rigged to massively advantage men, and then create selection criteria based on people's results in that game, then you are being sexist, not pragmatic. It's exactly the same as saying "we will hire whoever has the longest penis", and claiming that not to be sexist, even though it specifically excludes all women.

Further, it seems that playing at the highest level is not actually a prerequisite for a head coaching role in the AFL, as Brendans Macartney and Bolton have demonstrated. And yet, despite there being many thousands of women around the country with the analytical mind and people skills required to perform the role, none has ever been hired.

Is that just pragmatic?

Except there's nothing excluding women from going after these roles. How is the game rigged to advantage men?

True, Bolton and McCartney never played at the highest level, but Bolton played state league in Tazzie and McCartney in the Geelong Football League, which is more than Cowan has done. It's not a prerequisite, but it is definitely viewed favourably. How many coaches come through the ranks having been players or having learned from some of the most successful coaches of their day? Plenty.

Bolton has been coaching state league or higher since 2003 and McCartney has been floating around as a development coach, assistant or coach for coming on 20 odd years now. You going to put your left nut on the line as a boardmember of a professional club with members to answer to and bypass all these candidates with 10+, 20+ years experience in favour of someone with no significant history of achievement in the game? I'd call that brave. If you're going to bypass a swathe of more qualified candidates to hire someone a woman, that sounds like sexism to me.

 

[autocol]

Except there's nothing excluding women from going after these roles. How is the game rigged to advantage men?

It's somewhat like the job market, when advertisements say they want to hire "graduate student" while also saying "must have ten years experience". It's impossible to achieve.

You're saying that coaches must have certain kinds of experience... experience which it is impossible for a woman to get. That means you're automatically excluding half of all the people in the country from the list of candidates, without any assessment of their skills and character. That's what sexism is.

If you're going to bypass a swathe of more qualified candidates to hire someone a woman, that sounds like sexism to me.

"More qualified", in this case, meaning "having had access to a whole bunch of things that only men have access to".

That is: rigging the game, as I said previously. Campaigning to change the rules of the game does not in any way "sound like sexism to me".

 

[Cannon82]

It's somewhat like the job market, when advertisements say they want to hire "graduate student" while also saying "must have ten years experience". It's impossible to achieve.

It's almost like that, except it isn't, because there are many, many people out there who have the experience covered. Why would you hire a graduate student to coach your football club?

You're saying that coaches must have certain kinds of experience... experience which it is impossible for a woman to get.

You keep saying its impossible - why? I'd also like to be an AFL coach but its impossible for me to get the experience.

"More qualified", in this case, meaning "having had access to a whole bunch of things that only men have access to".

That is: rigging the game, as I said previously. Campaigning to change the rules of the game does not in any way "sound like sexism to me".

Here, pick one:

• You want to work in the AFL, which means you have to compete against everyone else who wants to work in the AFL. Go out and get some experience, prove yourself and show you can match it with the best.
  
• There's no women's competition because traditionally women have shown the square root of bugger all interest in playing AFL. It's a fledgling competition and is going to take a lot of time to get off the ground. Players and coaches will be on a steep learning curve.

Suggesting the game is "rigged" because men have been playing for 150 odd years and women are now trying to play catch up... whose fault is that?

 

[ThePuppetMaster]

Err, yeah, they don't get to live and breath footy to the extent of a professional player or a professional coach because, at the time of writing:

• Zero females are afforded the opportunity to play professionally because there is no professional league, and;
• Two females are afforded the opportunity to coach professionally (at AFL level).

So, are you saying that women don't deserve these coaching positions because they've never played professionally, while simultaneously grasping to the idea that this somehow isn't sexism? Daisy Pearce is a phenomenal player (and person, I know her through friends) with a keen football brain who like Chris Judd would have been on a million bucks a year had she been born with a dick. She never had the opportunity to play professionally (yet). Are you saying that she should therefore be overlooked for a coaching gig in 2025 in favour of someone like James Magner, for example?

Because she didn't "live and breath" footy to "the extent" that he did?

Because that sounds like rigging a game, big time, and then using the outcome of the game as evidence that you were right all along.

I don't know how you got there, but well done mate - there's no rigging, just reality.

It's reality that football positions go to people who've played at the highest level? Right. Because that's where you get the most knowledge about the game.

That's a fact, that has no bearing on the current situation.

There are heaps of professional women's sporting codes around the world? Right.

Why has the AFL not been one of them? Multiple reasons - no doubt some sort of sexism has played a part, but that would be the same in all other male dominated sports (which, if you go back far enough, was ALL sports).

The real reason? Women have developed an interest in playing and competing in football much later then men. The creation of a professional league and opportunities doesn't happen overnight and you need to understand that, instead of rushing to judgement.

Comparing Daisy Pearce to James Magner? How do you know James Magner doesn't have a great football brain? He's trained and played under some great coaches.

If a male with the football experience of Daisy Pearce was pitted against James Magner I'm sure Magner would come out on top as well.

I think it's great that women are starting that experience and in 2025 there will no doubt be a heap of women equally qualified for football positions - if they don't get jobs then, there will be a case for sexism.

In terms of football clubs and the AFL, I've worked in both areas and there are just as many - if not more - women working in commercial and administration sections of the competition.

 

[Proper Gander]

It's almost like that, except it isn't, because there are many, many people out there who have the experience covered. Why would you hire a graduate student to coach your football club?



You keep saying its impossible - why? I'd also like to be an AFL coach but its impossible for me to get the experience.




Here, pick one:

• You want to work in the AFL, which means you have to compete against everyone else who wants to work in the AFL. Go out and get some experience, prove yourself and show you can match it with the best.
  
• There's no women's competition because traditionally women have shown the square root of bugger all interest in playing AFL. It's a fledgling competition and is going to take a lot of time to get off the ground. Players and coaches will be on a steep learning curve.

Suggesting the game is "rigged" because men have been playing for 150 odd years and women are now trying to play catch up... whose fault is that?

All good points.

Leaving aside the fascinating gender aspects - I think though your notion of best candidate being linked to time-served is somewhat old fashioned.

 

[Cannon82]

All good points.

Leaving aside the fascinating gender aspects - I think though your notion of best candidate being linked to time-served is somewhat old fashioned.

I didn't say it to that extreme, but you can't believe that having demonstrable experience at doing a job isn't going to be a very good indicator of capability of doing that job? I'm not going to hire a hairdresser and a chef to build me a bridge, I'm going to get a civil engineering mob and a construction firm with a litany of experience on similar projects. It's not old-fashioned, it's prudent.

 

[Topkent]

Feel like I articulated everything better than Cannon82

 

[Cannon82]

Feel like I articulated everything better than Cannon82

Youse are all ******* idiots.
Normally I start my posts by writing "youse are all ******* idiots", deleting it and trying to write something a little more constructive and a little less accurate.

 

[Proper Gander]

I didn't say it to that extreme, but you can't believe that having demonstrable experience at doing a job isn't going to be a very good indicator of capability of doing that job? I'm not going to hire a hairdresser and a chef to build me a bridge, I'm going to get a civil engineering mob and a construction firm with a litany of experience on similar projects. It's not old-fashioned, it's prudent.

No you wouldn't hire a hairdresser or a chef to build a bridge, but you might extend the concept of 'merit selection' to encompass the possibility of hiring someone with a few years of bridge stuff behind them, but superior qualifications who demonstrates significant qualities of innovation instead of the guy that has built bridges for 20 years.

Bridge building is probably not the best example here. Unless for example you are appointing a team of say 5 people to build a bridge. In that instance you might already have 3 people who have build thousands of bridges for hundreds of years - so your next appointment might be the innovator rather than the dinosaur. That way you bring proven success together with latest innovations and science and get a super bridge like maybe a latex tube in psychedelic patterns that jet propels you across a river instead of just a sort of concrete thing with railings. And you get awards and stuff. Everybody likes awards and stuff.

I know in my own work job criteria have been changed so that instead of "demonstrated experience in [insert industry / skill area etc] to instead read "demonstrated superior knowledge of [insert whatever] and skills in [thingo] or ability to acquire required skills and knowledge quickly". This isn't specifically to undermine people who have worked in a particular area for 20 years (though sometimes there is a good reason that a person has remained static, never promoted and has been doing the same thing for a very long time, and its well worth avoiding as an employer), its to move away from the notion of time-served being the arbitrator of hierarchy and avoid the necessity of having to employ a mediocre fart type over a person who could bring something dynamic.

This was about women in lesser coaching positions though - I've wandered off a bit. Whether or not this appointment is successful or not - and I acknowledge the element of risk - remains to be seen. Though there is only one way to find out and MFC have taken that step. Not such a vast risk though. I'm working on the principle that they have given consideration to the appointment, the persons skills, plans, strategic capacity and general 'team ethic' and haven't gone with a random who wandered by one day at a moment when Peter Jackson thought a political statement might be nice. Also, she will presumably be answerable to somebody, have performance criteria, reviews et al, and expected to manage her cyclic hormonal disabilities not to bite anyone or cry.

With the importance of science in sport and training exploding in recent years, I expect a few less conventional appointments to be dotted around the AFL as time goes on. Whether a woman who, by virtue of being a woman, has not played AFL at a professional level is therefor not capable of bringing anything to a coaching team has not been established.

One thing I do know - you don't have to have a baby to be a gynaecologist.

Feel like I articulated everything better than Cannon82

Totally

 

[Cannon82]

No you wouldn't hire a hairdresser or a chef to build a bridge, but you might extend the concept of 'merit selection' to encompass the possibility of hiring someone with a few years of bridge stuff behind them, but superior qualifications who demonstrates significant qualities of innovation instead of the guy that has built bridges for 20 years.

I think you're getting a little carried away with the example instead of the principle. Naturally, superior qualifications count, although the comment on 'innovation' and 'dinosaurs' is a bit airy fairy. Longevity in an industry can be indicative of innovation and responsiveness to change (if it's a sufficiently competitive market), it's not something that should count against someone and you can't assume that the person / company is 'stuck' in their ways. That's a case by case determination.

I know in my own work job criteria have been changed so that instead of "demonstrated experience in [insert industry / skill area etc] to instead read "demonstrated superior knowledge of [insert whatever] and skills in [thingo] or ability to acquire required skills and knowledge quickly". This isn't specifically to undermine people who have worked in a particular area for 20 years (though sometimes there is a good reason that a person has remained static, never promoted and has been doing the same thing for a very long time, and its well worth avoiding as an employer), its to move away from the notion of time-served being the arbitrator of hierarchy and avoid the necessity of having to employ a mediocre fart type over a person who could bring something dynamic.

Seems a pretty meaningless statement to me. Superior to what? How quickly? Relative to? Typical HR babble that works out well if hiring liars and narcissists is the goal.

This was about women in lesser coaching positions though - I've wandered off a bit. Whether or not this appointment is successful or not - and I acknowledge the element of risk - remains to be seen. Though there is only one way to find out and MFC have taken that step. Not such a vast risk though. I'm working on the principle that they have given consideration to the appointment, the persons skills, plans, strategic capacity and general 'team ethic' and haven't gone with a random who wandered by one day at a moment when Peter Jackson thought a political statement might be nice. Also, she will presumably be answerable to somebody, have performance criteria, reviews et al, and expected to manage her cyclic hormonal disabilities not to bite anyone or cry.

If the club are chasing a team in the women's competition, clearly they've decided who they'd like to look after it and they're giving her some exposure to the AFL system. Can't see it being a critical role working 4 days per fortnight.

With the importance of science in sport and training exploding in recent years, I expect a few less conventional appointments to be dotted around the AFL as time goes on. Whether a woman who, by virtue of being a woman, has not played AFL at a professional level is therefor not capable of bringing anything to a coaching team has not been established.

I doubt anything significant is going to change in the main coaching positions. Yes, there will be various consultants, analysts and witch doctors brought in to the football department like there have been for a while now , but I think you'll be waiting a long while for the first female coach in the men's competition. Former top level players getting the gig is at least partly due to the fact that the playing group will be half a chance to listen to them.

 

[Proper Gander]

I think you're getting a little carried away with the example instead of the principle. Naturally, superior qualifications count, although the comment on 'innovation' and 'dinosaurs' is a bit airy fairy. Longevity in an industry can be indicative of innovation and responsiveness to change (if it's a sufficiently competitive market), it's not something that should count against someone and you can't assume that the person / company is 'stuck' in their ways. That's a case by case determination.



Seems a pretty meaningless statement to me. Superior to what? How quickly? Relative to? Typical HR babble that works out well if hiring liars and narcissists is the goal.



If the club are chasing a team in the women's competition, clearly they've decided who they'd like to look after it and they're giving her some exposure to the AFL system. Can't see it being a critical role working 4 days per fortnight.



I doubt anything significant is going to change in the main coaching positions. Yes, there will be various consultants, analysts and witch doctors brought in to the football department like there have been for a while now , but I think you'll be waiting a long while for the first female coach in the men's competition. Former top level players getting the gig is at least partly due to the fact that the playing group will be half a chance to listen to them.

Yeah okay okay. I'm not anticipating or advocating for a woman senior coach in the near or possibly distant future. I just don't really have an especially pronounced problem with this particular appointment.

Incidentally - the HR babble on contemporary job descriptions is HR babble. I sort of tried to use it as an example of a noble purpose, but what it is really for (in the Public Service at least) is to make selection criteria so vague that any investigation by the Merit Commissioner can't find that the agency is in breach in respect of any dodgy or notably unfair appointment they choose to make.

I'm done with that last thought. Thank * its Friday

 

[Gysberts2Bate]

This thread has gone pretty much exactly as I expected it would.

 

[Topkent]

This thread has gone pretty much exactly as I expected it would.

It turned into a discussion ?

Heavens above!

 

[mrmonkey]

I can understand the way the world is with political correctness, that some people think there's some element of tokenism. I'm happy for the club to hire a thousand women, particularly after one man *coughmarkneeld* could stuff up things so much.