Room 5
UNEVEN POWER DYNAMICS
Women’s injury experiences and outcomes are deeply entangled with the unevenly gendered organisational hierarchies of sport.
“Old Boys’ Club”
Coach was male.
Nutritionist was male.
Strength conditioning was male.
Psychologist was male.
And if I then think about the decision-making side of sport,
being heard in that realm,
there is definitely a stronger, easier communication chain among the men.
The Old Boys’ Club.
I didn't sign up for an easy life.
We’re trying to go to the Olympics.
I didn’t sign up for an easy life.
I’m not trying to get one.
But people would be much happier if we got that power dynamic a bit better.
If an athlete suggested something,
it was like you'd committed a sin,
like you'd committed an offence, and
you would then be basically slightly shunned,
almost like it was like an affront on their power.
The younger male coaches just absolutely hated a more experienced female athlete questioning
their knowledge.
It was difficult to express ‘I don't think I should be doing this today,’
because it's my job to turn up and
I'm being paid to lift these weights and
I'm being paid to be here.
To turn around and say, ‘my back is sore today, I can't do it,’
is quite difficult because it's trying to find that balance between pushing myself but
not pushing myself too much to the point where I injure myself.
Athletes feel like you're so replaceable.
If you were doing well on the international stage, sometimes the special treatment was that you were
trusted to start making some of your own training decisions.
Trusted to say, ‘I’m ill I’d like to go home.’
The report said I hadn’t looked after myself,
why was I only addressing my injury now, and I was like, god,
I've been trying to address it for years.
The automatic route is ‘I wasn't prepared’ when actually I really was.
It was the equipment that was the issue.
They pulled me out of the competition without speaking to me about it, and
all the other athletes knew that I'd been pulled out before I did.
I found out on social media I’d lost my funding.
I had no phone call, no email.
Burst my bubble.
