“Giving Women A Collective And Formal Voice In Sport'”

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Anna Geary, Cork Camogie Captain on Vincent Browne’s People’s Debate in Charleville last night

Before ‘Family Guy‘ got a hold of the microphone on last night’s People’s Debate in Charleville, Cork Camogie Captain Anna Geary raised the matter of equality between men and women within the GAA.

Vincent Browne: “You’re critical of the lack of coverage in the media of women’s sports generally, is that right?”

Anna Geary: “Well, I think you look at male and female athletes in this country, they’re very equal in terms of their dedication and their commitment and their passion for the games they play. However, we have to be realistic, the coverage and the support, both financially and even attendance at games, is not equal. And I suppose really, it’s time for change. And I think people keep talking about change. And some of the words that are used here, are ‘support’ and ‘services’ and ‘sustainable future’. So the WGPA was launched last Tuesday and the WPGA was launched for a specific…”

Browne: “Tell people what WGPA is..”

Geary: “The WGPA is the women’s GPA. Those of you that know the GPA, the gaelic players’ association, and we decided to set up our own. I think a lot of people will testify that women’s sport has gained significant momentum in the past few years. And as I said, now is the time for change. So we have to take that upon ourselves.
We have a responsibility, we have, as players, drive players to improve and I suppose get publicity because power comes from publicity. So, for the WGPA, our goals for year one are very simple: to improve and better the experience of players at an inter-county level, to develop them and help them in their professional lives off the pitch, to increase the recognition for our games, both in camogie and ladies’ football, and to use our players as role models because I think it’s so important for young people.
Sport plays such an important part in the development of everybody, both young and old, and we need to  use these people as role models to show people the power and strength of women and that’s what we hope to do by incorporating scholarship programmes and leadership programmes and just giving women an collective and formal voice in sport because that’s what’s needed to move it on to the next level.”

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63 thoughts on ““Giving Women A Collective And Formal Voice In Sport'”

      1. rotide

        He’s not being that silly.

        There is an element of ‘women comedians’ in this. There has been a women’s championship running alongside the mens one for a long time now. The numbers just aren’t interested in it and no amount of advertising will help that.

        An icon would help or some sort of ‘sexing up’ of it. NB I’m not getting all Blatter here and suggesting smaller kits.

          1. Don Pidgeoni

            Minor differences right? And ones which the athletes don’t always support, at least for tennis.

  1. Wayne.F

    Not sure there is much you can do about the attendance at women’s sports events! You can not force people to attend games

    1. scottser

      yes there is, the same as you promote any event – reduced ticket prices, family concessions, getting people and communities invovled, fundraising etc. the gaa are genius at this. imo it’s a matter of visibility with women’s sports, not quality.

      1. Wayne.F

        Scotser, I have attended women’s sports events with free entry that have been well promoted and the spectator numbers are abysmal!

        The national Basketball cup in the Arena is a good example, you can see the numbers increase between the Men’s and women’s games. All games are held over the same weekend promoted the same way.

        1. scottser

          i hear ya wayne f. it is a shame that those events aren’t better attended. my point is that it’s rarely a quality issue. it’d be no worse than watching say, bray wanderers of a freezing friday night.

      2. Don Pidgeoni

        Perhaps but also about spectators believing they will get a good watch out of either mens or womens sport.

  2. Fredtheninja

    In fairness the reason why numbers at women’s sport are so poor is because it’s nowhere near as good to watch, generally.

    Soccer, GAA, rugby, basketball. Men’s sport is faster, more physical, more skilful and far more entertaining. That’s just how it is.

    1. Jock

      Women are looking for equality in sports when the themselves are not that committed. Look at sports where women are properly competitive with each other; tennis, gymnastics, figure skating. These sports stand on their own.

        1. scottser

          i followed bohs for a season when i lived up the north circular and i swear it was painful some weeks. you would literally see as good a standard by both sexes up the phoenix park of a saturday.

  3. Just sayin'

    I’ve asked women who go to the bigger rugby matches (Six Nations, European club) if they’d go along to a womens’ rugby game and they’ve looked horrified. I’d say about 90-95% of women who attend the occasional rugby match fall into this category.

    1. My Daddy is bigger than Yours

      this.

      There are more women at the men’s All-Ireland than at the women’s All-Ireland – who’s fault is that?

  4. My Daddy is bigger than Yours

    This worse than Katie Taylor whingeing about lack of coverage. No one has heard of your opponents – don’t expect to get kudos just because of your nationality

    1. Jock

      She’s managed to whinge her way to documentary because Mcgregor has his own. I don’t like him at all but I can see how he’s suitable for TV. She will be walking on about the importance of God in that dreary monotone.

      1. Jock

        Yeah, the glamour of some bout in Azerbaijan watched by a couple of hundred. Followed by shots of her hitting a bag and going to mass.

      2. Atlas

        Successful =/= interesting to watch. You couldn’t pay me to watch a doc on Andy Murray or Jessica Ennis, for instance.

          1. rotide

            Agreed Don, but that wasn’t your original point. You implied that merely being world champion would make it interesting.

          2. Don Pidgeoni

            Yes, because thats how documentary makers make money. But often the best bit about documentaries is watching ones you think will not be that great that turn out to be really fascinating.

          3. Banotti

            Who would somebody set out to commission and produce a boring documentary?

            Nobody, bar RTE. They’ve been pressured into making this one, almost blackmailed with calls of being sexist and disinterested in boxing.

          4. Don Pidgeoni

            Hey, Banotti/Jock, everyone. How about we watch it first and see what its like before making judgements about it? Or, don’t watch if it upset you that much.

          5. ReproBertie

            RTÉ are disinterested in boxing until the Olympics comes around. In fairness to them that reflects most Irish viewers’ interest too. If this is bring produced as a result of pressure then that just shows there is a growing audience for it. Bajock clearly isn’t in that audience but RTÉ has to cater to more than just him.

            Billy Walsh, coach of the Irish boxing team, has said that if they could get the men to dedicate themselves to training and diet the way Katie does then they’d be bringing home gold medals from every tournament. I have an interest in boxing (and most combat sports) so I look forward to seeing this. Hopefully it’ll give a decent insight into just how hard she works to win the medals that knuckle dragging couch potatoes dismiss so easily.

        1. Bertie Blenkinsop

          I think you’ve chosen a bad example in Andy Murray.

          Himself and his brother were present at the Dunblane school massacre, he’s the first Brit to win Wimbledon in 77 years despite the pressure that must have placed on him.

          Then you’ve got the issues with his parents, his friendship with Ross Hutchings…

          Overall, i think he’s an interesting guy but he just chooses not to play the media game.

          1. rotide

            Everyone knows all this, however have you seen him interviewed?

            It’s no better in a documentary. The Beeb made quite an interesting documentary about his wimbledon win using found footage and interviews with fans and players where they went through the day chronologically. It was great apart from Andy who is just never going to be an interesting subject.

          2. Atlas

            Fair enough, I just personally find him a bit boring to listen to and that’s about as far as my reasoning went for picking him as an example. Insert some other successful-but-boring athlete in his place.

    2. ReproBertie

      I think you’ll find that
      a) people with an interest in the sport have heard of her opponents
      b) more coverage would mean more people having heard of her opponents

  5. Davey T

    We should really force people to watch womens sports.
    “Yay for Mary, she hit the ball on her first attempt”
    Can be quite fun if you get into the spirit of it

    “Croke park has a capacity crowd here today for All Ireland Camogie final day- the financial incentive of 100 euro paid to every attendee has been a great success”

  6. Der

    Female sports stars interested in promoting female sports, seems fair enough to me. I’ll watch if it grabs my attention (like the women rugby last year) and I won’t if it doesn’t (like too many examples to mention both male and female)

  7. ReproBertie

    They clearly face an uphill battle. Interst will grow participation which will improve standards which will increase interest. Media coverage is a major part in drawing that interest. As usual TG4 are ahead of the mark here and show LGAA (which they sponsor). The success of the women’s rugby team has resulted in increased interest putting pressure on RTÉ who responded by showing the six nations games. Women’s athletics only seems to be covered when Ireland have a contender like Sonia or Fionnula to make it worth RTÉ’s time but the same could be said of men’s athletics.

    Of course there’s nothing they can do about the morons who happily dismiss women’s sport based on nothing more than their own prejudices but I imagine the best tactic is to just ignore them and get on with it. If we allowed the naysayers to hold us back we’d still be living in caves.

  8. Iwerzon

    Why don’t women football and camogie players join the GPA? Why did they set up the WGPA? This seems like self segregation and is doing their cause no good.

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