Over the weekend, I was courtside at my daughter’s U8 basketball game in the gym at one of our local primary schools.
A mixed team of 5- and 6-year-olds all playing their first season, this group of little legends has been learning the ropes and building their confidence each week, chins held high. Game 3 marked the first time they scored. Game 6, their first win. Once they were so caught up celebrating a teammate’s first goal that their opponents had time to score down the other end without them even noticing – my daughter a key instigator in that group hug.
She is a firecracker. Boundless energy. Heart on her sleeve. Dr Becky’s “deeply feeling kid” very much applies here. She’s been known to sprint from the bench to hug teammates mid-game when they score, so delighted is she by their success.
Fast forward to Saturday. One of her friends scores for the very first time – also marking the first time a girl on the team has scored.
Cue, massive cheers.
And then…
Eyes lock with mine from the court. Bottom lip starts trembling. Tears threaten. All of a sudden, I’m the one getting a courtside hug, with my daughter rapidly trying to process being happy for her friend, while at the same time, wondering if her time to score will ever come.
What followed was brief and gentle: that it’s ok to have big feelings, but we still be happy for our friends when something good happens for them.
Again, she is 6. Learning lessons like these is part of growing up.
Which is why the footage circulating overnight of the USA men’s ice hockey team celebrating Olympic gold jarred so sharply. During a locker room congratulatory call, President Trump invites the men to the White House. ‘Unbelievable’, he describes them. He has medals for them! And don’t worry, he’ll be sending a military plane so they can be back stateside in time for the State of the Union Address.
He then adds, laughing as he says it, that “we have to, I must tell you, we’re going to have to bring the women’s team. You do know that. I do believe I probably would be impeached [if I didn’t].”
The locker room fills with laughter.
The “women’s team” in question? The USA women’s ice hockey team, which has also just won gold at the Milano Cortina Winter Olympics. Achieving the same level of career defining success as their male counterparts with, I am confident in assuming, far less support, opportunity, pay, recognition, and endorsements along their playing journeys.
Cue, me sighing very loudly.
I try to look for a silver lining. I can hear a male voice chant “two for two”, celebrating the achievements of both teams. Perhaps not everyone there laughed. But mostly? I hear the condescending chortling too many of us are too familiar with.
These are elite athletes. Professionals. Men who have reached the top of their sport on an international stage. And yet, at the mere mention of their female counterparts sharing recognition, the instinct of most was not to celebrate their incredible equivalent achievement, but to diminish it in an attempt to retain their own perception that their ‘manly’ achievement somehow meant more.
If a 6-year-old can be expected to learn that someone else’s achievements doesn’t take away from your own efforts, then guess what? This team of adults is very overdue in learning that same lesson.
As are certain male athletes, men’s teams, and male commentators in sports worldwide, because this isn’t the first time we’ve seen locker room “jokes” like this, and sadly, it’s highly unlikely to be the last.
Celebrating someone else’s success doesn’t take away from yours.
There is not a finite amount of glory.
Women in sport are not your punchline.
And your sport, whether that is ice hockey, football or anything in between, will be infinitely better off by welcoming, including, and investing in women and girls.
As I’ve written about previously, structural inequity in funding, media coverage, and sponsorship is not only hurting women athletes. It is hurting sports themselves by missing out on the full economic engagement of half of the population.
It’s hurting countries like ours still trying to move past deeply entrenched gender stereotypes far beyond sport.
Part of me wishes the women’s team did still travel to the White House, following news that they’ve since declined the invitation. That they claimed that moment of visibility, and checked if any of their male peers had the courage to meet their eye. But I can understand why they have chosen not to.
One day my 6-year-old will be able to aim high enough to get that basket. Perhaps one day men like this will realise they too can aim higher, and don’t need to laugh at cheap shots.