Clark says women love playing sport but inequality results in them being left behind

Former New Zealand prime minister Helen Clark has slammed her sports-obsessed nation’s treatment of women at all levels of sport, and said gender equality needs to be normalised.

Women's rugby sevens unable to stop Black Ferns 48-game run Read more

Problems of inequality are prevalent in New Zealand sport; despite winning the Women’s Rugby World Cup five times, the Black Ferns travelled to the last World Cup in economy class, while the All Blacks flew business.

Many professional players juggle multiple jobs and tricky childcare arrangements, and Clark also says there is a lack of female representation on New Zealand’s sporting boards and professional bodies.

According to Sports New Zealand 70% of high performance coaches in the country are men, as well as 60% of those in sports leadership roles and 73% of directorships.

“There are tried and true ways of ensuring that women are at every level, women are always there, and we should never accept the excuse that we couldn’t find women to appoint – they are there,” said Clark, speaking at a recent event aimed at boosting female participation in sport.

“There are stunning women who have come up through the sports stream and other women in the corporate world with the experience of being directors who could make a big contribution.”

A study of coverage of women’s sport in New Zealand found the majority of media attention is given to male competitions, with men described as “masterminds”, “dominant”, “great” and “fast”, while their female counterparts were commonly described as “married”, “unmarried” and “pregnant”.

“Back in the newsrooms, those who are selecting what’s going to air or print, they need some sensitisation about the incredible job women sportspeople are doing for New Zealand,” Clark said, as reported by RNZ.

She said men also had a significant role to play in encouraging more women into sport, by stepping up in their domestic and child-caring responsibilities, to allow women more time and freedom to participate in sport.

“I would like to see a change in the lives that men choose to also be more family orientated and seeing that as a legitimate part of one’s life,” Clark said. “Often men have been free to pursue a career whether it’s in sport or anything else with the knowledge somebody else is handling the family business.

“Women love doing it but the result is women get left behind.”