The saying goes, 'When you're accustomed to privilege, equality feels like oppression.' Sometimes, it's worse than that: when you're accustomed to privilege, even meagre attempts to work towards equality can be interpreted as unfair. This attitude is evident in conversations about affirmative action and quotas. And it's often evident in the way we talk about sport.

The latest talking head to echo this attitude is former AFL player Kane Cornes, who said on SEN SA Breakfast earlier this week: 'I don't think there's any sport in Australia that has been given as many leg-ups as what AFLW has been given.'

The most basic problem with Cornes' statement is it is simply false. Even a cursory look at Australian sports history shows that, through both direct and indirect advantages, dominant men's sports have had a far more significant 'leg up' than any women's sport. From government funding and public policy, to access to sponsorship through old boys networks, to media coverage, to historical cultural norms, men's sport did not gain its dominant place in our sporting culture through a pure meritocracy or a diverse market of options.

Rather, a number of different structural advantages gave sports predominantly played by white cis men a significant advantage. It is precisely men like Kane Cornes who have benefitted from this massive cultural 'leg up'.

The development of Australia's sporting culture is intimately linked to traditional ideas about gender roles. The place of most dominant Australian sports was cemented in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. It is unsurprising, then, that the few sports where women's competition approaches men's for popularity are the games and sports in which women's participation was permitted in that era. Tennis and swimming are notable examples of this.

But the 'big four' Australian sports of Australian rules football, cricket, Rugby league and Rugby union were sports that were almost exclusively played by men. While there were some early female competitors, they were often seen as a novelty (see Brunette Lenkic and Rob Hess's excellent Play On! on this history of women's participation in Australian rules football). Cultural and legal forces restricted the opportunities for women to participate in the game.

Meanwhile, the men's games grew. Facilities were constructed, often on the public purse. Media norms were established. Early incarnations of what we'd now call lobby groups appeared to petition for government support and funding. This all happened during an era in which women were specifically excluded from participation. The men's game established its position free from any competing ideas about gender and sport.

"There is a pervading myth that Australia's sport culture naturally evolved, a survival of the sporting fittest, where the only thing that influences how popular a game is is what happens on the field. This is extraordinarily naïve and ahistorical."

My own undergraduate honours thesis looked at the role of a body known throughout history as the Australian National Football Council, the National Football Council and the Australian Football Council. Funded by a proportion of gate takings from (what was, by default) the men's game, the council attempted to promote Australian football's position in Australia's sporting culture.

The organisation battled for things such as which sports were played in teacher's colleges, and funded expansion opportunities. In one of its 1914 meetings, the ANFC minutes recorded 'it would be very easy to push the game from the Murray towards Sydney, and should be able to oust Rugby, because I do not think there is any chance of the New South Wales Rugby League spending much money in a like manner' (the inaccuracy of this statement is a story for another day).

There is a pervading myth that continues to exist among many that Australia's sport culture naturally evolved, a survival of the sporting fittest, where the only things that influences how popular a game is is what happens on the field. This is an extraordinarily naïve and ahistorical understanding of Australian sport.

Administrators of male sports spent financial and cultural capital to establish the dominance of their games. They embarked on campaigns of what they themselves termed propaganda. They petitioned governments for the establishment of facilities and stadiums. And they were wildly successful.

Which brings us back to Cornes' comments. In the immediate past, Australian state governments have spent hundreds of millions of dollars funding stadiums that will almost exclusively be used for men's sport. If the sports were required to self-fund the facilities, the financial viability of the games would be uncertain, and there would certainly not be enough left over for million-dollar contracts.

Cornes supported his argument with an anecdote about media coverage of the AFLW, saying 'There is a story on the Crows' women's leadership group, it is the leading sports story in the paper (the Advertiser) today.' But a more systematic examination of sports media shows women's sport still makes up a fraction of the overall sports coverage. As recently as 2015, women's sport received less than ten per cent of media coverage, while men's sport got over 80 per cent. Perhaps the most damning statistic from the report: horseracing alone got more coverage than all women's sport.

It's easy, if lazy, to believe that men's sport enjoys its position within Australia's sporting culture for its intrinsic values, that it was the hard work of generations past and current that secured its centrality. But such an understanding fails to recognise the forces that shaped Australia and its sport.

Just as in many other parts of life, male athletes benefit from over a century of accumulated social, political and financial capital. To suggest women's sports are getting a disproportionate 'leg up' is to ignore the extraordinary advantages afforded to male athletes who play Australia's most popular games, primarily because they have the good luck to be men in the 21st century.

Erin Riley is a sports writer and historian from Sydney. Her writing is focused on understanding the role sport and its institutions play in Australian life.

Main image: Meg Downie joins other AFLW players during a media opportunity in late 2018. (Robert Prezioso/AFL Media/Getty Images)