Let's celebrate sensational women - by Mary

Here at @LadiesWhoLeague, you might have guessed that we are passionate about two main things - women and rugby league. When you combine these two things, you get me, a person who is passionate about the role of women in rugby league and how we can increase female participation both at a fan level, but also at a more administrative and managerial level.

Over the next couple of weeks I am going to be considering how we can get more women involved in the NRL. This is a concept very dear to my heart so I would truly love for as many of you as possible to get involved in the conversation so that we can work towards taking positive steps forward. It is only by starting the conversation that we can really get to the crux of what we're talking about.

This will be the first of a series of posts I will be writing on the issue.

The first step we need to take is to make women involved in Rugby League more visible. Whilst I have often blogged about the lack of women who are involved in the game at higher levels, there are a number of women who play a really important role in our game. We should celebrate these women. Often, when females think of the NRL, the only women they can think of who are associated with the game are the cheerleaders and the mum's who operate the canteen and cheer their sons or daughters on from the sideline. While there is nothing wrong with this and these women are crucial to our game, we need to celebrate all the women who contribute to NRL in a positive way and we also need to encourage women to be brave enough to put their hands up to be involved in NRL.

I have many female heroes who are involved in our game. Just think of Raelene Castle, the CEO of the Bulldogs, Catharine Lumby, who advises the NRL on a pro bono basis in regard to gender issues, Maria Tsialis, journalist at Big League Magazine, Lara Pitt who work with Fox Sports, Debbie Spillane who runs the fabulous Hens FC and of course Catherine Harris, the only woman on the Australian Rugby League Commission and the tremendous woman who declared that she wanted to see a woman on the board of every NRL club by 2014.

These women demonstrate that women have a lot to offer and can make a positive contribution to rugby league when given the opportunity. 

There are countless roles for women in NRL which takes them away from the stereotypical image of being either a mum on the sidelines or a cheerleader on the sidelines. We need to encourage women to become involved in the administration of our game because while 40 per cent of paying NRL fans are women, this is not reflected in the way the game is administered.

Here are some ideas - let's get women in our NRL boardrooms, women running our football clubs, women taking part in game day by getting involved in ground announcing, women commentators both in print media, radio and television, and women taking part in the officiating of the game (this already happens in the EPL and in the A-League). When these women do become involved they should be promoted and celebrated just as much as men involved in our game.

We need strong female role models to lead the way and there is certainly no lack of them.

I'll continue writing on this issue over the coming weeks.

Love, 

@LadiesWhoLeague