The countdown is well and truly on for the Olympics!

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Tomorrow it will be officially 50 days until the Olympics kicks off in Paris!! Are you going? Email us at [email protected] if you’re one of the lucky ones to make it to France (meanwhile, we’ll at Sydney HQ watching the Games and binging Emily in Paris).

We’re heading into a yuuge few months of women’s sport.

On a policy level, FIFA has (finally) made changes to further protect female footballers and coaches during and after pregnancy, which includes adding a minimum of 14 weeks paid maternity leave to their contracts. FIFA also introduced a menstrual health leave policy, which means players can take a day off work while receiving full pay. There’s obviously still a long way to go.

Jump over to the US of A, and this year’s women’s basketball (aka the WNBA) season is in full swing. WNBA liveblogger Jordan Robinson has shouted out Caitlin Clark’s tidy work in particular - noting that “her full-court passing ability has translated to the next level”. We loveee a levelling up moment on the court.

Meanwhile in the surfing world, rising stars Vahiné Fierro and Australia’s Molly Picklum found themselves in something akin to spiritual communion this week at Teahupo’o in Tahiti. There must be something in the water for the girls atm… because The Guardian’s Kieran Pender opined that the decades (decades!) long incremental work towards gender equality in surfing seems to be finally paying off. For context, as recently as 2006, women surfers were actually banned from competing at Teahupo’o because it was deemed “too risky”.

But the road is long for women’s sport. Deaf Football President Australia highlighted that professional deaf and hearing impaired soccer players are still woefully under-resourced, having to resort to ‘frantically fundraising’ from family and friends to then go and ‘proudly represent’ Australia overseas. Any ideas on how we can better redirect the flow of capital towards the women in sport who need it the most, MP readers?

For the movie buffs among you, stay tuned for a new documentary women’s cycling called Second To None coming out on documentary streaming platform DocPlay (alty, we know) on June 17. Perfect timing ahead of the men’s Tour de France later in the same month. 

The Missing Perspectives team xx

Sarah Burt: The new documentary Trailblazers tracks the rise of women's football in Australia

“I have a hatred for people telling me what to do…You can’t do that because you’re a girl, you can’t do that because you’re a mother…well, now I have to.”

Former Matildas Captain Melissa Barbieri was told “you don’t come back” to football after becoming a mum in 2013, but in the coming years she would prove that very wrong.

The brand-new documentary Trailblazers tracks the rise of the Australian women’s national football team from a fledgling concept to what we see today, and discerningly explores the nuances of the players, coaches and administrators experience since World War I.

Unless you’ve just emerged from a year of living abroad or under a rock wrapped in tin foil, you will know that Matildas fever swept Australians off their collective feet in August 2023.

However, before they were catapulted into the mainstream zeitgeist, they battled near invisibility, while they fanned the embers for the explosion to ensue. Former vice-captain of the Matildas, Moya Dodd played in FIFA’s first ever women’s tournament in 1988, and twenty-five years later, became one of the first women to join the governing body.

“Women footballers are kind of a special breed, it takes a certain kind of feistiness and energy to want to do something that you’ve been told you shouldn’t do,” Dodd says in the documentary. “Football was a sport played by men, watched by men, for the benefit of other men.”

The documentary takes us through a chronologic recap beginning with a positive of women playing football during the first world war. Factory workers formed teams and began to play each other… then the men came home from war. Although not formally banned like other countries, by 1921, women were heavily discouraged to participate and suffered cultural consequences for disobeying.

“There can be no more untoward scene than girls kicking a big ball about” a newspaper read at the time. “Women have invaded another sphere of man’s world,” said another. 

A group of former and current players and administrators recount watching their male family members playing from the sidelines, and being punished, even caned for playing football.

Fifty years later in 1971, England’s Football Association lifted the ban, and the Australian Women’s soccer Association formed in 1974 at the first national championship, which newspapers labelled a “kick and giggle.” 

Despite this, in 1979 the first FIFA recognised women’s game took place. 

Read Sarah’s full review on missingperspectives.com.

New research finds two thirds of UK Gen Z women are now engaging in sport

New survey from EY has found that nearly half of 4.2 million Gen Z adults engaging in sport in the UK are women - and is anyone surprised?

According to EY’s survey, called the Sports Engagement Index, 49% of women in the UK engage with sport - either by actively participating, attending live events, or following sport on TV or social media. The survey found that the top five sports for Gen Z women are soccer, badminton, dancing, Formula One and basketball. Over 4,000 UK adults were surveyed.

“The latest analysis from the Sports Engagement Index suggests that Gen Z behaviour is markedly different to other demographics,” said Tal Hewitt, sports strategy lead at EY-Parthenon.

“Our understanding of Gen Z leads us to believe that it’s possible more of these younger female engagers will remain engaged with sport as they mature. Over time this is likely to impact not only how sports need to engage with their fanbases, but also which sports will top the leaderboards in terms of popularity.

“Sports organisations must recognise and adapt to the needs of their current and future female audience to avoid being left behind. By nurturing female participation, attendance and followership, they can ensure that this vibrant fanbase continues to grow and evolve, retaining engagement throughout women’s lives, and ultimately, reshaping the industry for decades to come.”

How good?

A lil’ sponsored post from Monash University

When Dr Lilani Arulkadacham casts her mind back to some of her earliest days at school, she’s met with a mixture of emotions and feelings. A young person of colour growing up in Australia, she recalls “feelings of isolation”, which she says “briefly impeded her wellbeing and consequently had an impact on her academic progress”.

“Being a first-generation immigrant added an extra layer of complexity to my early school experience,” Dr Arulkadacham tells Missing Perspectives.

“I vividly remember being unable to concentrate in class, my thoughts wandering to my peers' interactions while struggling to absorb the lesson. Witnessing others forming bonds while feeling disconnected highlighted the crucial role of one's wellbeing in the process of learning.”  

Dr Arulkadacham is now a trailblazer in democratising the study of psychology. Learn more about her story here.