Running The Gauntlet – What Happens Next? podcast on the culture of sport

Dr. Susan Carland:

Welcome to another episode of What Happens Next? I'm Dr. Susan Carland. Today, we're looking at what's happening to change the culture of elite sport. Erik Denison from the Monash School of Social Sciences explains the power of language and how it can help reshape the culture of sport that starts from a young age. We'll also talk to diversity consultant and broadcaster, Rana Hussain, about her work helping a range of organisations, including sports clubs, be more inclusive for players and fans. Rana, a passionate sports fan and part of the popular Outer Sanctum podcast crew, says we still have a long way to go.

Erik Denison:

Hi, my name is Erik Denison. I'm from the School of Social Sciences at Monash University, and I study ways to stop homophobic and sexist behaviour in sport, but really in any setting.

Susan Carland:

Erik Denison, welcome.

Erik Denison:

Thank you.

Susan Carland:

It is so good to have you here, and I'm really interested to hear about your research because you've done some pretty groundbreaking research on homophobia and sexism in sport. What did you do and what did you find?

Erik Denison:

We've been really interested in looking at the motivations for these behaviours, particularly homophobic and sexist language in sport. I think there's been a lot of research. We just finished a review. There's about 3,000 papers on the problems in sport. We have studied this more than any other social issue in sports you can think of. What we don't have is any solutions. In order to develop solutions, we need to understand what's going on under the hood, what's making this language continue when we know in society... Particularly with young people, young males, they have more gay friends. They have more female friends. They at least claim to be more inclusive. And when we measure their actual attitudes using a fairly sophisticated scales that have been developed over a long time, no, they're not lying, they do have positive attitudes, yet they're continuing to use this homophobic and sexist banter as if it's going out of style. It's like its own separate language and sport. It's like in Australia, we have English, and in sport we have English and homophobic and sexist banter.

So what we find is that when we ask these young men, we don't ask them if they use homophobic language, first and foremost, because we did and they said they didn't use this language and we're like, "That doesn't make sense," because all of the research and literature says they're using this language so that it makes no sense that they're saying they're not. So then all we did was we took out the word homophobic and we said, "Are you using words like ‘fag’ and ‘poof’?"

I can't really say the sexist words that we gave examples, but you can imagine the C-word and others, because some people use this language. You could be using it for any reason. And that's where they said, "Oh yeah, I use it all the time. In the past two weeks, I've used it two to three times or three to four times." And then we ask them, "Have you heard your teammates use this language?" So it's about over half of them self-report they used it, about 70% have heard others use this language. But then we asked them, "Do you use it at home?" No, they don't use it at home because mom would be quite upset, I'm sure, if they heard the C-word.

Susan Carland:

So do you think it's that they don't see the C-word as sexist or they don't see using the word ‘fag’ as homophobic? Is there a disconnect in their minds?

Erik Denison:

Totally, and that's what we're really interested in as social scientists, because that disconnect is a sign of something pretty serious, I would say. They say that they don't view this language as homophobic or sexist, unless there's actually a gay person in the room or a woman in the room. And because there hasn't been women in sport environments until recently, and they still don't see them as part of sport, they see women as this adjunct thing that's been added recently-

Susan Carland:

And I suppose they're not generally in the locker room with them, so they can feel that they can call each other a bitch if they want-

Erik Denison:

Yeah, exactly.

Dr. Susan Carland:

... and it's no problem.

Erik Denison:

Similarly, they perceive that there's no gay people. But first of all, the public health research now shows... I know the CDC, which, of course, is the gold standard, they say about 15% of young people identify as non-heterosexuals. But if you look at females, it's up to about 22%. Research back in the '70s found about 35% of American male football players were having gay sex with others at that time. So, there definitely is gay people around. There are definitely women around, probably in the other room and we need to get this language... Literally, we need to change this language, get them to stop using it because we want gay people and we want women to feel welcome. But what I was getting at earlier is the fact that they don't see this language as homophobic or sexist I think is an indicator of a pretty serious problem, because it means that they've internalised this language and internalised negative talk about women and about gay people as normal, which would mean that they view women and gay people as less than weak, because generally this language is used to describe that.

Susan Carland:

Yeah, it's an insult. It's not a compliment when we say, "Get lost fag."

Erik Denison:

No. And even ‘that's gay’ is meant as a negative. We now know there's a very large study that was just released out of the EU, and around 90% of LGBT people feel discriminated against, even if they just hear ‘that's gay’. But I guess what's really concerning to us is if these young men are hearing this language from day dot, when as soon as they start playing sport, so five or six years old, we've heard of kids sort of like... We went as young as 15, but it's starting quite early. So every time someone drops a ball, does something wrong, isn't trying hard enough they hear a homophobic or a sexist word used, that's creating this impression in their minds that an association between doing something wrong, being weak, being undesirable, and being a woman and a gay person. You hear this over and over again in sport because they play sport till about 17 or 18, and there's a lot of social learning that goes on in sport, as we know, because it's really good for kids to play sport, but we're now seeing this really dark side because I guess we're wondering and we're very curious about whether the complete failure of workplace diversity programmes is because they've just got to these young guys way too late. By the time they're 20, their minds have been programmed.

Susan Carland:

Did you look at women's sports teams?

Erik Denison:

Mm-hmm (affirmative). Yeah.

Susan Carland:

Was there much of an instance of homophobic language amongst female sports teams?

Erik Denison:

When a gay girl comes out... And this perception that sport’s filled with gay girls is totally inaccurate. All the studies we find it's about 15%, the total, the exact population. But when they come out, there's a perception of others that they're stigmatising their sport. They're reinforcing these sexist stereotypes that if you're a woman, you must be weak, right? And if you want to play sport, then you must be an abnormal woman, so therefore you must be gay. 

We're looking at this in two ways. The first is obviously a very serious public health problem because if these young people are being targeted with this language, they only have to be exposed to have the risk of suicide and self-harm increase by about double. So if they're actually targeted with this abuse, we now know from a number of studies by our friends at Yale, we've actually looked at suicide records. So then now it's the direct connection and look at, have kids who have committed suicide been targeted with this language? And sure enough, gay kids that are in about half the cases, they've been targeted. That's a factor. I could be wrong on that, but it was about half or about two-thirds, or sorry, one-third. Now, the second thing that we're really concerned about is obviously these wider social issues that we need to find effective solutions to workplace problems. We are not seeing change. We are seeing most of the programs that the organisations adopt, although well-meaning, are completely ineffective. Education doesn't change these problems.

Susan Carland:

Education doesn't change these problems?

Erik Denison:

No, and we've-

Susan Carland:

What changes these problems then?

Erik Denison:

We've known that for a long time. We've known sitting in a bunch of people in a room and telling them about diversity and that they need to be diverse and inclusive, and that racism is bad and homophobia is bad. It speaks to what I just said about these young men who we'd give them the surveys and said, "Have you used homophobic language?" And they're like, "No." Then we said, "Have you used words like ‘fag’?" And they're like, "Oh yeah, totally." So you sit a group of people in a room and educate them about these things, and they're sitting there with their arms crossed thinking, "I'm not that person. I'm not racist. I'm not sexist. I'm not homophobic. I don't see myself in this. I've never done something like that." And that's fair enough. People need to have good self-esteem. No one wants to admit that they're racist.

Susan Carland:

A bigot.

Erik Denison:

Yeah. And they're not, in most cases. They're usually just conforming to social norms. And so, that's why we need to change these norms and sport is the starting place. I'm privileged, I'm a white male, but I look at my female colleagues in meetings and I'm so conscious of the fact that I know that I've been programmed the same. You think about it in a workplace setting that no wonder there's so many challenges with sexism in the workplace, because if you've grown up just thinking woman are less than, even if you don't think that consciously, you've just heard it over and over and over again by people you respect, how are you going to unravel that?

 Susan Carland:

What can we start to do to make changes in this area?

Erik Denison:

Well, I think there's three things that seem to work really well. The one is we're seeing across multiple different sectors, workplaces, schools, and we're starting to do research in sport looking at this, is essentially allies and champions. But in a simple way, it's getting people to stop being bystanders. So we know that most young men actually want the homophobic and sexist language to stop, which is totally bizarre. So the same ones that are using these slurs actually want it to stop and they don't realise everyone else feels the same way. They're not going to have the courage, as we know from heaps of research, when you're in a group setting, people never stand up and say, "Hey, don't do that," because they're worried that they're going to be the target of whatever it is that's being done.

But what's good in sport is we have very clear leaders. We have captains and vice captains whose literal job description is to manage the team environment and manage the behaviour and the team. And so, literally, their job is to get people to stop using this language with a simple as a group decide, "Hey, we're not going to use this language. Great." "Hey Johnny, stop using that language. We don't use that here." "Oh yeah, right. Sorry, man." The other big thing is task forces. We know that one size fits all approaches do not work. And that's why diversity programmes fail is because they try and do racism and sexism and homophobia and ableism all in the same workshop and you're like, "How is that?" We know that there's different drivers of these behaviours. No one size fits all. We need task forces who are supported and it becomes core business. "You're responsible for women. You're responsible for LGBT," and LGBT needs to be... You also need to separate sexuality and gender identity. They're confounded all the time.

Susan Carland:

Right. Well, just the conflation of putting LGBTIQ altogether to reinforce it to people that this is the same problem or same issue.

Erik Denison:

Then the third thing that we know works is actual dedicated attention from senior managers and executives, but the only real way to get them to pay attention is to have financial pressures. So we need levers in place. We need, whether it's government levers - in Victoria, we've seen mandates of boards. Or in the world of sport, we're starting to see sponsors play a bigger role in pressuring sports to fire homophobic players, like Israel Folau in rugby. I don't think rugby would have done that if Qantas hadn't said, "We expect you to deal with this and we don't want our logo on him. We don't want him wearing our logo." They couldn't get any clearer than that. "There's no future for him in the sport because we're your sponsor." So I think that's where we need sponsors to play a role. I think the senior executives are probably like a lot of people, they're not sure what to do. It's not like they wake up every day, reading science journals and Behaviour Science Today or whatever, right? So it's our job as scientists to get out there and be talking to them and sharing that and proactively engaging with them. And so, I think that's where we can probably do a much better job.

Susan Carland:

So you did that fascinating research with sports clubs on their language, the use of language. What did you do with it then? Did you just leave the sports clubs to it and say, "Well, try not to use the F-word or the C-word against people, or did you then go, "Okay. Now, we're going to try and correct it"?

Erik Denison:

We did what you just said, we tried to correct it. So we've trialled a fair few different approaches. We started with the one that the sports thought would work. In their mind, you just educate these people and they'll stop using the language.

Susan Carland:

So educate means go up, have a couple of PowerPoint slides, talking about why it's bad. Everyone sits in the group and goes, "Okay. Yep. Got it" that kind of thing.

Erik Denison:

Exactly. Exactly. We threw the kitchen sink of science at this, so we had a number of faculties and behaviour science experts, not just at Monash, but other schools involved in crafting it. We engaged the sport leaders. We engaged coaches. We used a very well-validated theory of change. And we used, more important, very high profile Rebels, which is the professional rugby team, international rugby team here in Victoria to deliver it.

Susan Carland:

So they'd listen.

Erik Denison:

So they’d listen. It's not often these professional rugby players they see on TV show up, we did 16 to 20-year-olds, and say, "Hey guys, we're here to talk about homophobia in sport and about how it's going to make our sport better." Similar to the workplace programmes, it made them feel better about gay people. It made them feel better about the language, but they didn't change their behaviour.

Dr. Susan Carland:

So they still would use homophobic or sexist language when they get out on the field or whatever?

Erik Denison:

Then through serendipity, we did a study looking at these PRIDE games. These are these rainbow-themed games that are held in sport. So basically what happens is a sports team says, "We're going to hold a LGBT PRIDE game." They put rainbows up everywhere. The team has a talk about why they're doing it. They often will wear rainbow jumpers or uniforms or rainbow socks or whatever, and they'll do it as a group and the-

Susan Carland:

And then, hang on. Sorry, I'm going to interrupt you. And then they just go and play a regular footy game..

Erik Denison:

Regular footy game. Yeah.

Susan Carland:

Right. Okay.

Erik Denison:

So the professional teams, as you know, the AFL, like The Swans, are doing this a fair bit and we have seen... I know their heart's in the right place, but we have seen they're completely ineffective. They don't do anything in terms of changing behaviours or culture at the grassroots. We know that because the NHL has been doing these games for about a decade now, and that's the National Hockey League in North America, and every single club hosts them, every single one of all of their teams, I think, I don't know how many, there are 27 or something. In hockey, homophobic language is slightly worse than rugby. There's no openly gay people. So, it hasn't fixed the problem. So that seems to work for the teams that actually host the games. So I put on the rainbow jumper. I played in this game. We've done two studies on multiple sports that have shown they use about half the rate of homophobic, as well as sexist language, and you think, "Well, how could putting on a rainbow jumper change that?" Well, going back to the very beginning of our conversation, if this is driven by norms rather than attitudes, if they think everyone else expects them to use this language, if they think this is the language of sport, and then they put on a rainbow jumper and they're allowed to have that conversation, "Well, actually, no one really likes this language. We should stop," that is the thing that short circuits those norms we suspect.

Susan Carland:

So why did it work in the studies that you did, but not with the Sydney Swans and not with the hockey?

Erik Denison:

Oh, sorry, because it works for players, but not spectators. So you have to actually literally play in a game. You can't watch the game.

Dr. Susan Carland:

So for the hockey players, it doesn't work for them.

Erik Denison:

Yep.

Susan Carland:

And so, for the Sydney Swans players, it works for them.

Erik Denison:

Potentially. We haven't actually done that research. They've never measured whether it changes the players. But we did do the VFL, which is below AFL, and it did change the language in the VFL players.

Susan Carland:

Do you see a way to have that then ripple out to the people watching? Do they need to be in the act? Could we say, "If you come to the pride match, we'd love it if you also wear something rainbow"? Do you think that would make a difference?

Erik Denison:

No, because we're social animals, right? Then, so the third thing that we think works is getting the captains to enforce things, or the middle managers. We're ultimately social animals. Most of our behaviour is socially driven. It is not an individual exercise. We don't live in little individual bubbles. We live in society. So it's that interaction piece and the groups that we belong to that we need to shift. It's not the individual person that we need to shift. So we basically need to change the environment. We need to change the social setting and we need to short circuit this perception around social norms, what is expected behaviour, what people think they need to do or should do in any setting, which is we generally misperceive these things, we find across multiple studies, so we know that. It just seems bizarre that organisations, sport organisations, but also workplaces aren't actually using that science to shape their diversity programmes. If we know these things aren't attitude-driven and we know people generally, even if you tell them they're homophobic or racist, they're still not going to stop being homophobic or racist, that I don't know why we keep doing the same thing and expecting a different result. It's quite bizarre. So I guess it's about using the science, using the research. I don't think these problems are intractable. I think they're probably more simple than we thought and I think that if we put a bit of effort into it, if we particularly focus on the young men so they're not learning this locker room talk, which later becomes the boardroom banter, I mean the same thing. If you're listening to this and you're a woman, they're the same thing. I've started to realise that and I've started to try and short circuit that myself when I've heard it and say, "Guys..." I've started bringing the woman in the room and the conversation because even boardrooms, you'll find the guys will be talking to one side, the woman will be talking in the other, and you think, "This doesn't make sense. We're all part of the same team and this is not going to change things." And so, even those kinds of things, you just have to tell people what to do, not educate them about what they should think, but tell them specifically, "This is what you need to do. In the next boardroom meeting, instead of having that banter with the guys, go and talk to the female employees, go and talk to the junior and find out, rather than thinking about your cousin in the separate division, how you're going to help your cousin get ahead, look at the foreign student who's just started as an intern and be really proactive about helping that person. Because if you did that for your cousin, it wouldn't be weird. So why would it be weird if you're helping the intern who's the foreign student who needs that help and it's clearly part of the yoke. And so, if you don't help them, I think there's a sense that people think everyone else is going to do it or the system's going to do it, which, of course, we know is not. Even me saying that, I'm sure you're thinking, "Of course, the system is not going to do it," so it's up to us as individuals to do it. And that's where the individual piece comes in, but it's about the individualism, not the individual in terms of just the individual, because this isn't an individual.

Susan Carland:

Erik Denison, this has been really interesting. Thank you so much for your time.Erik Denison:

Yeah, thank you. This was wonderful. I'm so appreciative of the opportunity.

Rana Hussain:

Hi, I'm Rana Hussain. I'm a diversity and inclusion consultant. I work with the Richmond Football Club and the Do More Project.

Susan Carland:

Rana Hussain, thank you so much for joining us.

Rana Hussain:

Oh, thank you for having me.

Susan Carland:

Rana, you do a lot of work in improving diversity and inclusion in sport. What got you into that kind of work? Are you a really sporty person?

Rana Hussain:

I've always loved sport. I love watching it, but I never really got into it because I never really felt like it was for me, but I loved watching AFL from a young age. And then as I grew up and still got more and more involved in watching it, I realised that I found that really a difficult space to both be a fan and also reconcile in my mind that that's where a lot of the sexism and racism play out. I desperately wanted this game that I love to be better and just was endlessly frustrated by it. So I started volunteering actually for the AFL as a multicultural ambassador, and more and more just loved what I was doing. And then Adam Goodes happened and I felt like it occupied my mind so much that I thought instead of just staying on the sidelines and feeling frustrated by this, I need to put my hand up and say, "I feel like I can contribute here," because I just felt like I could see this thing play out, which was a racism that I could see around me.

Susan Carland:

But one of the saddest things for me about the Adam Goodes scenario is that that is not the first time we've seen that kind of thing play out. Sport, and AFL in particular, seems to be the theatre in which we play out so many of our social issues, particularly around race. How do you see that evolving through your work? Is it changing for the better?

Rana Hussain:

I think it is. It's not changing at the pace I would like it to, I'll admit, but I think there’s certainly an awareness now and an understanding, and I feel like as horrible as what Adam went through was, it drew a line in the sand. Like you said, at the time, it probably didn't, but the telling of that story came at a time when everybody was willing to listen and hear what he had to say and made it really clear that this is unacceptable. And so, I feel like from there onwards, there's definitely been a commitment to do better. But what I see is the individual athletes pushing for that change and the codes, whether it's AFL, NRL trying to catch up with that movement rather than them leading that, I see individual athletes speaking up and bringing people along with them and everybody else kind of following from there, and I would love to see that change, where our codes take leadership rather than wait for people to speak up.

Susan Carland:

It's really interesting to hear you say that because as an outsider, to me the AFL seems so much more progressive than some other codes. In fact, they've received criticism for being a bit too woke and a bit too involved in these issues, but you feel they’re really dragging their feet.

Rana Hussain:

I mean, look, I do think that AFL is doing it better than most are and they definitely deserve credit for that. I think if you look at, say, Aboriginal communities, if you look at on the field, they make up 11 to 13% of the playing group and then if you look at administration, it's nowhere near that and that-

Susan Carland:

What impact does that have? Why does that matter?

Rana Hussain:

Well, I mean, if you can't understand your playing group and what their needs are and what their experiences are like, how are you going to serve them properly? And I think you see Aboriginal Australia has a very specific context. They have specific needs and an understanding that's shared by other Aboriginal people. I think we're underserving our athletes and our game by not having that represented at the top levels. It just makes sense that... I think there's an element of we lean so much on Aboriginal culture from a brand point of view and the good times point of view, but-

Susan Carland:

And also the skill, don't you think? Like you mentioned, there's maybe 13% of players that are indigenous. Indigenous people are not 13% of Australia. They are really overrepresented. They're incredibly skillful in the sport and we are thrilled by... The way indigenous people play football, it's something else. There's a magic to it, which just excites the crowds. But as you said, we're not really supporting them.

Rana Hussain:

No. By and large, they're the players that do come from rural communities or come from different pathways, whether it's through the Next Generation Academy or from up north. There's a whole other set of circumstances that we need to understand when it comes to Aboriginal athletes. And if we can't do that from an administration point of view, then we are underserving them. Like I said, we do leverage off that culture and their communities from numbers on field, but also from a brand and sponsorship point of view. Dreamtime at the 'G, it's such a big game. You have to start to ask the question when does that become exploitative if we're not representing that internally as well as on-field.

Susan Carland:

I did not know that there was no indigenous administrative support. That amazes me that there wouldn't have been some sort of creation of that role. Why do you think that's not happening?

Rana Hussain:

Tanya Hosch is probably the key example. She's executive level at the AFL. She's headed social policy and inclusion. She started in 2017. Until then, there wasn't anyone at that level. And then there are indigenous talent staff who look after indigenous talent and there's indigenous staff who work at clubs, but they're specifically for Aboriginal communities and Aboriginal talent pathways. Outside of that, you don't see Aboriginal culturally diverse staff really in the AFL. Again, it's a weird thing. Is that your only place in society? Is that your only place in this game to speak to your own community? Outside of that, it's our game. So, there's a tension there and I want that better examined.

Susan Carland:

You mentioned that we see racism, sexism, there's homophobia in sport, and there is this focus on trying to improve sport in that regard. But as I mentioned, sport is just the theatre that we play out our social issues. These are just social issues in the rest of the community. Do we place something of an unfair burden on the Richmond Football Club, Collingwood Football Club, who are, in the end, they're there just to play the game, they're there to win matches. Is it unrealistic or unfair to also expect them to eliminate homophobia and eliminate misogyny? Are we expecting too much?

Rana Hussain:

Oh, that's the question of the day for me. I feel like I think of that at least twice a day. That is my job. What am I doing? Is this really the place to have these conversations? And it’s certainly the question that gets put to me the most from people that I am trying to do work with. I think to me, the thing that drives me is understanding in Australia sport is the national language, almost. How we shape our identity as a country, and so much of who we are and who we think we are is taken from that sporting ideal. And so, in that, because of that context, to me, sport is incredibly important. I wouldn't say that sport should do it, but I reckon sport can do it and it would have such an impact when they do get it right. If sport gets it right, it brings people together. I mean, you only have to look through the Sydney Olympics. The way we presented to the world in that moment was so unified. I mean, it wasn't perfect. There was stuff going on then too. But we had Cathy Freeman light the torch. We had Aboriginal culture infused into that opening ceremony, and we all accepted it and we were proud of it. It was probably the only time I can really think of as a country, we blended like that and came together for the sake of our culture and identity, and I think sports can do that. And so, I think with sports, it underserves us as a nation, to not let it be bigger than the sum of its parts. I think when athletes speak up, when codes do stand up, it brings people together. Like you said, to your point, it happens anyway. If there is racism in society, it is going to play out on the sporting field. So equally, then it can also be a source of good.

Susan Carland:

What about the impact on individual players? I said, "Well, is it too much to ask a club to deal with it?" But how do individual players cope with that weight on their shoulders, as well as trying to be the most successful sports people they can be, then asking them also to be almost these paragons of virtue?

Rana Hussain:

I think it's so tricky because it's two sided. I think a lot of athletes want to represent their identity fully, and be that role model and be that representation so that others can come after them. I think there's a degree of, "I want to do that and it feels good to do that," but the reality of doing that is taxing. I think if we on the outside of that are not careful and if we keep using their image and their identities for our own causes, they're going to get burnt out, mental health will come up for them. Especially in the case of female athletes, they'll turn to other codes, where they don't have to do it so hard and so tough and they’ll all walk away from elite sport because it is really full on for a lot of them, especially in AFLW, they have to hold down a job, as well as really represent women in sport all the time and through the media, and, bless them, they do it without complaining, but it's full on. Eventually, it doesn't surprise me, but a lot of them do turn away from playing AFLW. So I think we do have to be really careful, but I think what we have to do is really listen to what those athletes were saying and take it on as codes and as organisations and lessen the burden on them so they don't feel like they have to really lead with their identity, that they can just be themselves and they're not doing that heavy lifting.

Susan Carland:

Tell us the things that you've been involved in, or that you've just seen happening in your time in working in this space that have genuinely made a difference to make sport more inclusive and diverse.

Rana Hussain:

I think it's really boring, but it's the stuff that makes me feel really excited, stuff like action plans and frameworks.

Susan Carland:

Policy.

Rana Hussain:

It just sounds so boring. Yeah, exactly, policy. But they’re huge steps forward because what's that really saying is we're going to hold ourselves accountable. We're putting it down on paper. We're not just going to say we're doing these things, we're actually going to do it and take it to the board and be held accountable. So that stuff makes me feel really excited because it means the clubs feel like they really have to do this work. And not only that, they're becoming competitive with each other about doing this work. So if people are starting to see that it's part of the business and I feel, while there's a part of me that cringes at that, that's also really exciting because it means that it’s coming baked into what sporting clubs are doing now. I would love to see sports media doing a bit more of the heavy lifting around this stuff too.

Susan Carland:

I was thinking about commentators in particular.

Rana Hussain:

Yes, it's one of the places where we really lag. So the codes might be doing a power of work and clubs doing a heap of work around community and inclusion, but yet we still come up against this brick wall when it comes to representation through the media and the way we speak about diverse athletes, as well as the way we commentate on women's games. So, there's a lot of work to be done there, and even we know that sports media has a huge role to play when it comes to violence against women and reporting on women sport and how we balance out those gender norms and break down some of those stereotypes. So it was actually some really tangible stuff that can come out of doing this work and I just hope that they run with that.

Susan Carland:

Rana Hussain, thank you so much.

Rana Hussain:

Thank you for having me.

Susan Carland:

It's been great to hear that it's not all doom and gloom in the sporting arena with so much great work underway to help make sport more inclusive and supportive for all of us. We'll be back next time with our final episode on this topic, as all our experts offer up their practical advice on what we all can do, that means you and me, to help change it.