I was 16 and playing senior football for my local team the first time I doubted whether it was the sport for me. At training, the men's talk turned to the various ways they liked to 'take' their wives. They spoke as if the women in their lives were of a different species.
I looked at my friend, also a teenager in this man's world. We were stunned. We had girlfriends and had never spoken to each other about them in this way.
That was in 1984. The abuse of Marc Murphy's wife in the Carlton vs St Kilda match last Saturday shows not much has changed.
Regardless of the AFL Women's competition, female umpires, women in administrative roles — even CEOs at Hawthorn — the problem of sexism in football isn't going away without legislation to stop it.
The reason is that in a hyper-masculine and highly competitive environment like the AFL, femininity, personified in women, is seen as weakness. And any weakness will be exploited in order for clubs to achieve their ultimate aim: to win.
It's similar to the way in which clubs play 'on the edge' of the rules; they try not to cross them because it will involve penalties that will affect their ability to win. Laws against taunts that are motivated by race, religion or sexual preference have been instituted and have proven successful, and there's no reason why one against sexist talk can't succeed.
There has been a lot of blather over the past few days in regard to whether legislating against sexist slurs is political correctness gone mad, as well as players knowing where the line is in terms of 'banter' and being usually good at not crossing it. Others say it will be impossible to delineate what is sexist abuse and what isn't.
I say all three arguments are baseless. It's not political correctness to ensure people aren't slandered because of their gender. Players clearly don't know where the line is, otherwise Saturday's events wouldn't have unfolded. And a starting point delineation line is easy: if sledging involves disparaging a player's female family or friends then it is wrong and will be penalised.
"Real men play the ball, not the man or woman."
Some might argue that the new law should include disparaging remarks toward a player that focus on gender, i.e. 'you're a girl', 'you're a woman', etc. But I'm not sure it needs to. Because a man worth