ARTEMIS
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contents 2.Editor’s Note 3.Page 3 4-6.HOw the Male-DOminated WOrld Of SpOrts JOurnalism SOught to Disparage and Silence Eni AlukO 7-8.Meet your Commitee 9-10.Inclusivity and Quidditch 11-13.PileDrive the Patriarchy 14.Contact us What does the * mean?
We are trans and non-binary inclusive and also include people with complex gender identities that include ‘woman’ and/or those who experience oppression as women, if they wish.
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Editor’s note Hello readers! I’m happy to introduce you all to the brand-new issue of the Women’s’* Network and UoN Feminist zine. The focus of this month is ‘women in sport’- a true celebration of women fighting for equality in a male-dominated branch of society. It is so important to recognise the brilliant achievements women bring to sport. From Dame Kelly Holmes to Jessica Ennis- Hill, women have gone above and beyond to not only prove it is possible for women to kick butt in sport (duh!), but become outstanding role models to girls and young women all over the world. Serena Williams, to me, has been a prevalent figure in showing everyone who’s boss; not only did she take part in the Australian Open while pregnant, but she WON the tournament. Not only that, but it is figures such as Williams who show how it is possible for women sports stars to intersect in other areas such as politics, another male- dominated area of society. She was a key campaigner with Michelle Obama to show how black women have a voice and a position of power, and how this should be celebrated. I truly hope that you enjoy reading this issue, it is such an important one. There is still a lot of under representation of women in the media, in particular, and it is women themselves who can really do something to change this! Thank you so much to all of our contributors, everyone has worked extremely hard for such an important topic. As always, be sure to check out how to get in touch with us, there are so many ways! Just have a look on the back page, we would really love to hear from you. Happy reading! Hope you enjoy!
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Reclaim Page 3
Ruth Shaw
Ruth Shaw is Head of Soft Power and Strategic Engagement at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. Prior to this, she worked for the Sports Ground Safety Authority (SGSA). She was also on the board of Women in Football, a network of women working in and around football who support each other. It started in 2007 as a small number of women, working primarily in football journalism, who had experienced sexism. They soon realized that the problem was endemic throughout the industry, from low to high level.
Women in Football run workshops and masterclasses, such as regular Leadership Workshops, to support women in the football industry and give them the confidence and the support to speak up when they see or experience sexism or discrimination at work. They challenge discrimination by trying to widen the talent pool of diverse women in the sport, and achieve a better gender balance across all areas of the industry. They also aim to challenge common attitudes to women’s football by championing the contributions of women to the footballing world. Ruth’s work with Women in Football made her realise that more has to be done to help more women into senior positions in other areas too. Now she is heavily involved with FCO Women, a network within the Foreign and Commonwealth Office that works to champion the appointment of more women to senior roles within the FCO.
Ruth told us that when she was on the Women in Football board, she felt that the most important thing was to give a voice to this endemic sexism. A 2014 survey showed that 66.4% of women working in the football industry had witnessed sexism in the workplace, and that only 1 in 10 women who had witnessed sexism in the Thank you to Ruth Shaw for giving workplace had reported it. Ruth us this exclusive interview! Find out more about Women in Football at https://www.womeninfootball.co.uk
By the Aretmis Team
believes this is because women didn’t want to speak up out of fear of losing their job or of people thinking they “couldn’t take a joke”. As we saw in the case of Eva Carneiro, the Chelsea team doctor who brought a discrimination case against José Mourinho, high profile incidents can lead to a serious and sometimes deeply unpleasant backlash.
Written by Huw Downs
HOw the Male-DOminated WOrld Of SpOrts JOurnalism SOught to Disparage and Silence Eni AlukO Eniola Aluko has quite the CV. The 30-year old, Nigerian-born England international made her debut for Birmingham in 2002 when she was just 15, was named Young Player of the Year at the FA Women’s Football Awards in 2003, before going on to play for Charlton Athletic, St. Louis Athletica, and Chelsea. She sat her A Levels while playing for England during Women’s Euro 2005, graduated from Brunel University with a First class Law degree in 2008, and took the opportunity to sit and pass the New York bar exam while playing in America. Last year, she signed a multi-year deal with Under Armour, becoming their first British female ambassador. Well thank goodness that Shaun Custis, chief sports writer at the Sun, was on hand to neatly summarise the above on Sky Sports’ Sunday morning panel show, Sunday Supplement, back in August. Custis, sat around a table with three other white male journalists (Neil Ashton, Martin Samuel, and Sam Wallace), was discussing allegations made by Eni Aluko regarding the treatment of her and a teammate by England Women’s coach Mark Sampson. “[Aluko is] a very, very bright girl, knows her own mind, very strong-willed… she’s no shrinking violet, she knows what she feels,” says Custis. What an apt way of discussing someone with a First Class Law degree: “very bright girl.” So sweet of him, so generous, so complementary.
If you’re not familiar with Eni Aluko’s case, here’s a brief summary: she alleged that Mark Sampson (white, male England Women’s coach) bullied her and a teammate based on their race. Before a match at Wembley, Sampson told Aluko to make sure her Nigerian relatives didn’t bring Ebola with them when they came to watch the game; in another case, Sampson asked mixed-race teammate of Aluko’s, Drew Spence, in direct reference to the colour of her skin, how many times she had been arrested. It has since come out too, that goalkeeping coach, Lee Kendall, used to talk to Aluko in a Caribbean accent (information of which the Football Association were made aware long before the allegations against Sampson, but no actions were taken). Within a week of the allegations being made
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against Sampson, Aluko was dropped from the England squad for what she was told was “un-Lioness behaviour” (the Lionesses being the England Women’s team). It was staggering, although not hugely surprising, to see the number of men leap to support Mark Sampson, especially when an FA investigation (which, just for fun, failed to interview either Aluko or Spence) originally found the allegations to be false. The episode of Sunday Supplement mentioned above was a cesspit of victim blaming, patronisation, undermining of the situation Aluko was putting herself in, and undermining of the comments Sampson had made - “allegedly”, as they were oh-so-quick to point out. Aluko’s allegations were “fairly [unequivocally]... in
An industry filled with men might struggle to understand the problems that come with industries filled with men every single instance” fiction. “Why is it relevant?” asked Neil Ashton when Sam Wallace suggested that four white men weren’t best placed to discuss the topic at hand. “They’ve got their absolute worst nightmare here. They’ve got a black woman alleging racism against a white, male employee.” Not for a second did they (Sam Wallace excluded) consider the “nightmare” that Aluko might have gone through, and is surely still going through to this day. Shaun Custis goes on to discuss “what constitutes bullying” nowadays, where the threshold lies. Because we’re all just snowflakes aren’t we, Shaun? Why isn’t it like the good old days when black people and women would just be quiet, hmm? An article by The Times writer, Mat-
thew Syed, was particularly damning of Aluko’s case. It was all “rather innocuous” according to Syed, who at one point has the gall to suggest that Sampson’s Ebola comment (“assuming it was actually said,” he clarifies, because, you know, women are liars!) might have “reflected genuine fear.” Very kind of Matthew to consider Sampson in all of this, and his genuine fear of Ebola infiltrating Britain. Syed remains one of the few journalists not to back down from his original opinion. The twist in the tale that came in October was that, gasp, Eni Aluko was telling the truth! Even having learnt the truth, Syed continued to underplay Sampson’s actions (just like in his original article): the comments were “ill-advised”, not racist and, once again, we should consider the man in all this: Syed is very concerned that we are “[eviscerating] the character and career of Sampson.” Now it’s just my opinion, but I feel like Mark Sampson very much eviscerated his own career when he took his position of power and used it for racism. In a desperate attempt to use all the clichés associated with this sort of case, Syed concludes by calling Aluko’s allegations and the secondary investigation “a witchhunt.” Seems like a nice guy, doesn’t he? Harking back to 2008, just for fun, Syed once said, “there has always been a soft-porn element to women’s tennis.” Just in case you thought he only hated female footballers. It’s worth giving some credit to Sunday Supplement, who actually realised their original mistake, unlike Syed, and assembled a diverse panel that featured two men of colour, and a woman of colour (Jonathan Liew, Sami Mokbel, and Vaishali Bhardwaj, joined
by host Neil Ashton) for the show that aired after the second investigation proved Aluko’s allegations to be true. The show was intelligent, sensitive, damning of the FA and its attempts to brush the allegations under the rug, and ended up in a worthwhile discussion as to whether Aluko should be involved in the FA setup in the future. Spoilers: the answer is yes. It feels a juvenile point to make, that an industry filled with men might struggle to understand the problems that come with industries filled with men, but it is one that has come to light hugely in this case. You would think that no one could deny Sampson’s wrongdoing, until a whole industry of men proves you wrong and vehemently backs him. Even when he was proven guilty, he had supporters. One only needs to trawl through Twitter to see what some think of Aluko, encouraged by articles like that of Matthew Syed. If it weren’t such a disgusting case of abuse of power and vile, racially-motivated, hateful bullying, it would almost be laughable; laughable that men like Syed, and those disparaging Aluko on Sunday Supplement, and countless more journalists who sought to silence Aluko’s claims after she first brought them to light, are so unaware that their own stances put them in the same shoes as Sampson. Even after Sampson’s sacking, when many backtracked and said their sorries, and wrote articles about the “dinosaurs” at the FA, most failed to recognise the parallels between the two industries. It was worth applauding Sunday Supplement for their diverse line-up in what we’ll call their ‘apology show’, but even then, one woman out of four journalists? When they so obviously
were trying to make up for the lack of empathy last time around, when discussing a case about the systematic misogyny and racism that women of colour, especially, face in every work place? I could count on one hand the number of female sports journalists that are given opportunities to show off their talents to a wider audience - Melissa Reddy of Goal and Marina Hyde of The Guardian are two of the best writers of sports journalism out there (Hyde isn’t technically a sports journalist, but writes some scathing stuff about sports as well as the wider world), and yet it’s Matthew ‘women’s tennis is like soft-porn’ Syed and Martin ‘Joey Barton should just come out as gay if he wants a gay footballer so badly’ Samuel (an actual article he wrote once, citing Barton’s voice as reason enough for him to pass as gay) fill the back pages of newspapers. How, when these men are at the top, are we ever going to read balanced, empathetic, insightful journalism? How, when Greg ‘institutional racism allegations are fluff’ Dyke is in charge of the FA are we ever going to have an industry that supports and promotes diversity, and the importance of women’s football? The answer is: we won’t. Never. The sooner they are gone and replaced by the likes of Aluko, Hyde, Reddy, Bhardwaj, and men who actually know how to talk to and about women (a shocking thought, I know), like Jonathan Liew, the better. Both of Matthew Syed’s articles can be found online at thetimes.co.uk, and every episode of Sunday Supplement can be found in podcast-form on iTunes (the mentioned episodes took place on the 20th August 2017 and 22nd October 2017.)
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Meet Your
General Secretary Ciara Berry Hi! I’m Ciara, a final year Law with French student and the new GenSec for the Women’s* Network. I have cared about gender equality for a long time, and am really looking forward to getting more involved in promoting awareness of feminism and women’s* issues this year. I am also a committee member for Nottingham Debating Union and have already organised a Feminism show debate, and hope I can continue to help the Women’s* Network organise and promote their great events and projects throughout the year. Events Coordinator Mollie Lewington I’m a second year English student from Bristol who loves springer spaniels and olive bread. I’m very excited to be Events Coordinator for the Women’s* Network: as I was brought up by two mums I saw the importance of supportive women’s spaces from a very young age. I’m keen to set up a range of social events as well as events that celebrate the achievements of all women.
By the Artemis Team
Women’s* Officer Ruby Harrison Hello everyone! I’m Ruby, your Students’ Union Women’s* Officer for this year. I have been passionate about feminism for a long time so coming to university was a great opportunity for me to get more involved. I was Events Coordinator last year so I was excited to take on this role, to carry on the good work that the Network does! We’ve got some exciting plans for this year, such as an event for International Women’s Day and a campaign looking at the experience of students who are pregnant or caring for young children.
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Commitee Events Coordinator Annabella Sim I’m a second year law student, who is also a hobbyist film photographer, a coffee aficionado and a crazy cat lover. My top female role models include Lady Hale, Beyoncé and Leslie Knope. Zine Editor Grace Dalaigh-Taylor Hi! My name is Grace Dalaigh- Taylor (Gee), and I am a first-year English and Philosophy student. Even after being part of the university for a short duration of time, I feel as though my eyes have been opened to the struggles that women of all backgrounds face on a daily basis. Yet I can also see the capabilities that women have to be empowered, strong beings, solely in charge of their own futures! Being the zine editor of the Women’s* Network, I hope to express this positive image onto who we are as a collective, and to show everyone else how amazing women are! BME Representative Nina-Che Bousquet Hello! I’m Nina and I’m a first-year student, as well as the new BME representative for the Women’s* Network. I hope to do my best in ensuring that all women* of colour at this university feel that they receive the support they need and the representation that is necessary to demonstrate the inclusive nature of both the Women’s* Network as well as the university as a whole. I am here to listen to your concerns or worries and I’d love to hear any ideas you may have! Please don’t hesitate to contact me through the society.
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Inclusivity and Quidditch
To answer your burning question; no, we don’t actually fly. The insurance would be a nightmare. Let’s go over the actual rules. There are 21 players on a team, with up to 7 people on the pitch at any one time. Players must play on brooms, and stay on them at all times. If they drop them, they are ‘dismounted’ and must run back to their hoops and touch back in to ‘remount.’ There are 3 chasers and a keeper who try and score points by putting the quaffle (a slightly deflated volleyball) through the opposing teams 3 hoops. The defending team may use contact to stop the other players, using one arm to tackle from the front, avoiding going above the neck or below the knees. Beaters, 2 on each team, wield bludgers (dodgeballs) and can ‘beat’ other players by throwing the bludger at them. If a player is hit they must drop any balls they are holding, dismount and touch back in at their hoops. The snitch, perhaps the most outrageous part of the game, is a person dressed all in yellow, with a tennis ball in a sock velcroed to the back of their shorts, and seekers must try
and capture the snitch to score 30 points and end the game. So where does the mixed aspect of the sport fit into this? Quidditch is one of very few mixed sports that exist, the only other major sport being korfball. Quidditch has what is called the ‘gender rule’ which states that teams may have a maximum of 4 people of the same gender on the pitch at any one time. Importantly, this is gender, not sex, which allows trans, and non-binary people to be easily included in the sport. This also means a team cannot field only one gender and exclude another, meaning the sport is truly mixed. This encourages teams to think tactically about how they organise their team. Arguments surrounding the varying athleticism between men and women are quashed when you see a woman beating a man in the face with a bludger. Bludgers don’t care about your gender. Similarly, brute strength, which culturally we are told is more predominant in men (although I have seen many a great female tackler), means nothing if someone can pass around you, or dodge around your tackles. Thus, tactics favour a variety of body types and play styles. Quidditch is by no means free from culturally embedded issues surrounding gender. Analysis in 2015 of top-tier matches at the British Quidditch Cup showed female chasers were passed to significantly less than male chasers, and female
Written by Philippa Stazicker
“Try a new sport! Mixed! Full contact!” I am standing in the rain trying to entice students into signing up to the Nottingham Nightmares, Nottingham’s very own Quidditch team. No longer a figment of J.K Rowling’s imagination, Quidditch in the real world has developed over the last 10 years into a thriving, worldwide community. A key aspect of the sport is its commitment to inclusivity.
players were more likely to be put on the pitch if they played as a beater. However, members of the community are working to tackle these issues. All-in is a training initiative that aims to help female and non-binary players improve their technique, but also raise awareness about the talent teams may be ignoring. Its partnership with ‘This Girl Can’ also helps target issues surrounding lack of female participation in sport. Often boys are more encouraged to take part in sports when younger and thus come to Quidditch with a wider range of skills than their female companions. Girls, on the other hand, are often discouraged from taking part in contact sports, or sport in general, and when trying sports later in life are at a disadvantage. All-in aims to
rectify this with training weekends and one on one coaching sessions, so talented players of all genders can shine. Quidditch is a niche sport, but its inclusivity attracts many people who would not consider themselves naturally sporty, or who feel they do not fit within the culture of other sports. As with pretty much everything we encounter, it has its problems, but its underlying structure and commitment to gender equality mean it is pushing the boundaries of sport and challenging ideas surrounding gender, strength, and athleticism. While it may not suit everyone, if you aren’t afraid of a bit of mud and the occasional bludger to the face, it might be the sport for you.
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Piledriving the Patriarchy The Real History of Women’s Wrestling
Let’s get something out of the way first: wrestling is fake. It’s not a sport. It’s closer to a particularly violent ballet; it tells stories in a unique, visceral way. What wrestling has in common with many sports, however, is that women’s wrestling has a history of being viewed as inferior to men’s. Bayley vs Sasha Banks
History is always written by those with the power. Wrestling history is no different. Since the late 90s, WWE (formerly WWF, until they got sued by the World Wildlife Fund – yes, really) has reigned supreme as the undisputed ‘big leagues’ of wrestling. And so it’s WWE’s history that gets repeated as gospel. WWE’s version of events starts with a supposed pioneer of women’s wrestling, called the Fabulous Moolah, who won the World Women’s Championship in 1956. When she finally lost it in 1984, an incredible 28 years later, it was in a high-profile match against Wendi Richter, with Cyndi Lauper getting involved. Over the next few years, women’s matches would be featured at some of the biggest wrestling events, including the first WrestleMania. Things then cooled off a bit until 1993, when the WWF imported some of Japan’s best talent to challenge their new women’s champion, Alu-
Written by Oliver Startin
Who do you think of when you hear the words “professional wrestler”? John Cena? Hulk Hogan? The Rock? Whoever springs to mind, they’re almost certainly male, American, and the size of a brick outhouse. It’s fair to say that they’re probably not a 5’6” Japanese woman. Yet Manami Toyota, who retired earlier this month, is often regarded by experts as one of the greatest wrestlers of all time. 2017 has also seen the inaugural WWE Mae Young Classic, a wrestling tournament between 32 women from all around the world, and the success of GLOW, a Netflix show based on women’s wrestling in the 80s. Yet the image of wrestling remains predominantly male.
Three Women’s Matches You Need to Watch:
(All free on Dailymotion or YouTube. Matches from smaller companies are on DVD or their subscription services - or go along to a local live show.) Bayley vs. Sasha Banks – 2015 – (WWE) NXT TakeOver: Brooklyn My personal favourite. The ultimate underdog story – Bayley stands up to her tormentor. Try to watch the ‘promo video’ explaining the backstory first – you’ll enjoy the match even more. Asuka vs. Ember Moon – 2017 – (WWE) NXT TakeOver: Brooklyn III A recent match between two excellent wrestlers. Watch out for Ember’s jaw-dropping (and jaw-breaking) top-rope finishing move, the Eclipse. Manami Toyota vs. Aja Kong – 1994 – (AJW) Tokyo Dome Two of the greatest wrestlers in history beat the hell out of each other in an epic ‘David vs. Goliath’ match. One of the best examples of Japanese joshi wrestling. If you like these: get the free trial of the WWE Network and watch the Mae Young Classic ndra Blayze. Her matches with the likes of Bull Nakano expanded the audience’s ideas about the calibre of women’s wrestling. However, in the years which followed – known as the ‘Attitude Era’ – the company moved in an ‘edgier’ direction and women’s wrestling all but disappeared from the WWE. The focus was on women as sex objects rather than wrestlers. This mentality continued well into the 2000s with the so-called “Divas’ Division”. The matches were routinely short and poor quality, often between former models with little wrestling ability. According to WWE, things only changed as recently as 2015 with their self-proclaimed “Divas’ Revolution”, when new arrivals such as Paige, Sasha Banks, and Charlotte Flair ushered in a new golden age of women’s wrestling. Women were no longer referred to as ‘divas’ but as ‘superstars’, the
same as the men, and so, according to WWE, equality had been achieved. But, as with most corporate histories, the WWE-sponsored narrative starts to crumble under close examination. The Fabulous Moolah was not so much a selfless pioneer as an abusive tyrant who forced her own students into prostitution, and whose ego may have held women’s wrestling back for decades. And while female Japanese wrestlers in the early 90s did put on some good matches for the WWF, they were only the tip of the iceberg compared to the popularity and quality of women’s wrestling in Japan. WWF’s limited, watered-down offering looks rather meagre in comparison. As for the decline of women’s wrestling in the late 90s, this was solely down to WWE’s idea that women’s wrestling wasn’t profitable, de-
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Mae Young Classic. Some of the wrestlers featured were trained by WWE, but the most compelling matches were put on by veterans who had learned their trade in smaller companies during the years that the WWE treated women’s wrestling as a joke. For WWE to paint itself as the main instigator of female empowerment is disingenuous, and a reminder to be wary of corporate hijacking of feminist movements. Because, while WWE pats itself on the back for its newfound ‘equality’, there’s still a heavy emphasis on the male stars: Kate Foray’s RAW Breakdown Project shows that only around 10-15% of the weekly show features women. And within the wrestling community itself, there are still large pockets of toxic masculinity; a shameful proportion of female wrestling fans report having experienced harassment at wrestling events. There is still a lot of progress to be made.
When the ‘Revolution’ finally came, it was because the audience had had enough. The truth is that women’s wrestling never ‘died out’, despite WWE’s narrative. In bingo halls and school gyms around the world, and to an audience on the internet, female wrestlers continued to hone their craft on the smaller stage. Allfemale promotions such as the UK’s ‘Pro Wrestling: EVE’ and the USA’s ‘Shimmer’ have thrived for years despite the big wrestling companies, rather than because of them. Yet it feels as though the tides are This brings us to 2017 and WWE’s turning. Sexist chants at shows are now routinely shut-down by both fans and the wrestlers themselves. All-female promotions continue Asuka vs. to gather momentum, especially Ember Moon Pro-Wrestling EVE, which counts GLOW star Kate Nash among its fans. There are more young, talented female wrestlers than ever before: now is an exciting time to be a wrestling fan. There may still be a long way to go, but the future of women’s wrestling is glowing more brightly than ever.
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Get in touch! Email: suwomensofficer@nottingham.ac.uk
Facebook: University of Nottingham Women’s Network
Twitter: @UoNSU_Womens
Instagram: uonwomensnetwork
Snapchat: uonwomen
COntact us wnzine@outlook.com @uonzine @WNUoNFems_Zine ARTEMIS @WNZINE Women’s* Network and Uon Feminists Zine Design by Philippa Stazicker Edited by Grace Dalaigh-Taylor