January 31, 2026 • 35 mins
Though women have been present in sports since the beginning, numerous obstacles have often stood in the way of them becoming coaches and referees. In this classic, we examine the playbook to look at the history of why this is and the ways people are trying to change it.
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Speaker 1 (00:05):
Hey, this is Annie. I'm welcome to stuff I never
told you production of iHeartRadio. And today, after our wonderful
interview with doctor Baith about trans athletes, it was just
(00:26):
a wonderful thing. Please go listen to that episode if
you haven't already. I thought we would bring back an
episode we did about women coaches and referees because when
we did that episode, we talked about the importance of
supportive coaches, not necessarily referees, but I would say yes also,
(00:49):
and so just to add to that to that conversation.
Also just a note, we had a really funny discussion
off mic about heated rivalry that might happen she comes back.
Speaker 2 (01:03):
I was suggesting it and was excited.
Speaker 1 (01:05):
I was like, Okay, I'm into it. I'm so into it.
But yeah, please enjoy this classic episode. Hey, this is
Sanny and Samantha all of some stuff I've never told
you protection of iHeart Radio, and welcome to a long
(01:33):
awaited episode that we're doing on women referees and coaches.
Brief content warning for sexist language. Samantha, when you look
back in your experience, did you see or or have
more male coaches or female coaches?
Speaker 2 (01:52):
Well, so the only sports I really participated in was cheerleading,
so for that, I you know, I only had women
coaches for those. But I will say when I was
watching my friends who competed in tennis and in cross country,
it was all men. Now that I'm thinking about it,
the more and more that the few and even for
(02:15):
like women's basketball, girls basketball, we had a whole issue
with inappropriate behavior from our coach, who was beloved. But
then like, yeah, it's easily like those beloved coaches are
the ones like, yeah, okay, that makes sense, he's a
little too close to the students. But anyway, it was
a dude obviously as I say this, But yeah, I
(02:36):
think now that I'm thinking about it, even for the
girls teams or like mixed teams, it was all typically men,
and the ones that were highly regarded were always men.
Like even outside of like again a couple of cheerleading squads, Yeah,
what about you.
Speaker 1 (02:55):
Yeah, I think looking back, I did a couple of
sports that were more leaning towards girls, so like gymnastics
that was all women. But when I got into high school,
I was really insecure. Therefore I didn't compete in sports.
(03:15):
But so most of the coaches I saw when other
people were competing were men. There were a couple of outliers,
and they were women who were very beloved. But also, yeah,
we had a lot of with those men coaches. There
were just rumors of them being kind of creepers, so
(03:36):
and it was just accepted. It was just like, yeah, yep,
that's how they are. But my school was also pretty small,
so was yours. Right, You're just very small.
Speaker 2 (03:48):
Right, Yeah, I was thinking about how many I think,
like we had one hundred. I think ours is bigger
than yours, So like one hundred and thirty people graduate
in my class. There was only one high school, I
believe in the entire county.
Speaker 1 (04:05):
Yeah, I've I've seem to recall I had a ninety
one number of graduating people in my class, but I
don't know, I could be wrong. That's the number that
I've liked, it's been a while. That's the number that
stands out to me. But yeah, I just feel mostly
women coaches in my experience were like outliers and there
(04:29):
weren't really referees in my experience. This episode Listeners was
what I'll call a folly on my part because I
was like, surely this will be a simple one to
put together. It's it wasn't And in fact, I'm just
going to go ahead and put a disclaimer up here.
(04:51):
You could break down the history of coaches and referees
in pretty much every sport and it could be a
full episode. There has been a lot of search into it,
so today we are going to be talking about some
of the history, specifically in the realm of football slash
soccer and American football issues and potential solutions. This is
(05:14):
by no means comprehensive. I'm actually really impressed at how
many detailed sources that I found looking to this, but
a lot of it is recent, a lot of it
is very very soon, of course, yes, and we're going
to talk about that soon because a lot of the
first I was like, oh really last year yep, yeah, yep.
(05:39):
It sucks, It does suck, and it does have it's important.
It is important. So to start, I tried to find
like a general definition of a coach and referee. People
don't really seem to agree on even that, So basically
I would say coach is someone who guy and supports athletes,
(06:04):
usually on a team. There are no consistent guidelines or
requirements though it often involves getting a coaching and teaching
license and perhaps other credentials that can look very differently
depending on the sport, depending on where you are. Referees,
this was even less less regulated from what I could find.
(06:27):
Please if anyone is a coach a referee professionally or not,
write in. But yes, they're basically monitoring the game, watching
for any like breaking of rules or something like that.
And to become one it seemed like it was sort
(06:48):
of all over the place based on sport. But basically
you have to pass a rules exam and then you
sort of work your way up from the bottom. That's
what it sounded like. Then I discovered I knew about this,
but I don't know why I've never thought about it.
The people who watched the like videos. Yeah, yeah, so
that's a whole separate thing we're gonna have to come
(07:09):
back to because women are just breaking grounds and that
as well.
Speaker 2 (07:14):
Right, we're not even talking about commentators and how much
they miss they make, Like Tom Brady just got millions
of dollars of a contract to work with Fox Sports.
So yeah, the last talk about it's a whole different world.
But of course, all of this means all of this
is conversations about how much money and can be made
(07:36):
in this industry and who was given to But you know, again,
we'll come back to that later. But or will you
do all of that? Let's talk about a little bit,
a little bit of stance, stance, a little bit of stance.
Speaker 1 (07:47):
Handy or a couple you know, quick ones.
Speaker 2 (07:50):
So when it comes to the US, as the twenty
twenty two about thirty percent of high school varsity coaches
were women compared to a seventy percent of men, which
is more than I thought it would be, to be
very honest, especially in high schools, because they're pretty competitive.
Speaker 1 (08:05):
High school is a day are interesting.
Speaker 2 (08:08):
Level making come on Friday night lights. They made hit
shows based on coaching and teams in high schools. But whatever,
And according to the conversation quote, today men occupy nearly
seventy five percent of all head coaching positions in collegiate athletics,
again lower than I thought. I would have thought it
(08:29):
was ninety percent. But you know, the BBC recently reported
that the number of women's referees in English football had
increased by seventy two percent as of twenty sixteen, and
that was in twenty twenty.
Speaker 1 (08:42):
Huh really yeah, yeah, we're going to talk about that
in a second. But I do want to clarify the
English football is important because it was specifically about in England.
Speaker 2 (08:54):
England, yes, which is I haven't watched a lot of
English football soccer, I'm assuming recently and I've never but
I've yet to see a woman being a referee, so
that's interesting.
Speaker 1 (09:08):
Oh it's pretty recent. So okay, well's talk about Okay,
let's go, Yes, But I did want to put in
here before we get into it, a quick note about
why it matters, because I think one thing that can't
be quite captured in a definition is the power and
impact of a good coach or a good referee, both
(09:28):
in terms of fostering athletes and but in seeing that
like oh I belong, Having women in these positions normalizes
women's participation. It says like women are supposed to be here.
It also allows for athletes to grow once they stop competing,
and there's so much talent that is getting lost because
(09:49):
these pathways don't really exist right now for women, or
if they do, they're so crowded that women are getting
pushed out. So it is important for bullied out, yeah,
or bullied out. So yes, as we go into we're
mostly going to talk about soccer football and American football.
(10:13):
But yes, please forgive us because the history section is
a bit cobbled together because sports history looks different all
around the world, and it looks different in different sports.
Also worth noting, in multiple cases, at some point or another,
women were prohibited from competing officially in sports, which is
(10:34):
pretty much how people become professional coaches and referees. So
there's a lot of catching up to do in that sense. Yes, okay,
but let us look at soccer slash football. While soccer
football has a long history of being popular, patriarchal systems
have often sought to keep women out, both as players
(10:55):
and in any leadership or officiate positions. For instance, women
were bands from playing on official Football League pitches in
nineteen twenty one. Their official reason was that it was
dangerous for women. We've talked about this before. She can't
sweat what about our uter is going to fall out,
(11:16):
It's going to fall out. These are real things. The
unofficial reason was that they didn't want women to threaten
a quote men's sports.
Speaker 2 (11:27):
However, women's soccer has really taken off in recent years
with a huge explosion of popularity, Attendance records have been broken,
as have viewership records, and the skills on display are
just as astounding. Still, when it comes to women coaching
this sport, we're still lagging behind. Only one third of
Women's Super League coaches have a woman manager. National Women's
(11:50):
Soccer League or NWSL has fourteen clubs and only five
are led by women.
Speaker 1 (11:58):
Austria's Edith Klinger is believed to be the first woman
to referee both men and women's games. In nineteen thirty five. However,
FIFA officially recognized Turkey's Tressan Arda as the world's first
football woman referee. She refereed her first match in nineteen
sixty eight after years of training. Although FIFA is very
(12:22):
like it has to be a FIFA event, so that
makes sense to me, right. Betty Ellis was the first
woman to officiate a professional US soccer game in nineteen
eighty one, and then in nineteen ninety one we saw
the first all women team to officiate a FIFA tournament. Earlier,
(12:42):
Claudia Vasconcelos became the first woman to referee an official
FIFA event at the first Women's World Cup. So the
reason this kind of came out later because FIFA again
wasn't sure if it was an official event, like they
were like Women's World Cup. But then when they later
were like, okay, it was an official event, then it
(13:04):
was like she kind of retroactively got the recognition. Just
a handful of years later we got the first woman
to be designated as the first official FIFA accredited referee.
Speaker 2 (13:16):
So one woman who recently has been the source of
a lot of coverage as Emma Hayes, who, after coaching
the team and Chelsea, went on to coach the US
women's national team and led them to gold. She has
been very vocal about the lack of women coaches and
all the reasons she thinks that is things like cost
and the gender wage gap, lack of education and attention,
(13:36):
and lack of mentors, which kind of we talked about
with the Olympics.
Speaker 1 (13:40):
Yes, in twenty twenty, in part because of COVID, the
comic ball Ceonmebol Copo Libertatorrees, the highest level of competition
in South American club football, was the first game to
feature only women referees. The video match officials were also women,
(14:03):
meaning the entirety of the officiating team was composed of women,
and I will say it's kind of unfortunate, but a
lot of this did happen during COVID because men were
getting COVID, so it was sort of like whoever could
step up, and these women were definitely qualified. Do not
(14:23):
get me wrong, but that's it was like all the
men were sick. In twenty twenty two, Stephanie Frappar became
the first woman to officiate a men's World Cup game.
She also had like a bunch of other first She
had two women assistants too at this time, nus At
Back of Brazil and Karen Diaz Medina of Mexico. And yeah,
(14:48):
there are still first happening. In twenty twenty three, the
first woman was appointed to coach a professional British football team.
I saw something today because of course, when you're researching
something like this, you start getting news update all the
time right about other first that are happening. So it's
one of those things where I'm kind of like, I'm happy,
but I'm shocked that I'm like, oh, really this is yeah.
(15:11):
In twenty twenty four, finally I guess, yeah, yeah, and
that is the briefest of overview of women coaches and
referees in soccer. Let us look at American football, so
(15:38):
this was interesting to me. American football, the rules and
sport were formalized in the eighteen seventies, and one of
the main stated goals of this sport was to reinforce
and shore up what was believed to be fading manliness
in white and glosed Saxon men due to increased immigration
(15:58):
and the closed frontier. But even in these early days,
women were present as coaches. The so called father of football,
Walter Camp, often missed practices and his wife, Alice would
take his place. She took these like really intense notes.
She made play suggestions. The team, who were undefeated in
(16:19):
eighteen eighty eight, considered her a coach on the same
level as her husband. At reunion celebration twenty five years later,
both she and her husband were labeled head coaches. So
women weren't there. Whether they were getting the credit necessarily
different story, but they were there, and she was not
the only one. Prior to World War One, a roster
(16:40):
of American women coach men's football teams from the Washington Post,
names like Lillian Merrill, Annie Bragdon, Estelle Sherwin, Carrie Brookhart,
and Cosette Brannon were all there. Two of them, Bragdon
and Burkhart boasted undefeated seasons at the time. One of
(17:01):
the main aspects of this sport was its violence. It
was something that journals wrote about, including injuries and even death.
So these women coaching such a violent sport broke accepted
Western gender stereotypes in multiple ways. Generally, they coached school
(17:21):
age teams. Women did pretty much anything above that. In
the rare case it happened was usually because of lack
of funding to pay for a mail coach or something
something like that, a second choice like women, that's the
second choice. Women were still viewed as largely spectators to
the men, being madly and somewhat of a calming influence
(17:45):
in the audience. Yeah, this actually was the thing in
a lot of Western countries, regardless of sports, as were sexist, racist,
ablest and homophobic guidelines designed to keep margin people out
are harassing them if they somehow managed to participate.
Speaker 2 (18:05):
Right, So that shifted a bit during World War One
when men went away to fight the war and women
stepped up into their positions as coaches. A story as
old as time in high schools and college positions. The
same thing happened during World War Two, and some of
these coaches won titles. Once the men returned from the war,
many of the women were forced out, though some remained
(18:28):
coaching for many more years.
Speaker 1 (18:31):
Go back to the leg of their own.
Speaker 2 (18:32):
That's that whole scenario.
Speaker 1 (18:34):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, uh huh. Some reporters from the
time describe these women coaches as radical and strange. Their
husbands were often pointedly mentioned as if to reassure folks
that they are still straight women in the domestic sphere,
or even crediting their husbands with the women's knowledge and talent. Yeah,
(18:58):
when Pauline Foster's team beat a team coach by a man,
it was reported on with almost amusement, like he'll never
live down this embarrassment, as opposed to crediting her talent,
which they often did attribute to her husband. And of course,
the physical appearances of the women coaches was the point
of attention to in a way that it wasn't for men.
(19:21):
Descriptions like beautiful, attractive, and buxom blonde were pretty standard.
Speaker 2 (19:27):
That word buxhom that you gets me every time.
Speaker 1 (19:30):
Yeah, after a bit of a dead period for women
American football coaches. Nineteen seventy two's Title nine put in
place rules to foster quality in women's sports in education settings,
but this mostly pertained to athletes and not coaches or referees.
Women coaches were still met with suspicion and derision. Some
(19:51):
universities and institutions even had in place rules that prohibited
women from holding these positions, even assistant coaching position. Before
Title nine, ninety percent of intercollegiate women's teams were coached
by women, largely unpaid. However, after Title nine there was
a huge growth in teams and men started to take
(20:12):
these roles thanks to biases and also, yeah, the roles
were now paid, so like now men were like, oh, yeah,
I'll take that job. In twenty fourteen, women accounted for
only forty three percent of these physicians. So basically, yeah,
now women's teams were getting money, they were getting resources,
(20:34):
and suddenly men sought as a legitimate career path to
coach these teams. Of course, yep I did find some
arguments that first and second wave feminism were part to
blame for the unintended consequences of the lower number of
women coaches and refs, and the argument goes that these
movements wanted women's sports under women's spheres, all women's clubs,
(20:58):
perhaps specific rules. It was interesting. I was like, I guess,
I don't know. It was an interesting argument. Yes, a
few women were able to break through, including Carol White,
who worked with Kickers at my alma mater, Georgia Tech
as a graduate assistant in nineteen eighty six. Some say
(21:21):
this makes her the first woman to coach in an
NCAA Division One football tournament. Oh, people do like to
argue about all this stuff, though, was probably not a surprise.
Another thing people argue about when Natalie Randolph started coaching
a men's high school football team in twenty ten. She
was widely celebrated as the first women coach of a
(21:41):
men's high school team. But if you've been listening to
the history section, others will say, no, way, that can't
be true. I think it's more of a in our
recent times kind of thing. Yeah. In twenty twenty, there
were a lot of headlines about history being made around
women reps and coaches in NFL football. That season, there
(22:05):
were twelve women coaches working. It was the first Super
Bowl to feature two women coaches, and Sarah Thomas became
the first woman referee to officiate a Super Bowl game.
She also previously had broken other first, including becoming the
first full time woman referee for the NFL. And yeah,
the case of American football is interesting because women don't
(22:29):
play it professionally, so there's not a pipeline of player
to coach, right, Yeah, yep. That's also could be broken
down into a much bigger episode because there's still a
lot of first happening there. But let us talk about
some of the issues here that we found when researching
(22:53):
this one. No surprise her asspment. One of the biggest
barriers women have reported in these positions is sexism and
harassment from players, spectators, and other officials. Here are some
examples from Forbes quote. If women want equal rights, then
they need to learn how to referee. And from an
(23:13):
amateur football coach, she should not be here. I know
that sounds sexist, but I am sexist and if you
start bringing in women, you have big problems. A senior
vice president of the Football Association once said, women's place
is in the kitchen and not on a football field.
I love it.
Speaker 2 (23:31):
That's their go to is always the kitchen always.
Speaker 1 (23:33):
Yes, oh that is me. We're going to talk about
this in a minute. But that comes up all the time.
That go back to the kitchen argument, right every time.
Speaker 2 (23:45):
Here's another quote from a referee named Anne, things like
don't you know the supermarket is open? You should be
there doing the shopping, or why aren't you at home
cooking your husband's mill? Or you should be pregnant at
the kitchen sink. Or the worst one was I hope
your children die of cancer. That was from a spectator.
I remember one game, an FA cup round, and I
(24:07):
walked off and my daughter came running over to where
the tunnel area was and she said, Mommy, what's the dyke.
She was only about ten or eleven at the time.
And I said, why, honey, and she said, because the
man over there, he's been calling you one the whole game.
Speaker 1 (24:20):
Oh yikes. Many women in these positions have reported they
are quote aware of their token status and the damage
that does to their mental health. There have been multiple
instances of verbal and physical abuse and threats in these fields.
The verbal sexist abuse is the most observed. Many did
(24:42):
say the abuse only became sexist when people disagreed with
a call right in the case of a referee right,
and one study, every single woman referee interviewed reported having
heard get back in the kitchen. So yes, that is
their go to, that is their number one. Actually it's
like really depressing, but it's kind of a funny story
(25:03):
because in one of the people from the study confronted
one of the men who said it, and he came
down and he was so contrite and he's like, I
don't know why I said it. I'm so sorry. She
was like, don't ever do that again and get out
of here.
Speaker 2 (25:18):
What the hell?
Speaker 1 (25:21):
Oh that's funny, Yeah, yeah, but it can get a
lot darker. One person described basically threats of rape as
an assistant referee, she was sixteen and she almost dropped
out because of this experience. And the article was detailing
the basically all of the fallout and damage of things
(25:44):
like this and the loss of talent and women participating
if this is what is normal as and accepted, because yeah,
perhaps even more upsetting in a way. Some women did
not recognize verbal sexist abuse, suggesting it's been so normal
as they were just like, oh, I didn't think about it,
(26:09):
which is sad. Others have reported not having places to
change and when asking about it, management giving them like
a storage cupboard or something, so that's not great. Also,
just being dismissed or not respected. A lot of people
(26:29):
reported that referees always assuming that the man is the
head coach. One woman in one of these surveys said,
when you make a mistake, it's because you're a woman.
And yet there is sort of this other side of
it of being labeled as not feminine enough, right, so, like,
(26:51):
you made that mistake because you're a woman, but you're not,
you're not feminine, Assumptions that they don't know the rules.
There have been multi instances of male commentators, like we
talked about our Olympics episodes, basically saying she's a woman,
she doesn't know what she's doing, and these are like
the commentators you're listening to during the game, right yeah.
Speaker 2 (27:14):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (27:14):
Stereotypes around physical and mental ability and inability to handle pressure,
A lot of people reported.
Speaker 2 (27:21):
Right, so, here's a quote that sums it up pretty well.
The studies findings demonstrate that men's gendered identities afford them
automatic and unquestioned access to the social dynamics of the coach.
Education system. Women, on the other hand, have to earn
this through their performance of appropriate levels of football knowledge
and skill, and these expectations often go far beyond the
level of performance required by men to gain the same credibility.
Speaker 1 (27:44):
Yes, and just as always, there's discrimination around having children
that could get pregnant. I read one that was basically
(28:04):
a mail interviewer was like, Oh, you don't want this job.
You'll have to work on the weekends, You'll have kids.
You got to take care of the kids. Okay, And
here's something This is kind of more complicated. I'll talk
about why in a second, but examples show women coaches
are more likely to get fired for similar behaviors. Male
coaches exhibit and are lauded for they are. Women coaches
(28:29):
are less likely to be renewed despite a track record
for success. So, for instance, despite helping secure multiple national
championships for the University of Minnesota, Duluth women's hockey head
coach Shannon Miller's contract was not renewed in twenty fourteen.
She didn't have any violations or anything, and she sued
for gender discrimination, a suit she ended up winning and
(28:51):
was awarded three million dollars.
Speaker 2 (28:53):
Gotta get that money, got.
Speaker 1 (28:54):
Get that money. In a lot of instances where women
coaches are fired for abuse, they are never rehired, or
if they are not at the same level. The same
is not true for men. They don't usually get fired,
and if they do, they get rehired at an equal
or even better position. So I'm not advocating for this abuse,
but the punishment should be equal. And that is not
(29:17):
what we're seeing. Nope, it's not what we're seeing at all.
There are a lot of toxic, old gender stereotypes here
that basically boil down to traditionally masculine coded traits are better,
but when a woman displays those traits, she is judged
far more harshly. So a lot of the stuff we're
talking about here is like a coach yelling at you,
and it can be very abusive and has been, but
(29:42):
it's seen as like when men do that, oh yeah,
he's talking up his team. But when a woman doesn't say,
oh look at this, true, she's got to be she's
got to go again. I don't I'm not condoning abuse.
I don't think it's right, but just saying here's a
quote from the conversation. Another problem is that female college
(30:03):
athletes seem to value coaches who act in dominant, sometimes
authoritarian ways. When female athletes are asked what they want
to coach, they'll say they want someone who's commanding, confident, assertive,
and knowledgeable. At the same time, female athletes consider ideal
female coaches to be caring, supportive, and nurturing, but this
contradicts what they value in a coach. Female coaches ultimately
(30:24):
find themselves in a double bind. They're damned if they
act like men, and damned if they don't. Yep. Another issue,
of course, equal pay. Many women coaches and referees are
not getting paid what they're worth, not even close. There's
also a persistent idea that there's more respect to be
had coaching men's teams, which I found in some articles
(30:49):
even when I was looking into this. There's a lack
of standards and professionalization in these fields. There's unequal resources
usually given towards women athletes and women coaches and women referees.
All of that stuff. Nepotism and name recognition is a problem.
(31:12):
Like gatekeeping is a problem here, the risk of retaliation
if you report something. There's been several cases of that
of women coaches or referees reporting wrongdoing and being retaliated against,
and often they might be told, you know, just deal with.
Speaker 2 (31:30):
It, right so from sagebub quote. Among other inequities, women
coaches have lower salaries, fewer opportunities, poorer working conditions and relationships,
and more conflicts between coaching and family commitments than their
male counterparts due to lack of organizational policies and cultural norms.
The underrepresentation of women coaches is associated with power relations
(31:52):
in sports, which is considered as a male dominated social
context where men occupy dominant social roles over women monic masculinity. Still,
coaching is heavily associated with male characteristics, and women are
considered invaders when holding positions of power.
Speaker 1 (32:09):
Yes, right, And as always, there are intersexual issues here
to coaches of color, black coaches, queer coaches all have
faced unique issues of backclash and discrimination. Marginalized people have
increased obstacles to entry. You have to deal with a
whole host of issues that many of their counterparts don't.
(32:32):
And there has been some recent stuff looking into this,
but again a lot of this is pretty recent, and
a lot of these first even in these specific intersexual areas,
are very very recent. So a lot more to be done.
And speaking of people are looking into this because all
of this that we've been talking about as a negative
impact on women's mental health, women in sport in general,
(32:55):
I would say sport in general, just women's participation. So
a couple of things that organizing bodies and people involved
are looking into our new regulations, like creating minimum standards
of women, marginalized folks in these positions, bringing more women
(33:16):
to the table when making these regulations in the first place,
because that has not happened really requiring marginalized people are
interviewed for leadership positions. Some have reported organizations outright mocking
or ignoring this though, so yep, organizations fostering mentoring and training.
(33:39):
So we talked about this pretty recently, so it has
been something that's been tried, but it's hard to track.
It's hard to like quantify I guess the benefits of this,
but many have said who have participated in it, that
this helps women feel seen and heard and often allows
for more open conversation, like maybe they able to talk
(34:00):
to a mentor who is a woman as opposed to
a man, because they don't feel like they can talk
to men about something compiling more research, getting more research
so that we can have more educated regulations that we
can put in place. And as yeah, as we've said recently,
(34:21):
as more women athletes enter the playing fields, more of
them become coaches and referees and that continues. So that's good,
like we are seeing growth, but there's still all of
these issues to deal with and there's still so much
further to go, right, yeah, way too much. Yeah, yes,
(34:43):
But to everyone who's doing that work, thank you so much. Honestly,
Like the power of a good coach and a good
referee that can really stick with you, especially as a
kid and you're like, oh yes, like can really make
you want to keep going, or even if it's not
in the same sport, it can just be something that's
(35:03):
really inspiring. So yes, listeners, if you are involved in
either coaching or refereeing, or sports in general, any of this,
please let us know. You can write to us at
Stephania Momstuff at iHeartMedia dot com. You can find us
on Twitter at mom Stuff podcast, or on Instagram and
TikTok at stuff Will Never Told You for USO on YouTube.
We have a tea puppy store and we have a
(35:23):
book you can get wherever you get your books. Thanks
as always to our super producer Christina, our executive producer Maya,
and our contributor Joey.
Speaker 2 (35:30):
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (35:31):
Thanks to you for listening stuff I never told you.
Propection of my heart idio for more podcast or my
Heart Radio. You can check out the heart Radio app,
Apple podcast or if you'll listen to your favorite shows
Hey, this is Annie. I'm welcome to stuff I never
told you production of iHeartRadio. And today, after our wonderful
interview with doctor Baith about trans athletes, it was just
(00:26):
a wonderful thing. Please go listen to that episode if
you haven't already. I thought we would bring back an
episode we did about women coaches and referees because when
we did that episode, we talked about the importance of
supportive coaches, not necessarily referees, but I would say yes also,
(00:49):
and so just to add to that to that conversation.
Also just a note, we had a really funny discussion
off mic about heated rivalry that might happen she comes back.
Speaker 2 (01:03):
I was suggesting it and was excited.
Speaker 1 (01:05):
I was like, Okay, I'm into it. I'm so into it.
But yeah, please enjoy this classic episode. Hey, this is
Sanny and Samantha all of some stuff I've never told
you protection of iHeart Radio, and welcome to a long
(01:33):
awaited episode that we're doing on women referees and coaches.
Brief content warning for sexist language. Samantha, when you look
back in your experience, did you see or or have
more male coaches or female coaches?
Speaker 2 (01:52):
Well, so the only sports I really participated in was cheerleading,
so for that, I you know, I only had women
coaches for those. But I will say when I was
watching my friends who competed in tennis and in cross country,
it was all men. Now that I'm thinking about it,
the more and more that the few and even for
(02:15):
like women's basketball, girls basketball, we had a whole issue
with inappropriate behavior from our coach, who was beloved. But
then like, yeah, it's easily like those beloved coaches are
the ones like, yeah, okay, that makes sense, he's a
little too close to the students. But anyway, it was
a dude obviously as I say this, But yeah, I
(02:36):
think now that I'm thinking about it, even for the
girls teams or like mixed teams, it was all typically men,
and the ones that were highly regarded were always men.
Like even outside of like again a couple of cheerleading squads, Yeah,
what about you.
Speaker 1 (02:55):
Yeah, I think looking back, I did a couple of
sports that were more leaning towards girls, so like gymnastics
that was all women. But when I got into high school,
I was really insecure. Therefore I didn't compete in sports.
(03:15):
But so most of the coaches I saw when other
people were competing were men. There were a couple of outliers,
and they were women who were very beloved. But also, yeah,
we had a lot of with those men coaches. There
were just rumors of them being kind of creepers, so
(03:36):
and it was just accepted. It was just like, yeah, yep,
that's how they are. But my school was also pretty small,
so was yours. Right, You're just very small.
Speaker 2 (03:48):
Right, Yeah, I was thinking about how many I think,
like we had one hundred. I think ours is bigger
than yours, So like one hundred and thirty people graduate
in my class. There was only one high school, I
believe in the entire county.
Speaker 1 (04:05):
Yeah, I've I've seem to recall I had a ninety
one number of graduating people in my class, but I
don't know, I could be wrong. That's the number that
I've liked, it's been a while. That's the number that
stands out to me. But yeah, I just feel mostly
women coaches in my experience were like outliers and there
(04:29):
weren't really referees in my experience. This episode Listeners was
what I'll call a folly on my part because I
was like, surely this will be a simple one to
put together. It's it wasn't And in fact, I'm just
going to go ahead and put a disclaimer up here.
(04:51):
You could break down the history of coaches and referees
in pretty much every sport and it could be a
full episode. There has been a lot of search into it,
so today we are going to be talking about some
of the history, specifically in the realm of football slash
soccer and American football issues and potential solutions. This is
(05:14):
by no means comprehensive. I'm actually really impressed at how
many detailed sources that I found looking to this, but
a lot of it is recent, a lot of it
is very very soon, of course, yes, and we're going
to talk about that soon because a lot of the
first I was like, oh really last year yep, yeah, yep.
(05:39):
It sucks, It does suck, and it does have it's important.
It is important. So to start, I tried to find
like a general definition of a coach and referee. People
don't really seem to agree on even that, So basically
I would say coach is someone who guy and supports athletes,
(06:04):
usually on a team. There are no consistent guidelines or
requirements though it often involves getting a coaching and teaching
license and perhaps other credentials that can look very differently
depending on the sport, depending on where you are. Referees,
this was even less less regulated from what I could find.
(06:27):
Please if anyone is a coach a referee professionally or not,
write in. But yes, they're basically monitoring the game, watching
for any like breaking of rules or something like that.
And to become one it seemed like it was sort
(06:48):
of all over the place based on sport. But basically
you have to pass a rules exam and then you
sort of work your way up from the bottom. That's
what it sounded like. Then I discovered I knew about this,
but I don't know why I've never thought about it.
The people who watched the like videos. Yeah, yeah, so
that's a whole separate thing we're gonna have to come
(07:09):
back to because women are just breaking grounds and that
as well.
Speaker 2 (07:14):
Right, we're not even talking about commentators and how much
they miss they make, Like Tom Brady just got millions
of dollars of a contract to work with Fox Sports.
So yeah, the last talk about it's a whole different world.
But of course, all of this means all of this
is conversations about how much money and can be made
(07:36):
in this industry and who was given to But you know, again,
we'll come back to that later. But or will you
do all of that? Let's talk about a little bit,
a little bit of stance, stance, a little bit of stance.
Speaker 1 (07:47):
Handy or a couple you know, quick ones.
Speaker 2 (07:50):
So when it comes to the US, as the twenty
twenty two about thirty percent of high school varsity coaches
were women compared to a seventy percent of men, which
is more than I thought it would be, to be
very honest, especially in high schools, because they're pretty competitive.
Speaker 1 (08:05):
High school is a day are interesting.
Speaker 2 (08:08):
Level making come on Friday night lights. They made hit
shows based on coaching and teams in high schools. But whatever,
And according to the conversation quote, today men occupy nearly
seventy five percent of all head coaching positions in collegiate athletics,
again lower than I thought. I would have thought it
(08:29):
was ninety percent. But you know, the BBC recently reported
that the number of women's referees in English football had
increased by seventy two percent as of twenty sixteen, and
that was in twenty twenty.
Speaker 1 (08:42):
Huh really yeah, yeah, we're going to talk about that
in a second. But I do want to clarify the
English football is important because it was specifically about in England.
Speaker 2 (08:54):
England, yes, which is I haven't watched a lot of
English football soccer, I'm assuming recently and I've never but
I've yet to see a woman being a referee, so
that's interesting.
Speaker 1 (09:08):
Oh it's pretty recent. So okay, well's talk about Okay,
let's go, Yes, But I did want to put in
here before we get into it, a quick note about
why it matters, because I think one thing that can't
be quite captured in a definition is the power and
impact of a good coach or a good referee, both
(09:28):
in terms of fostering athletes and but in seeing that
like oh I belong, Having women in these positions normalizes
women's participation. It says like women are supposed to be here.
It also allows for athletes to grow once they stop competing,
and there's so much talent that is getting lost because
(09:49):
these pathways don't really exist right now for women, or
if they do, they're so crowded that women are getting
pushed out. So it is important for bullied out, yeah,
or bullied out. So yes, as we go into we're
mostly going to talk about soccer football and American football.
(10:13):
But yes, please forgive us because the history section is
a bit cobbled together because sports history looks different all
around the world, and it looks different in different sports.
Also worth noting, in multiple cases, at some point or another,
women were prohibited from competing officially in sports, which is
(10:34):
pretty much how people become professional coaches and referees. So
there's a lot of catching up to do in that sense. Yes, okay,
but let us look at soccer slash football. While soccer
football has a long history of being popular, patriarchal systems
have often sought to keep women out, both as players
(10:55):
and in any leadership or officiate positions. For instance, women
were bands from playing on official Football League pitches in
nineteen twenty one. Their official reason was that it was
dangerous for women. We've talked about this before. She can't
sweat what about our uter is going to fall out,
(11:16):
It's going to fall out. These are real things. The
unofficial reason was that they didn't want women to threaten
a quote men's sports.
Speaker 2 (11:27):
However, women's soccer has really taken off in recent years
with a huge explosion of popularity, Attendance records have been broken,
as have viewership records, and the skills on display are
just as astounding. Still, when it comes to women coaching
this sport, we're still lagging behind. Only one third of
Women's Super League coaches have a woman manager. National Women's
(11:50):
Soccer League or NWSL has fourteen clubs and only five
are led by women.
Speaker 1 (11:58):
Austria's Edith Klinger is believed to be the first woman
to referee both men and women's games. In nineteen thirty five. However,
FIFA officially recognized Turkey's Tressan Arda as the world's first
football woman referee. She refereed her first match in nineteen
sixty eight after years of training. Although FIFA is very
(12:22):
like it has to be a FIFA event, so that
makes sense to me, right. Betty Ellis was the first
woman to officiate a professional US soccer game in nineteen
eighty one, and then in nineteen ninety one we saw
the first all women team to officiate a FIFA tournament. Earlier,
(12:42):
Claudia Vasconcelos became the first woman to referee an official
FIFA event at the first Women's World Cup. So the
reason this kind of came out later because FIFA again
wasn't sure if it was an official event, like they
were like Women's World Cup. But then when they later
were like, okay, it was an official event, then it
(13:04):
was like she kind of retroactively got the recognition. Just
a handful of years later we got the first woman
to be designated as the first official FIFA accredited referee.
Speaker 2 (13:16):
So one woman who recently has been the source of
a lot of coverage as Emma Hayes, who, after coaching
the team and Chelsea, went on to coach the US
women's national team and led them to gold. She has
been very vocal about the lack of women coaches and
all the reasons she thinks that is things like cost
and the gender wage gap, lack of education and attention,
(13:36):
and lack of mentors, which kind of we talked about
with the Olympics.
Speaker 1 (13:40):
Yes, in twenty twenty, in part because of COVID, the
comic ball Ceonmebol Copo Libertatorrees, the highest level of competition
in South American club football, was the first game to
feature only women referees. The video match officials were also women,
(14:03):
meaning the entirety of the officiating team was composed of women,
and I will say it's kind of unfortunate, but a
lot of this did happen during COVID because men were
getting COVID, so it was sort of like whoever could
step up, and these women were definitely qualified. Do not
(14:23):
get me wrong, but that's it was like all the
men were sick. In twenty twenty two, Stephanie Frappar became
the first woman to officiate a men's World Cup game.
She also had like a bunch of other first She
had two women assistants too at this time, nus At
Back of Brazil and Karen Diaz Medina of Mexico. And yeah,
(14:48):
there are still first happening. In twenty twenty three, the
first woman was appointed to coach a professional British football team.
I saw something today because of course, when you're researching
something like this, you start getting news update all the
time right about other first that are happening. So it's
one of those things where I'm kind of like, I'm happy,
but I'm shocked that I'm like, oh, really this is yeah.
(15:11):
In twenty twenty four, finally I guess, yeah, yeah, and
that is the briefest of overview of women coaches and
referees in soccer. Let us look at American football, so
(15:38):
this was interesting to me. American football, the rules and
sport were formalized in the eighteen seventies, and one of
the main stated goals of this sport was to reinforce
and shore up what was believed to be fading manliness
in white and glosed Saxon men due to increased immigration
(15:58):
and the closed frontier. But even in these early days,
women were present as coaches. The so called father of football,
Walter Camp, often missed practices and his wife, Alice would
take his place. She took these like really intense notes.
She made play suggestions. The team, who were undefeated in
(16:19):
eighteen eighty eight, considered her a coach on the same
level as her husband. At reunion celebration twenty five years later,
both she and her husband were labeled head coaches. So
women weren't there. Whether they were getting the credit necessarily
different story, but they were there, and she was not
the only one. Prior to World War One, a roster
(16:40):
of American women coach men's football teams from the Washington Post,
names like Lillian Merrill, Annie Bragdon, Estelle Sherwin, Carrie Brookhart,
and Cosette Brannon were all there. Two of them, Bragdon
and Burkhart boasted undefeated seasons at the time. One of
(17:01):
the main aspects of this sport was its violence. It
was something that journals wrote about, including injuries and even death.
So these women coaching such a violent sport broke accepted
Western gender stereotypes in multiple ways. Generally, they coached school
(17:21):
age teams. Women did pretty much anything above that. In
the rare case it happened was usually because of lack
of funding to pay for a mail coach or something
something like that, a second choice like women, that's the
second choice. Women were still viewed as largely spectators to
the men, being madly and somewhat of a calming influence
(17:45):
in the audience. Yeah, this actually was the thing in
a lot of Western countries, regardless of sports, as were sexist, racist,
ablest and homophobic guidelines designed to keep margin people out
are harassing them if they somehow managed to participate.
Speaker 2 (18:05):
Right, So that shifted a bit during World War One
when men went away to fight the war and women
stepped up into their positions as coaches. A story as
old as time in high schools and college positions. The
same thing happened during World War Two, and some of
these coaches won titles. Once the men returned from the war,
many of the women were forced out, though some remained
(18:28):
coaching for many more years.
Speaker 1 (18:31):
Go back to the leg of their own.
Speaker 2 (18:32):
That's that whole scenario.
Speaker 1 (18:34):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, uh huh. Some reporters from the
time describe these women coaches as radical and strange. Their
husbands were often pointedly mentioned as if to reassure folks
that they are still straight women in the domestic sphere,
or even crediting their husbands with the women's knowledge and talent. Yeah,
(18:58):
when Pauline Foster's team beat a team coach by a man,
it was reported on with almost amusement, like he'll never
live down this embarrassment, as opposed to crediting her talent,
which they often did attribute to her husband. And of course,
the physical appearances of the women coaches was the point
of attention to in a way that it wasn't for men.
(19:21):
Descriptions like beautiful, attractive, and buxom blonde were pretty standard.
Speaker 2 (19:27):
That word buxhom that you gets me every time.
Speaker 1 (19:30):
Yeah, after a bit of a dead period for women
American football coaches. Nineteen seventy two's Title nine put in
place rules to foster quality in women's sports in education settings,
but this mostly pertained to athletes and not coaches or referees.
Women coaches were still met with suspicion and derision. Some
(19:51):
universities and institutions even had in place rules that prohibited
women from holding these positions, even assistant coaching position. Before
Title nine, ninety percent of intercollegiate women's teams were coached
by women, largely unpaid. However, after Title nine there was
a huge growth in teams and men started to take
(20:12):
these roles thanks to biases and also, yeah, the roles
were now paid, so like now men were like, oh, yeah,
I'll take that job. In twenty fourteen, women accounted for
only forty three percent of these physicians. So basically, yeah,
now women's teams were getting money, they were getting resources,
(20:34):
and suddenly men sought as a legitimate career path to
coach these teams. Of course, yep I did find some
arguments that first and second wave feminism were part to
blame for the unintended consequences of the lower number of
women coaches and refs, and the argument goes that these
movements wanted women's sports under women's spheres, all women's clubs,
(20:58):
perhaps specific rules. It was interesting. I was like, I guess,
I don't know. It was an interesting argument. Yes, a
few women were able to break through, including Carol White,
who worked with Kickers at my alma mater, Georgia Tech
as a graduate assistant in nineteen eighty six. Some say
(21:21):
this makes her the first woman to coach in an
NCAA Division One football tournament. Oh, people do like to
argue about all this stuff, though, was probably not a surprise.
Another thing people argue about when Natalie Randolph started coaching
a men's high school football team in twenty ten. She
was widely celebrated as the first women coach of a
(21:41):
men's high school team. But if you've been listening to
the history section, others will say, no, way, that can't
be true. I think it's more of a in our
recent times kind of thing. Yeah. In twenty twenty, there
were a lot of headlines about history being made around
women reps and coaches in NFL football. That season, there
(22:05):
were twelve women coaches working. It was the first Super
Bowl to feature two women coaches, and Sarah Thomas became
the first woman referee to officiate a Super Bowl game.
She also previously had broken other first, including becoming the
first full time woman referee for the NFL. And yeah,
the case of American football is interesting because women don't
(22:29):
play it professionally, so there's not a pipeline of player
to coach, right, Yeah, yep. That's also could be broken
down into a much bigger episode because there's still a
lot of first happening there. But let us talk about
some of the issues here that we found when researching
(22:53):
this one. No surprise her asspment. One of the biggest
barriers women have reported in these positions is sexism and
harassment from players, spectators, and other officials. Here are some
examples from Forbes quote. If women want equal rights, then
they need to learn how to referee. And from an
(23:13):
amateur football coach, she should not be here. I know
that sounds sexist, but I am sexist and if you
start bringing in women, you have big problems. A senior
vice president of the Football Association once said, women's place
is in the kitchen and not on a football field.
I love it.
Speaker 2 (23:31):
That's their go to is always the kitchen always.
Speaker 1 (23:33):
Yes, oh that is me. We're going to talk about
this in a minute. But that comes up all the time.
That go back to the kitchen argument, right every time.
Speaker 2 (23:45):
Here's another quote from a referee named Anne, things like
don't you know the supermarket is open? You should be
there doing the shopping, or why aren't you at home
cooking your husband's mill? Or you should be pregnant at
the kitchen sink. Or the worst one was I hope
your children die of cancer. That was from a spectator.
I remember one game, an FA cup round, and I
(24:07):
walked off and my daughter came running over to where
the tunnel area was and she said, Mommy, what's the dyke.
She was only about ten or eleven at the time.
And I said, why, honey, and she said, because the
man over there, he's been calling you one the whole game.
Speaker 1 (24:20):
Oh yikes. Many women in these positions have reported they
are quote aware of their token status and the damage
that does to their mental health. There have been multiple
instances of verbal and physical abuse and threats in these fields.
The verbal sexist abuse is the most observed. Many did
(24:42):
say the abuse only became sexist when people disagreed with
a call right in the case of a referee right,
and one study, every single woman referee interviewed reported having
heard get back in the kitchen. So yes, that is
their go to, that is their number one. Actually it's
like really depressing, but it's kind of a funny story
(25:03):
because in one of the people from the study confronted
one of the men who said it, and he came
down and he was so contrite and he's like, I
don't know why I said it. I'm so sorry. She
was like, don't ever do that again and get out
of here.
Speaker 2 (25:18):
What the hell?
Speaker 1 (25:21):
Oh that's funny, Yeah, yeah, but it can get a
lot darker. One person described basically threats of rape as
an assistant referee, she was sixteen and she almost dropped
out because of this experience. And the article was detailing
the basically all of the fallout and damage of things
(25:44):
like this and the loss of talent and women participating
if this is what is normal as and accepted, because yeah,
perhaps even more upsetting in a way. Some women did
not recognize verbal sexist abuse, suggesting it's been so normal
as they were just like, oh, I didn't think about it,
(26:09):
which is sad. Others have reported not having places to
change and when asking about it, management giving them like
a storage cupboard or something, so that's not great. Also,
just being dismissed or not respected. A lot of people
(26:29):
reported that referees always assuming that the man is the
head coach. One woman in one of these surveys said,
when you make a mistake, it's because you're a woman.
And yet there is sort of this other side of
it of being labeled as not feminine enough, right, so, like,
(26:51):
you made that mistake because you're a woman, but you're not,
you're not feminine, Assumptions that they don't know the rules.
There have been multi instances of male commentators, like we
talked about our Olympics episodes, basically saying she's a woman,
she doesn't know what she's doing, and these are like
the commentators you're listening to during the game, right yeah.
Speaker 2 (27:14):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (27:14):
Stereotypes around physical and mental ability and inability to handle pressure,
A lot of people reported.
Speaker 2 (27:21):
Right, so, here's a quote that sums it up pretty well.
The studies findings demonstrate that men's gendered identities afford them
automatic and unquestioned access to the social dynamics of the coach.
Education system. Women, on the other hand, have to earn
this through their performance of appropriate levels of football knowledge
and skill, and these expectations often go far beyond the
level of performance required by men to gain the same credibility.
Speaker 1 (27:44):
Yes, and just as always, there's discrimination around having children
that could get pregnant. I read one that was basically
(28:04):
a mail interviewer was like, Oh, you don't want this job.
You'll have to work on the weekends, You'll have kids.
You got to take care of the kids. Okay, And
here's something This is kind of more complicated. I'll talk
about why in a second, but examples show women coaches
are more likely to get fired for similar behaviors. Male
coaches exhibit and are lauded for they are. Women coaches
(28:29):
are less likely to be renewed despite a track record
for success. So, for instance, despite helping secure multiple national
championships for the University of Minnesota, Duluth women's hockey head
coach Shannon Miller's contract was not renewed in twenty fourteen.
She didn't have any violations or anything, and she sued
for gender discrimination, a suit she ended up winning and
(28:51):
was awarded three million dollars.
Speaker 2 (28:53):
Gotta get that money, got.
Speaker 1 (28:54):
Get that money. In a lot of instances where women
coaches are fired for abuse, they are never rehired, or
if they are not at the same level. The same
is not true for men. They don't usually get fired,
and if they do, they get rehired at an equal
or even better position. So I'm not advocating for this abuse,
but the punishment should be equal. And that is not
(29:17):
what we're seeing. Nope, it's not what we're seeing at all.
There are a lot of toxic, old gender stereotypes here
that basically boil down to traditionally masculine coded traits are better,
but when a woman displays those traits, she is judged
far more harshly. So a lot of the stuff we're
talking about here is like a coach yelling at you,
and it can be very abusive and has been, but
(29:42):
it's seen as like when men do that, oh yeah,
he's talking up his team. But when a woman doesn't say,
oh look at this, true, she's got to be she's
got to go again. I don't I'm not condoning abuse.
I don't think it's right, but just saying here's a
quote from the conversation. Another problem is that female college
(30:03):
athletes seem to value coaches who act in dominant, sometimes
authoritarian ways. When female athletes are asked what they want
to coach, they'll say they want someone who's commanding, confident, assertive,
and knowledgeable. At the same time, female athletes consider ideal
female coaches to be caring, supportive, and nurturing, but this
contradicts what they value in a coach. Female coaches ultimately
(30:24):
find themselves in a double bind. They're damned if they
act like men, and damned if they don't. Yep. Another issue,
of course, equal pay. Many women coaches and referees are
not getting paid what they're worth, not even close. There's
also a persistent idea that there's more respect to be
had coaching men's teams, which I found in some articles
(30:49):
even when I was looking into this. There's a lack
of standards and professionalization in these fields. There's unequal resources
usually given towards women athletes and women coaches and women referees.
All of that stuff. Nepotism and name recognition is a problem.
(31:12):
Like gatekeeping is a problem here, the risk of retaliation
if you report something. There's been several cases of that
of women coaches or referees reporting wrongdoing and being retaliated against,
and often they might be told, you know, just deal with.
Speaker 2 (31:30):
It, right so from sagebub quote. Among other inequities, women
coaches have lower salaries, fewer opportunities, poorer working conditions and relationships,
and more conflicts between coaching and family commitments than their
male counterparts due to lack of organizational policies and cultural norms.
The underrepresentation of women coaches is associated with power relations
(31:52):
in sports, which is considered as a male dominated social
context where men occupy dominant social roles over women monic masculinity. Still,
coaching is heavily associated with male characteristics, and women are
considered invaders when holding positions of power.
Speaker 1 (32:09):
Yes, right, And as always, there are intersexual issues here
to coaches of color, black coaches, queer coaches all have
faced unique issues of backclash and discrimination. Marginalized people have
increased obstacles to entry. You have to deal with a
whole host of issues that many of their counterparts don't.
(32:32):
And there has been some recent stuff looking into this,
but again a lot of this is pretty recent, and
a lot of these first even in these specific intersexual areas,
are very very recent. So a lot more to be done.
And speaking of people are looking into this because all
of this that we've been talking about as a negative
impact on women's mental health, women in sport in general,
(32:55):
I would say sport in general, just women's participation. So
a couple of things that organizing bodies and people involved
are looking into our new regulations, like creating minimum standards
of women, marginalized folks in these positions, bringing more women
(33:16):
to the table when making these regulations in the first place,
because that has not happened really requiring marginalized people are
interviewed for leadership positions. Some have reported organizations outright mocking
or ignoring this though, so yep, organizations fostering mentoring and training.
(33:39):
So we talked about this pretty recently, so it has
been something that's been tried, but it's hard to track.
It's hard to like quantify I guess the benefits of this,
but many have said who have participated in it, that
this helps women feel seen and heard and often allows
for more open conversation, like maybe they able to talk
(34:00):
to a mentor who is a woman as opposed to
a man, because they don't feel like they can talk
to men about something compiling more research, getting more research
so that we can have more educated regulations that we
can put in place. And as yeah, as we've said recently,
(34:21):
as more women athletes enter the playing fields, more of
them become coaches and referees and that continues. So that's good,
like we are seeing growth, but there's still all of
these issues to deal with and there's still so much
further to go, right, yeah, way too much. Yeah, yes,
(34:43):
But to everyone who's doing that work, thank you so much. Honestly,
Like the power of a good coach and a good
referee that can really stick with you, especially as a
kid and you're like, oh yes, like can really make
you want to keep going, or even if it's not
in the same sport, it can just be something that's
(35:03):
really inspiring. So yes, listeners, if you are involved in
either coaching or refereeing, or sports in general, any of this,
please let us know. You can write to us at
Stephania Momstuff at iHeartMedia dot com. You can find us
on Twitter at mom Stuff podcast, or on Instagram and
TikTok at stuff Will Never Told You for USO on YouTube.
We have a tea puppy store and we have a
(35:23):
book you can get wherever you get your books. Thanks
as always to our super producer Christina, our executive producer Maya,
and our contributor Joey.
Speaker 2 (35:30):
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (35:31):
Thanks to you for listening stuff I never told you.
Propection of my heart idio for more podcast or my
Heart Radio. You can check out the heart Radio app,
Apple podcast or if you'll listen to your favorite shows
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