FOR years Lauren Jackson has championed women in sport in Australia and now she’s lent her imprimatur to a book chronicling their struggles and success.
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Breaking the Mould, written by former ABC TV sport journalist Angela Pippos, was read as a manuscript by the Albury basketball doyen.
“You think about great Australian sportswomen and you start at the top of the list and Lauren was right at the top,” Pippos said.
“I’ve enjoyed having dealings with her and her chats go into the culture of sport.
“She gets that the sporting landscape has been uneven and is still uneven and she gets the ways to fix it.”
Jackson endorsed Breaking the Mould with gusto.
“A groundbreaking and important book: not just for girls and women but for everyone who loves sport,” her back cover blurb reads.
The timing of Breaking the Mould could not be more pertinent with the successful launch of the AFL women’s competition last weekend.
But when Pippos began shopped about her book idea in April 2015 she felt it would emerge as a grim tale.
Then having signed with a publisher the next month things turned as the Matildas made the World Cup quarter-finals, Michelle Payne won the Melbourne Cup and the AFL promoted the start of its women’s competition from 2020 to 2017.
“I didn’t think I’d see this kind of change while I was a sports journalist, it feels really good to live through,” Pippos said.
“I can speak my mind on women’s sport without fear, whereas 20 years ago I would have been ostracised.”
Pippos believes cultural changes and a move by sporting bodies and sponsors to harness the women’s market have been circuit-breakers.
“Because sport has been so masculine it’s influenced the way media and sponsors think about about women’s sport,” Pippos said.
“A kneejerk response is that ‘it’s boring, it’s not as fast, not as strong’.
“In my book I debunk a lot of the myths and surely it’s the contest that matters, it’s not the gender.”
Pippos attended last weekend’s Carlton-Collingwood match with five girlfriends in their mid-40s who had never been to the football.
“I would say four of the five would go back again this weekend – it was really fun to be in a crowd that was learning,” she said.
“Girls love footy and now they can see their role models on the big stage and it’s incredibly powerful.”
