Netball fans show the way
Sport is a place where ‘real’ fans are often assumed to be men. Global research tells us that female fans of live men’s sport often face misogynistic and homophobic environments that include swearing, drunkenness and yelling negative comments and abuse at opponents and referees.
In men’s sport, a quick skim through online comments on public sports sites shows that a lot of social media chatter or comments on news stories is often personal or harsh in tone.
And it’s no better for many women’s sports, where we see troubling patterns of online textual violence, abuse, misogyny and sexualization by men towards female athletes. The platform doesn’t seem to matter because these kinds of comments appear on Facebook, TikTok, Instagram, You Tube and X.
Female tennis players are exposed to what researchers called “unregulated cyberhate” from men, including comments about their looks, desire for sexual or physical contact and vile or explicit sexual and misogynistic threats. Women in strength-based sports like bodybuilding and powerlifting have received online comments that support rape culture.
English female footballers faced male hatred, sexism and sexualization, and demands that they be excluded from clubs’ official social media accounts. Things were so bad in the women’s Australian Football League (AFLW), that one news outlet disabled comments.
Netball fans of the Silver Ferns and ANZ Premiership turn these ideas on their head.
