ABOUT US

INSIDE SPORT brings you Sportsgirls: Levelling The Playing Field. The team at Sportsgirls welcomes all the female sports fans out there! This is a website to encourage everyone to get behind our female Aussie athletes, whether it be through the local university team, or watching the latest results from our elite representatives.

As a group of young, athletic university students we want to bring you up-to-date, accurate news about our female athletes from a new perspective. We also want to hear from you! So drop us a line, we'd love to hear your thoughts.

The Problem The Purpose The Team

Click below to watch the official Sportsgirls video

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The problem:

According to NSW Sport and Recreation, there has been a doubling of media coverage of women in sport between 1992 and 1996, however, material in newspapers was often at the bottom of the page, language employed emphasised weakness, passivity and insignificance, and images were stills and not action.

Although 47% of the female population watches sports programmes on television, NSW Sport and Recreation suggests that only 10% of these viewers are satisfied with the coverage. The readership distribution of INSIDE SPORT, Australia’s largest sporting magazine, is made up of 11% women, so it's clear women are interested.

A 2006 Senate Inquiry suggested that funding of $3 million a year over three years would be necessary to raise the level of media coverage.

The purpose:

Through discussion of women’s sports and sporting issues, we aim to increase the level of media coverage of female athletes and teams.

We could directly advocate and pressure audiences and media outlets to generate interest and support for women’s sport. But we'd rather lead by example, demonstrating the newsworthiness and currency of this untapped market through this awesome site!

The Sportsgirls Team:

Lata Hamilton

She's down with the femininities, the masculinities and all the other -inities in this big, wide world of possibility. Lata's a gender enthusiast, and hopes this site will help women battle the inequalities they still face in the home, in the workplace, and on the sports field. When she's not leading the Sportsgirls, she jogs and swims, and she's hoping to start cycling on her new, second-hand $30 bike.

Maddie Atkins

The highlight of Maddie's sporting career was coming second in the high jump in Year 7, which meant she would have represented the school at regionals if the other girl got sick. However, she also loves watching the netball, V8 supercars and the Parramatta Eels (when they're winning). At Sportsgirls, she edits the Media Forum and occasionally turns in a feature.

Shannon Connellan

As an ex-netball player, Shannon watches more sport than she plays. She cops flack for watching AFL in New South Wales. She left Physical Culture (a weird hybrid of jazz, gymnastics, and fake tan) for a ball and stick on the hockey field. Shannon is the Sportsgirls Web Designer, and can often be found yelling obscenities at the software.

Cassandra O'Connor

In the past 10 years Cass has played cricket, touch football, swimming, athletics, taekwondo, boxing, kickboxing… you get the point. Whether it means bungee-jumping, riding a BMX down a mountain or tackling rapids in a kayak, she will hit the ground running to produce the most interesting and up-to-date news in the sporting world.

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Image Credits: Sportsgirl name, logo, and colours, Da Font 'Capture It' font, Reisio: Wikimedia Commons (basketball), Cassandra O'Connor: Sportsgirls (unicycle), Shannon Connellan: Sportsgirls (Madeleine Atkins), Lata Hamilton: Sportsgirls (Shannon Connellan), Shannon Connellan: Sportsgirls (Lata Hamilton), Lata Hamilton: Sportsgirls (Cassandra O'Connor), Philipp Kilnger: Flickr Creative Commons Licensed (condensation), Lata Hamilton: Sportsgirls (boxing gloves), Moritz Girke: Flickr Creative Commons Licensed (sand dunes)

According to the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.5 Generic, all images on Sportsgirls: Levelling The Playing Field are available to be shared and remixed provided attribution and share alike conditions are met.