
A big UK summer of women’s sport is upon us. Tennis kicked things off, with Tatjana Maria becoming the first woman since 1973 to be crowned champion at the illustrious Queen’s Club. Wimbledon is about to begin, quickly followed by the Women’s Euros, the home Women’s Rugby World Cup, and the Cricket World Cup, amongst other domestic and international sporting fixtures.
As excitement is building for the performances to come, expectation mounts for the potential impact this long sporting summer can have on the growth of women’s sport. While the increased spotlight on women’s sport is welcome, we are also reminded of the all-too familiar toxicity that must be navigated in the pursuit of these objectives. Fans of women’s sport have grown accustomed to greater access and insight into the lives of female athletes, many of whom use social media to raise their personal profile and that of their respective sport (and, in turn, to generate supplemental income). But such increased attention heightens the risk of targeted abuse, which often appears to be rooted in sexism and misogyny.
In the past few weeks alone, we have seen the threatening messages tennis that star Katie Boulter regularly receives[1] and heard from England’s Lioness players who are choosing to avoid social media during the Euros due to damaging online abuse becoming the norm.[2] World Rugby has announced that it is stepping up protection of female players, including by tackling abuse that has already been detected ahead of the World Cup.[3] There are also many examples of female family members (and children) of male athletes being the targets of similar abuse.[4].
Sadly, abuse is not confined to the online realm, as the recent chilling experiences of Emma Raducanu exemplify. Security provisions for the forthcoming Wimbledon Championships reportedly have come into sharper focus this year, and have already blocked from the public ballot a man who was given a restraining order for stalking Ms Raducanu. An estimated 1,000 personnel are expected to support security efforts across the Championships, including police and military personnel, fixated threat specialists and behavioural experts who are trained to spot strange behaviour.[5]
In this context, we reflect on the discussion and learnings from the panel discussion on Protecting the Welfare of Female Athletes and Confronting Misogyny at the second Squire Patton Boggs Women’s Sport Symposium, which took place earlier this year. The panel focussed on the themes of safeguarding, welfare, misogyny and abuse in women’s sport, providing insight from expert speakers Yvonne Nolan (General Counsel, World Rugby), Dr. Emma Kavanagh (Associate Professor in Sport Psychology and Safe Sport, Bournemouth University), Gary Bye (Former Safeguarding and Player Care Manager, International Tennis Federation) and Georgia Relf (Sports Account Manager, Signify), moderated by Dr. Katie Smith (Associate, Squire Patton Boggs).