While women's participation in sport has improved considerably in recent years, Rugby League and other codes of football in Australia remain largely a 'male only' pastime. And they continue to be pastimes that offer important training grounds in the rules of male behavior. Moreover, with such social importance placed on sport there is probably nothing more humiliating in a boy's development than repeatedly being the last one chosen in school sports. Exclusion of this kind, coupled with feelings of inferiority, is a powerful and personal statement for young men struggling with their sense of masculinity. Sport and the mass media's representation of sport fulfills a central role in the reproduction of hegemonic masculinity.
Australian sport is a relatively intact bastion of patriarchy.
It is an institution that contains powerful messages and meanings about an oppressive form of masculinity which is reinforced through the uncritical assistance of the mass media. If the cultural value attached to masculine sports is not openly challenged then existing forms of subordination, domination and violence will continue to be viewed as 'natural' and therefore unchangeable. Reprinted with permission.