During this last week, my attention has been captured by two events. One, was an event in the media and the other, was the performance of our Rowing crews on the Barwon River last weekend at the Head of the Schoolgirls Rowing Regatta. Australian Rules Football League star Tayla Harris, from the Carlton Football Club, was photographed kicking for goal and it shows an amazing athlete in a skilled, strong pose. It is a stunning photograph which demonstrates Tayla’s athletic prowess. Journalist Caroline Overington, writing in The Australian, comments that “it was a shot for the ages, an image that showed Australian women’s sport precisely where it is right now.”

You might think there is nothing too unusual about a football photograph in sports obsessed Melbourne. The celebrated photograph was published online and very soon afterwards, internet ‘trolls’ posted comments about the image which have nothing to do at all with sport. The comments were not so much lewd as downright offensive. Again we see, in the media, women being treated as mere objects. Overington writes that this is “rest assured, situation normal for women online. Actually for women in politics, at work, in life.” Tayla’s reaction to the online abuse was that “sexual abuse on social media…it was repulsive, and it made me uncomfortable.” However, Tayla is made of strong stuff and she re-posted the image of herself with the tag, “here’s a pic of me at work…think about this before your derogatory comments”, in a swipe at the unconscionable comments made by the ‘trolls’, all of which were made anonymously.

Right now girls are more involved in sport than they have ever been before. This is especially so in non-traditional sports for women such as football, cricket and soccer. Female athletes are training, straining, and playing as hard as any athletes in the world.

Last weekend I watched our rowers give one hundred percent in one of the hardest sports imaginable. As each crew rowed past my observation point, I was impressed by the sheer physicality of their sport, the obvious strain each athlete was experiencing and their ability to row as one, as a team. It was not just our girls I was so impressed by, but those of every other school crew as well. They were all wonderful, determined, competitive athletes.

These two events have caused me to reflect on the work we do with the girls here at St Catherine’s. We focus on fostering in our students a belief that they can achieve anything if they learn, work hard, give their best at all times and are generous of spirit. Also, we aim for the girls to have respect. Respect for themselves and respect for each other no matter what the world throws at them. Tayla Harris certainly has respect for herself, and if the rowers I saw last weekend are any indication, we are producing a fine generation of young women.

Overington concludes her piece highlighting that Australia’s national women’s sports teams such as the Matildas and the cricket team are garnering increasing amounts of mainstream publicity due to their efforts on the sports field and not because of how they look. She mentions that names such as Ellyse Perry, Alyssa Healy, Sam Kerr, Stephanie Gilmore and Ash Barty are household names. I wonder which St Catherine’s girl will next make us proud on the broader world stage.