You just want to be judged on your sport: England batter Winfield-Hill

With female athletes often subjected to sexualisation on social media, the 32-year-old feels accountability and education on such issues are key to making it a safe space.

CAPE TOWN: On the afternoon of January 4, 2023, @EnglandCricket, one of England Cricket Board’s twitter media handles, had posted a picture of the women’s squad that was set to leave for the inaugural U-19 Women’s T20 World Cup in South Africa. It was a group photo of the team. The caption read: "Off to the first ever Women’s Under 19 Cricket World Cup in South Africa!"

As wishes started pouring in from the fans and parents, something else happened as well in the replies section of the tweets. Several accounts, most of them anonymous, started commenting on the way the players look, cropping some of the individual’s pictures, and asking for their personal social media accounts in Hindi, English, etc. It evoked a worrying and, at some level, angry response from the parents of the players and cricketing fraternity likewise.

“Disgusted by some of the responses on this post. In what world is it okay to just sexualise women? In what world is it okay to SEXUALISE CHILDREN?,” tweeted English broadcaster Georgie Heath. Despite the reporting of the replies by the people who meant well, it became a trend of sorts as the U-19 World Cup began, with some of the photos from the ICC’s official twitter account receiving similar replies.

Sadly, this was nothing new. Far for too long and often, women athletes are sexualised on social media, with a section of their comments commenting on their looks and not about the skill-sets they possess. Comments like these on a public platform can have a massive impact on any athlete.

England batter Lauren Winfield-Hill, who recently opened up about the challenges she had to face as a queer athlete growing up, says that it is a real problem that needs to be addressed. “You know, the impacts are the same for athletes or people featured in the photos. So why should we treat it any differently to what we would do if it was something that was spoken about in the flesh. It should be something that people are held accountable for,” Winfield-Hill tells this daily.

“We perceive male athletes based on how good they are at their sports and there seems to be other things that come into female athletes, and it's not purely just on how good they are. It's how they look or what they wear and all those sorts of things. In male sports, very rarely does that come into account. Whereas, it seems okay to comment on other areas of a female’s life, whether it's sexuality, what they choose to wear, their body type, and all those sorts of things. It's completely irrelevant. You just want to be judged on your sport, that's the space that we're operating in. And it needs to be fair,” says the 32-year-old.
Her comments are backed by science. According to an experimental study conducted by Sam Gregory, who was working with Sportlogiq — a company that could animate an entire match with players represented by sticks — the way a sports match is packaged and broadcasted to the audience has a significant impact in the way the audience perceives the sport and the athletes.

In 2021, Gregory and his team conducted the experiment with a group of 105 football fans split into two groups. 47 people were made to watch the original broadcast, 58 the stick figures of a men’s and a women’s game. In the first experiment, 57 per cent of those who watched the live game said that the men's game was of better quality whereas 59 per cent of those who watched the animation said that the women's game was better. Be it the quality of the stream, the commentary or the pace at which the game is packaged, it all matters and it all has a role to play in the way female athletes are perceived.
How do we make the space better and more inclusive for everyone?  Winfield-Hill believes education and taking women's sports to the audience in the right manner are the way to go.

“Championing women's sports in the right light, highlighting the things that we value in terms of performance and things like that, and not necessarily about how you look or those sorts of things. And I think people have got to be educated. Everyone's got a voice, haven't they? They can hide behind technology and say things that you wouldn't say to somebody's face or you would hope that nobody would ever say such a thing, you know, to somebody's face. And I think there has to be bigger consequences for these sorts of inappropriate comments. If it was abuse face to face and it was something that, you know, would not be acceptable in society from person to person, then it has to be dealt with the same way behind a keyboard," she signed off.