Entering a profession that’s been dominated by the opposite gender for decades can be challenging and unnerving at first.
Having to go above and beyond to prove you’re capable of doing the job is an unfortunate reality for many people, even in 2020 — and for women the field of sport is no exception.
These three ground-breaking commentators have found their voice in what has traditionally been a man’s world — and their experiences offer lessons that can help us in all fields of life.
Rise above assumptions
Alison Mitchell was the first woman to become a regular commentator on BBC’s Test Match Special, from 2007. She was the first woman to call men’s cricket ball by ball on ABC Radio in 2014. In 2018 she joined Channel Seven’s cricket commentary team.
In the early stages of her career as a commentator, she had to counter a presumption that men know about sport in a way that women don’t.
“It’s assumed that you don’t know what you’re talking about,” the UK broadcaster tells ABC RN’s Sporty.
“The number of times where people said to me, ‘Oh, you report on cricket? Do you like cricket?’ — as if that was a strange thing, for a woman to like it enough to actually understand it.”
In fact, Mitchell did her university thesis on the relationship between cricket and television.
“I actually had a 12,000-word document which proved I understood the nuances of the game,” she says.
But defying those initial assumptions was gratifying for Mitchell.
“I would get lots of emails from men, surprised at what I knew, and pleasantly surprised that a woman could talk so knowledgeably about cricket,” she says.
“And you could take that as being really condescending, but I would just tuck those emails away and think, ‘OK, that’s another person whose view I’ve changed about what women can know about sport.'”
The lesson? Know and value your own expertise.
You are not an imposter
Lauren Arnell grew up watching and playing AFL, and knows how to dissect the sport with precision from both on and off the field.
But when the time came to commentate on her first game, she experienced a level of apprehension.
“It wasn’t something I thought I could do until it actually happened, to be quite honest with you,” she says.
For weeks and weeks to come, she questioned whether she could do it. Was she the right fit?
“Obviously as a female voice, is that what people want to listen to? But also, is what I’m saying valid?”
Now, in her fourth season of commentating, she finally feels “quite comfortable”.
The lesson? You don’t have to feel 100 per cent ready. Jump in the deep end, and you might surprise yourself with how well you can swim.
Diversity matters. So does your opinion
Former road cyclist Bridie O’Donnell has also felt the need to prove that women can understand and communicate sport at the same level as men.
“It feels crazy just saying these words,” says O’Donnell, who represented Australia at the 2008, 2009 and 2010 UCI Road World Championships.
But she says women bring a “diverse opinion or perspective” to men’s events — be it cricket, cycling or football — and the impact of that is only positive.
And that diversity of thought is relevant far beyond the boundaries of sport.
Earlier this year O’Donnell became the first woman to commentate for the Tour de France for SBS TV.
She loved being able to draw on her road cycling expertise.
“When you know so much about the sport and you’ve experienced what it’s like to be exhausted or to crash or to win a race or to not win, you can bring that lived experience and insight,” she says.
“You don’t have to you have played men’s Test cricket to know what to look for or what to describe.
“I think it was a bit of an aha moment for a lot of people.”
Arnell commentates on the AFL for ABC Radio, where the broadcast has national reach.
She says people text in from all over the country, and from some “quite rural spaces”, to tell her they like the way she describes the game.
“It’s always nice to get reinforcement that you are doing your job well, and a truckie in the middle of Kalgoorlie can understand what’s happening in the game in Brisbane — [that is] is pretty awesome,” she says.
She thinks her diversity of experiences as a school teacher as well as a football player and coach works to her advantage.
“That might give me a bit more relatability than, say, a past men’s player who has been in the system 24/7, and speaking a language that your traditional listener and your average truckie may not understand over the radio.”
She says it might also inspire others to aim a little higher, and see others in a new light.
“Your typical male listener or female listener [might be] listening in and saying, ‘Hey, maybe there’s someone else in my life who is more than capable of doing that too’.”
That resonates with Mitchell, who says her presence on the airwaves helps people feel included in a space traditionally dominated by men.
“Last summer in Australia a family stopped me, and a father was there with his young daughter and he just said, ‘Thank you for what you do on the ABC because when my daughter hears your voice, she then feels that cricket is for her as well,'” she says.
“That for me encapsulated why mixed commentary teams can have an impact, because you’re speaking to a broader audience, and that is what it’s got to be about, isn’t it? It’s bringing more and more people in.”
The lesson? You have a diverse range of life experiences to draw on that give you a unique way of looking at the world, and that’s a good thing — it can help others feel like they belong.
Some days will suck. Don’t give up
Despite there being plenty of highlights throughout their commentating careers, Arnell, Mitchell and O’Donnell have also experienced the odd low-light too.
“I think the start is just a sense of being completely disregarded, spoken over, or saying something that you think is insightful and literally 10 seconds later having a male broadcaster repeat exactly what you just said,” O’Donnell says.
“That’s not something single to broadcasting, we see that in boardrooms, and that famous cartoon that Gillian Triggs talks about which is, ‘That’s a wonderful idea, Gillian, perhaps one of the men would like to have it.’
“Then I started to think, well, why am I here? If you’re just actually going to steal my ideas live on air, what value is that? And that doesn’t make for good broadcasting, and neither does speaking over other people or interrupting them. So that’s a negative experience.”
Mitchell says she’s only had one really negative moment, when she sat down in a commentary box to call one of her first ever international games.
A male peer sat down next to her and said: “Hello legs.”
“I felt very glad actually for the support of the producer who I was working with then because he absolutely just said, ‘Right, I don’t think he will be working with us again,'” she says.
“It was just a moment. The massage of my shoulders on the way out of the box also wasn’t terribly welcome.”
Arnell, who’s also done some television, feels uncomfortable about the expectations of her appearance when reporting on-air.
“I think having to present yourself in a certain way, being female, being expected to look a certain way, have your hair and your makeup a certain way, that is certainly something that has never been enjoyable for me,” she says.
“I’m a pretty laid-back person, particularly if I’m just going to watch a game of football, I’m not really overly interested in dressing up.
“So arriving at a football game to work on air on television has been challenging for me in the past, and certainly the experience for me, the types of reactions from the crowd if I’m walking around the boundary line with full hair and make-up, boots and a long coat is very different to if I was arriving at a game and sitting in the outer and watching it.”
The lesson? Breaking down barriers isn’t easy. Some people will make your life hard, just because of your gender. But every day won’t be bad. All three commentators say the positives far outweigh the negatives.
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