Tactics of the ‘Ugly Australian’: Morality, masculinity, nationalism and governance amid a cheating controversy in sport

Wade, Matthew

doi:10.1177/1440783319833466

Cited by 7 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 30 publications

(27 reference statements)

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“…Crowds at men's Test matches in Australia continue to be masculine dominated (Rowe, 2017) but the shortest form of the men's game, T20 cricket has attracted younger audiences and, significantly, more females (Axford & Huggins, 2011). Yet, changes in the types of fans attending cricket in Australia remains underexplored (Wade, 2019).…”

Section: Cricket In Australiamentioning

confidence: 99%

Walking the Walk: Gender-bland Sexism, the Fan Experience and Perceptions of Value in Professional Women's Cricket

Parry¹,

Richards²,

Batey³

et al. 2021

The Professionalisation of Women’s Sport

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Historically, sport has been the domain of males and is often perceived as a site for reinforcing traditional ideas about masculinity (Muir et al., 2020). Sporting images and language often glorify heroic manhood with women confined mainly to the roles of "spectator, supporter, and admirer" (Osborne & Coombs, 2013, p.673). When sports celebrate masculinity, gender ideology defines women as invaders (Coakley et al., 2011) and men's sport continues to be seen as the 'standard' to judge sport in terms of status. As a result, women's versions of sports are often gender marked as the 'other' version. For instance, and pertinently for this chapter, the men's professional Twenty20 (T20) cricket competition in Australia is referred to as the BBL (Big Bash League) while the women's version is known as the WBBL (Women's Big Bash League).Against this cultural backdrop, women's sport in Australia has undergone rapid expansion recently. In 2016 the Australian women's rugby union team won gold at the Olympics in Rio, whilst in 2017, the Australian association football team (the 'Matildas') won the Tournament of Nations, and the first national Australian rules football league for women (the AFLW) was launched. A new national women's rugby league competition (the NRLW) followed in 2018. These new opportunities for professional women athletes to play sports for financial reimbursement were in addition to the already established professional women's netball and association football leagues. The rise in women's professional competitions has proved attractive to sports fans in Australia and is creating lucrative markets for various sporting codes. This can be illustrated by large sell-out crowds for the Matildas, and the attendance figures at the 2019 grand final of the AFLW, where a crowd of over 53,000 was recorded (Gaskin, 2019). However, while we refer to these leagues as 'professional', in that the players are rewarded for their performances, many of the conditions that they operate within are far removed from those of professional men's sport. Players are frequently poorly remunerated via short-term contracts and are provided with inferior playing conditions. Until recently it has been challenging for women to make a professional full-time career from these sports.In 2015, a women's professional T20 cricket competition was introduced. Despite being governed by Cricket Australia, the WBBL initially had low public awareness and limited commercial appeal,

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Section: Cricket In Australiamentioning

confidence: 99%

Walking the Walk: Gender-bland Sexism, the Fan Experience and Perceptions of Value in Professional Women's Cricket

Parry¹,

Richards²,

Batey³

et al. 2021

The Professionalisation of Women’s Sport

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…David Warner's popularity with Australian cricket fans assumedly draws upon this kind of appeal. However, some critics regard Warner's reputed on-field aggression as an unfortunate expression of masculinity whereby ' Australian character' tips over into something more sinister, the 'ugly Australian' (Kimber, 2019;Wade 2019). People of this view are not likely to be sympathetic to Warner's circumstances in South Africa.…”

Section: Cricket and The Australian Legendmentioning

confidence: 99%

Beyond the boundary: the Sandpapergate scandal and the limits of transnational masculinity

Hughson

2021

Sport in Society

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The public outrage expressed when Australian cricket players admitted to cheating during a Test match by using sandpaper to alter the surface of the match ball was, for some observers, matched by an incredulity captured in variants of the question, 'how did they think they could get away with it?' Drawing upon insights from recent work within masculinity studies, this essay offers an explanation into how the players could overlook the severity of their action as both an affront to the code of cricket and in regard to the response it would bring. The players are seen to be functionaries within an organizational network of 'transnational men' , which characteristically tends to provide those within its institutional framework with a sense of impunity towards ethically questionable conduct. The essay also provides a means for questioning the wider cultural and organizational environment that gave rise to the Sandpapergate episode, by considering cricket as an 'unsustainable institution of men' .

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“…In Australia, attempts to bring gender diversity into the mainstream collide with hegemonic masculinity that privileges the white, hetereosexual, cisgender male figure as a national ideal. This version of the Australian male is valorised in annual ANZAC 2 commemorations (Johns, 2008), in sport (Wade, 2019) and within mainstream political discourse (Jansens, 2019). It positions the gender binary, like whiteness, as a priori (Moreton-Robinson, 2004), and therefore an epistemological clash ensues when trans*, queer and/or LGBTIQ issues come to the fore.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The boy in a dress: A spectre for our times

2020

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This article draws upon theories of gender, nation and haunting in order to examine what we term the spectre of the boy in a dress within two international contexts, Sweden and Australia. These two contexts have been chosen because, on the surface, they appear to be very different and yet as our analysis will reveal there are striking similarities around gender conformity discourse and nation, although they play out differently. We illustrate how the notion of the boy in a dress is drawn upon as a problematic figure within these two different socio-political contexts, and argue that this figure represents a ‘tipping point’ between the tolerance and intolerance of gender diversity within public and educational spaces. Two key moments will be analysed. In Australia, the recent (2017) postal survey on Marriage Equality saw a campaign run from a conservative right group, the Coalition for Marriage, that included a television commercial featuring a concerned mother stating that, ‘School told my son he could wear a dress to school if he likes’. In Sweden, in 2016, the department store Åhléns chose an image of a child of African heritage and indeterminate gender to be the face of their annual Lucia marketing. This caused significant controversy and sparked a ‘Jag är Lucia’ (I am Lucia) campaign featuring notable Swedish celebrities dressed as Lucia, including footballer Zlatan Ibrahimović. These critical incidents act as illustration of how the power of cisgender normativity intersects with notions about the nation, within educational spaces and public consciousness.

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Tactics of the ‘Ugly Australian’: Morality, masculinity, nationalism and governance amid a cheating controversy in sport

Cited by 7 publications

References 30 publications

Walking the Walk: Gender-bland Sexism, the Fan Experience and Perceptions of Value in Professional Women's Cricket

Walking the Walk: Gender-bland Sexism, the Fan Experience and Perceptions of Value in Professional Women's Cricket

Beyond the boundary: the Sandpapergate scandal and the limits of transnational masculinity

The boy in a dress: A spectre for our times

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