Females in the AFL

[trishan]

By the way, even if there was a shred of truth to what you were saying, you still brought the point up because a female umpire made a bad decision against your club, who is so far the only female umpire, who has umpired at the AFL level for 6 years.

There is one female umpire in the AFL, hardly a reason to launch into a debate the way you have.

Initially when I posted on FB that was true. I was just interested in people's thoughts on the issues particularly as the AFL recently was thinking of introducing female field umpires and I would imagine the same thing will happen.

[muzzington]

Oh bullsh*t, you were angry at the decision against your club and decided to lash out under the guise of creating debate and discussion. If you won't admit that then I'm done here.

[trishan]

I didn't see last night's incident, so I cant comment on that, but umpires are making mistakes every week. So, extrapolating your theory, as most umpires are male and these are the ones who make most of the mistakes, then the league is doomed. Generally, I've found that most statements that begin with "I'm not being sexist/racist/biased...etc" are in fact being blatantly sexist/racist/biased..etc, just as comments that being with "no offence intended" generally cause a high level of offense.

Your statement makes no sense. I have said it repeatedly that positions should be given to the most qualified and experienced person rather than the person of a particular sex. How that is sexist I do not know?

[trishan]

Oh bullsh*t, you were angry at the decision against your club and decided to lash out under the guise of creating debate and discussion. If you won't admit that then I'm done here.

When I posted it on FB muzz I was angry at the decision and the umpiring decisions as a whole in that game.

Here I was just posting to see what people thought about it. I posted a day later and though it might create interesting discussion.

[trishan]

Did you read what I said?

trishan, your statements are way off the mark and extremely sexist.

I am not being sexist in any way but umpiring positions should be judged on merit.

Put yourself in their shoes and make a split second decision and get it right everytime, I think not.

The umpiring all night was horrible but some mistakes from umpires are inevitable and really unavoidable in such a fast-paced game.

[trishan]

Trishans's comments were sexist and misinformed.

How so? I said that umpiring positions should be judged on merit.

[trishan]

There were other umpiring mistakes in that game where the umpire was a male. And what about the players, how many mistakes did they make during the game. So why grab onto one mistake by the one female umpire?

As I said in the orginal post and then repeated above, I expect there to be mistakes from umpires but I think the frequency and extent to which poor decisions are made relates directly with experience.

I just used the above situation to highlight a larger issue.

[trishan]

I actually really like Samantha Lane, I think she does a great job.

+1 She's better than most of the male journos and it's no suprise she has consistently won awards in sports journalism.

[muzzington]

You were bound to hear "you're sexist" when you focus on female umpires in particular when you also raised the topic of the South African team as well. There are numerous examples you could have raised about gender equality and preferential treatment based on political decisions or skin colour.

But you decided to focus on female umpires after one made a bad decision against your club. One who may have stood out originally because of her gender, but only because she was also doing a good job and did have experience. The fact is the most experienced person does not always get the job. Also, it's goal umpiring.

[trishan]

People have also seemed to turn my argument into one which says females have no place in the any role related to the AFL which is taking it a bit far.

Women have a place in every role in the AFL but should not be pushed ahead of equally or better qualified males just because they are female and the AFL wants to promote gender equality.