Why I am a cricket-feminist

In early August, I was approached during a women's county match and taken to task about one of the descriptions in my Cordon profile. No, it wasn't a dispute about Michael Clarke. The person in question was querying the fact that both my Cordon profile and my personal blog refer to me as a "feminist". He is a keen supporter of women's cricket. Yet he wondered, is the word "feminist" off-putting to some cricket fans? Might the "feminist" label actually be counter-productive to my aim of winning people over to this wonderful sport?

I have thought long and hard about this conversation, and especially about the fact that those who read my Cordon pieces might, perhaps, have those same questions; or worse, that people might overlook my writing entirely, simply because I am openly a "feminist". I feel, therefore, compelled to explain why I describe myself in such terms.

So here it is - my defence of feminism, or: Why I am a cricket-feminist.

"Feminist" is without doubt a loaded term. As the actor Emma Watson pointed out in a recent speech at the United Nations, feminism "has too often become synonymous with man-hating". Many women are not keen to associate themselves with such a term. And yet the official definition of feminism is: "The belief that men and women should have equal rights and opportunities". (Men can be feminists too, by the way.)

Being a cricket-feminist, then, means believing several things: That women are as entitled to participate in and to enjoy cricket, in a safe, unthreatening environment as men. That cricket should be equally accessible to women and girls as it is to men and boys, at every level: club, county/state, international. And that women's cricket is just as worth watching, just as entertaining, indeed just as "good", as its male counterpart.

All of these tenets are fundamental to my sense of the world, of fairness, and of myself. Being a cricket-feminist is part of who I am.

But do we need feminism now? We are living in an era in which England Women have professional contracts, and Australia are going the same way; indeed almost all the major cricketing nations have a contracts system in place for their players. There is a reasonably full women's international calendar, and unprecedented levels of media coverage. At grass-roots level the game is growing all the time: the ECB estimates that over the last ten years there has been an increase of 650% in the number of clubs in England and Wales offering cricket for women and girls. Women have more cricketing opportunities, in 2014, than ever before, and the situation continues, seemingly, to improve.

This mirrors the changes, more broadly, that have taken place in many societies over the last century, with the onset of legal, economic and political rights for women: the right to vote; the ability to earn equal pay for equal work; an escape from dependent marriage. Women are closer to equality than ever before - thanks largely to feminist activism.

This is all well and good, but women have not made equal progress in all arenas, and there are some institutions that, as far as gender equality is concerned, remain unprogressively male-dominated. Sport is clearly one of them. And cricket is as culpable as any other sport. How many women currently sit on the ICC board? A big fat zero.

There are other problems, too. An excellent article, which partly inspired this piece, was recently written by Middlesex county cricketer Izzy Westbury on this precise subject. The lack of coverage on Sky of England's internationals this summer; the scheduling clash between this year's Cowdrey Lecture and an England-South Africa T20; the Twitter abuse that greeted the news that Meg Lanning is to commentate on Channel Nine's cricket coverage in the upcoming season - all are still everyday occurrences in a sport that remains, if you look closely enough, riddled with sexism.

Yes, we do need feminism.

I noted two incidents that took place within a few days of each other, back in July, on different sides of the globe. One was a remark Chris Gayle made, ahead of a CPL match, in which he was asked at a press conference by a female journalist: "How does the pitch feel so far in terms of the training and the weather?" Gayle responded: "Well, I haven't touched yours yet so I don't know how it feels." As a female cricket journalist, I know how humiliated I would feel if any cricketer refused to take my question seriously because I was a woman.

The second incident took place in Pakistan, the culmination of an ongoing series of events that began when, back in 2013, five young cricketers from the Multan Cricket Club in Pakistan alleged that they were facing sexual harassment. They stated that the club chairman and one of the club selectors had demanded sexual favours in return for a place on the team. The incident was investigated, but seemingly half-heartedly, with a two-member Pakistan Cricket Board inquiry committee interviewing only three of the cricketers, who subsequently revoked their allegations. All five women were then banned from playing for six months, and were left facing a defamation suit brought by club chairman Maulvi Sultan.

In the face of this, the youngest of them, allrounder Haleema Rafiq, swallowed a lethal dose of toilet-cleaning acid. She was just 17 years old.

Feminism is partly about recognising that the problems described above - the lack of women in positions of power in cricket; a seemingly "casual" remark to a female journalist by a top male cricketer; and the suicide of a young female cricketer in Pakistan - are related issues, not isolated incidents. They stem from the fact that for hundreds of years, cricket has been a "man's game", run by men, deemed suitable only for men. I am a cricket historian; I know more than most about the history of this sport. And while there is a glorious history behind it, there is a sad truth, too: cricket at its roots is an institution built on male power and dominance. It is changing, yes; but that history has left deep scars, and they will take a long time to heal.

I love cricket. I spend hours researching, watching, listening, consuming and reporting on it. But sometimes I hate it too.

We absolutely need feminism in cricket.

Perhaps some of you are wondering how all this is relevant to you, as cricket fans. Perhaps you are protesting your innocence in the face of the casual, and institutional, sexism still so often present in cricket. I doubt you are entirely innocent.

At its heart, it comes down to this: The first "C" in ICC has always, since its formation in 1909, stood for "cricket", though what it should really have been called, up until it took control of women's cricket in 2005, was the IMCC - the International Men's Cricket Council. When a male journalist says, "I am a cricket correspondent", he means "I am a men's cricket correspondent." When a blog refers to itself as an "England cricket blog", what this generally means is "an England men's cricket blog". And when ordinary cricket fans say "cricket", almost without exception what they really mean is "men's cricket". In short, men's cricket is the default setting.

Until that changes, we have a problem. Until that changes, I'm going to keep telling the world that I am a feminist. Cricket needs feminism. End of story.