Meet The Aussie Girls Busting Sports Stereotypes By Dominating At Rugby And Skating

This post is presented in partnership with the Department of Health.

“'You’re a girl. Why are you doing that?'”

It’s a question 15-year-old Jasmine Richardson became pretty familiar with once she started visiting her local skate park.

“I got a lot of weird looks and stuff [to begin with],” the Staughton College student told Student Edge.

On the other hand, 17-year-old Samantha Kelly, of Cranbourne East Secondary College, says she didn’t face incredulity or sexism in her attempts to play rugby for her school. The problem, however, was more deeply ingrained in the culture at large, where female sportspeople are rarely represented on TV.

“With school I used to play [rugby] with the women’s teams, but because there weren’t as many girls wanting to play, [the teams] usually got cut, and I wasn’t allowed to go play with in the boys’ team.”

“I realised, I’d never seen any women’s rugby on TV, so I’d never had that visual motivation or inspiration to get into that kind of sport,” she added.

“The only women’s sport you see on TV is a little bit of netball here and there, or tennis, but yeah, because I’m not seeing it on tele - and I guess it’s the same for a lot of girls - [there’s a] lack of visual motivation or lack of awareness that this is a thing girls can get into.”

Sam and Jasmine are hoping to upend Australia’s sports stereotypes with the Australian Government's Girls Make Your Move campaign, which features the two girls showing off their skills in (supposedly) male-oriented sports, as well as getting their 30 minutes of exercise a day - and then some.

Jasmine’s story begins when she borrowed her brother’s skateboard in an effort to find a new sport to fall in love with, after giving up on dancing. It worked.

“You do get a lot of exercise out of it without trying, and you’re just having fun,” she explained.

“You make so many different friends from so many different backgrounds and genders [by skating].”

The initial suspicions of her fellow skateboarders were soon put to rest when they saw she could “actually do stuff.”

“[Now], they look at me and are like, ‘Oh cool, a chick skater’. I know they look at me, but they don’t look at me badly anymore.”

After almost two years of skating, she’s not even fazed by the injuries.

“You fall over a lot, so you get used to hurting yourself [but] I personally enjoy coming home after skating and knowing that I’ve hurt myself, because to me, that’s telling me that I’m improving.”

Sam, for her part, has been sporty since the age of five, beginning with netball and cricket and, eventually, gridiron. Last year, she was invited to join her mates for some friendly rugby matches.

“The girls suggested to me, ‘Oh, do you want to come down and play, just for a bit of fun?’ I thought, ‘Alright, let’s give it a go’ and I really liked it.”

She treats it as much-needed stress-relief as she completes her final year of high school.

“I think it really unloads a lot of stress from school; it just gives you that sort of break from normal life,” she said.

“It allows me to get active and healthy and really gives me a break from all the outside stuff I do.”

She acknowledged the obstacles faced by girls who want to venture into not just predominantly male sports, but sport in general, which is why she’s so happy to see more of women’s sports on TV. Sam’s particularly pleased with the recent success of women’s AFL on Aussie screens.

“[We need] realistic goals too, I guess… especially when you’re not seeing as many of the female sports like rugby and stuff, you’re not really aware of it; that it's a sport you could get into.”

Regardless, now that she’s in, she’s not going anywhere, and the same goes for Jasmine. Both are keen to keep at their respective sports for some time yet.

Find out more about Girls Make Your Move campaign at www.australia.gov.au/girlsmove. Follow along on Instagram at @GirlsMakeYourMove and use the #GirlsMakeYourMove & #GirlsMove.

Photos: Supplied.