La Trobe University Hockey Club will be joining the broader hockey community to celebrate Women’s Round on May 13th.
This weekend is an opportunity to recognise and celebrate the participation, contribution and success of women playing hockey and at our club. Women joined the club for the first time in 1991 and since then their participation on the and off the field has only grown and strengthened. Today, we have four Women’s teams across the Senior and Open competitions as well as many female players in the junior ranks. We are also fortunate to have some strong female leaders at the club including several past presidents, current committee members and the current Women’s Coach, Taya Stuart.
Alongside acknowledging the women of our club, we are looking to raise awareness this weekend of the issue of gender-based violence that is a serious and widespread problem in Australia. Violence against women takes a profound and long-term toll on women’s health and wellbeing, on families and communities, and on society as a whole.
But violence against women is also preventable. Violence against women arises in the social context of gender inequality, and that this violence has distinct gendered drivers.
Gender inequality is where women and men do not have equal social status, power, resources or opportunities, and their voices, ideas and work are not valued equally by society.
Change the story: A shared national framework for the primary prevention of violence against women and their children in Australia identifies sport as a priority area for the primary prevention of violence against women in Australia.
Sport has a vital role to play in creating a society where all women are not only safe but also respected, valued and treated equally in all areas of life. It also includes understanding the role that discrimination can play in sport.
Sport can influence how society expects us behave and is therefore able to challenge the attitudes and behaviours that allow violence to occur.
La Trobe University Hockey Club embraces and celebrates women and supports and strives to provide a safe environment for all people including women to enjoy, administer and play our sport. We are a club that respects women and treats them equally in all areas of the club from administration to on the field of play. We have zero tolerance of disrespect of or violence towards women at our club and in the sport of hockey.
This year, we will be holding a BBQ and raffle during Women’s Round to raise funds for Our Watch, an independent not-for-profit organisation that is a national leader in the primary prevention of violence against women and their children in Australia. They work to embed gender equality and prevent violence where Australians live, learn, work and socialise, including in sport. They work to building and extending our understanding of what drives violence against women and what works best to prevent it, then embed this knowledge into tools, resources, training, policy and media and marketing campaigns.
There are some great prizes up from grabs so please give generously and buy your tickets to support the work Our Watch are doing to create a safer, healthier and just society for all. Tickets: $2 each or three for $5.