Beyoncé had the right idea about who should run the world (girls!), it’s just that she wasn’t quite specific enough.
For years we’ve been talking about the need for more women in leadership roles, yet change and progress has been glacial. As a result, I believe, we need to cast a different, more distinct, net.
She’s the type of woman that’s on 97 different WhatsApp groups, which she created. She’s the type of woman who can mobilise the masses. She’s the type of woman who’ll show up early and is the last to leave.
She’s got an army of similar-minded women who will turn up and do the work: rain, hail or shine. She’s able to manage any crisis with grit and agility and has the ability to stare down a rowdy spectator double her size.
Armed with a whistle lanyard, a first aid kit and a large container of muesli bars and banana bread – the future of leadership is at a suburban netball court near you.
Netball mums are the unsung heroes of community sport, and I think it’s time they took their well-honed political, economic and social skills to the world stage.
The women who handed their mid-1990s championship winning goal keeper (GK) bib to their eldest daughter have much more to offer society.
Why netball mums and not soccer mums, you may ask? That’s a fair question, with a simple answer. Unlike soccer mums, netball mums haven’t been relegated to back up coach or team Uber driver because the dads purport to know best.
Community netball is an example where women have been allowed to live up to their full potential, and not be overshadowed by dads who overestimate their abilities and time management.
Netball mums could end some of the biggest challenges of our times. Like the economy, global affairs and of course the climate crisis.
Want a more efficient and cost-effective society? Bring in the ladies that organise the annual netball gala for six to 60 year olds to balance the books. Forget plying millions into PwC, these netball mums just need a clipboard each, and a bucket of highlighters to make the public service as efficient as an Ikea bedroom set.
It’s well-documented that women face higher risks and greater burdens from the impacts of climate change. What’s not well-researched is the impact severe weather events have on netball mums’ mental health. After consulting a handful of regional netball coordinators, I can reveal the distress felt when wild weather chops and changes so much, these mums don’t know whether to pack an expensive parka jacket or their favourite visor.
Netball mums have a vested interest in pressuring corporations to cut their carbon emissions and reduce fossil fuel investments. Even if this means they lose their silver sponsor for the annual netball fundraising dinner held at the local town hall.
When women participate in a peace process it increases the likelihood of peace lasting more than two years.
That’s just women in general, not netball mums who’ve been brokering peace between parents on the sidelines and managing the complex politics of whether it’s OK for the coach’s daughter to be captain of the Northern Suburbs Under 14s team three years in a row.
There’s a saying doing the rounds in the memes world that if women ruled the world, there would be no wars, just a lot of jealous countries not speaking to each other.
I’ll raise them one. In a future where netball mums run the world, there will be about 500 Nato-style organisations that at least one country wouldn’t be invited to.
Icy receptions would replace war and loss of life: “If you don’t know why I am mad at you, Canada, I’m not going to explain it.”
With the skills they have to call the shots on who gets benched, devising the always controversial game draw, the roster of who is bringing knee braces, how to quickly quell violence on the field, we need to send netball mums in to sort out geopolitics.
There’s no way netball mums would allow war and violence. All they’d need is a bucket of Sharpies, a few sheets of butcher’s paper and they’d find a solution while hosting the court-side sausage sizzle.
World peace by Saturday afternoon.
• Antoinette Lattouf is a broadcaster, columnist, author, TEDx speaker, and co-founder of Media Diversity Australia. She was listed among AFR’s 100 Women of Influence. Antoinette is also an ambassador for the Gidget Foundation and Care Australia
