The value of events like the IWG Summit is the information I glean away from the panels and presentations. It’s the reassuring touch on the elbow from someone who has had much more skin in the game and for much longer, the knowing nod when you share a challenge you are dealing with or the knowing glance that you share with someone when a comment or insight resonates too close to home.
During the last Women’s World Cup, I reflected on the fact that my children have never known a time when there was only a Men’s World Cup and it made me happy. I grew up during a time when there were breakaway women’s sports stars like Lisa Leslie, Mia Hamm and my then all-time favourite Gabrielle Reece.
Nowadays younger sports fans can take their pick of female athletes – across several sports – to be inspired by but what those young fans will not understand is that this has been made possible due to a considered, collective effort. In fact, most people only see the tip of the iceberg, they literally don’t understand the number of interventions, policies and programmes that have been implemented in order for this to be possible.
Hearing the stories of some of the major players in the movement was a sobering reminder that sometimes a lot of unnoticed work has to happen in order for parity to occur.
There is a part of me that wants to reflect on the distinguished speakers from the event and the insights they shared but the real value for me was felt in the conversations with women of stature in the hallways, while queuing up for lunch, or while waiting for the next shift session to start. No one was too important to speak to or be spoken to and it made the possibility of also being a genuine changemaker feel that much more achievable. And as alluded to earlier, the conversations that were not best suited for Power Points were the most important for me. These were the conversations that went beyond punchy headlines and got into the crux of what it actually means to elicit meaningful change.
Statistics shared at the event were a range of empowering, interesting and sobering. For example, we have made strides in the number of people who are enthusiastic spectators of women’s sports – with the FIFA Women’s World Cup total engagement totalling around 2bn and 185m people watching the 2025 Women’s World Cup Final. With regards to parity in participation, the 2024 Olympics saw equal numbers of male and female athlete competing for the first time.
However, the insights also show a few worrying attitudes towards women’s sports such as things have gone far enough, too much is expected of men and that the promotion of women’s equality effectively discriminates against men.
So yes, much as been achieved, but there is still so much work to do.
The opportunity to attend the IWG Summit fell into my lap and I’m happy that I was in a position to attend. As I reflect on the event and what I envision for the future of women’s sport, my hope is that we can move further away from the quantitative aspect of this mission and begin to delve into the qualitative elements – the sentiments that can’t be measured with numbers but have indelible impacts on what success looks like.