Pamela Whaley: Why rugby league has let down every woman involved in the game

The stance over Michael Jennings’ NRL return by people in power is deeply upsetting and will continue unless there’s a serious change in attitude towards women, PAMELA WHALEY writes.

Michael Jennings. Picture: Sam Ruttyn

As a woman in rugby league it’s inevitable you’ll be let down on occasion.

This week it happened again.

The entire discourse around Michael Jennings’ return to the game has felt like one big kick in the guts, and I imagine any woman who has experienced violence or sexual abuse at the hands of a man would say the same thing.

I am one of them, but that’s not special. Most women I know have experienced it to varying degrees at some point in their lives.

Statistics for 2021-2022 from the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare say one in four women (and one in 14 men) had experienced family and domestic violence since the age of 15, and 14 per cent of all people over the age of 18 had experienced sexual violence. But the real number is far greater.

And that’s the kicker.

Men in this game need to realise that when they’re talking about and defending players with past histories of violence towards women, they’re talking to the very women who have experienced this kind of abuse.

Roosters player Michael Jennings was found guilty of sexual assault in a civil trial. Picture: Rohan Kelly

The very women who work at clubs, women who play the game, women who support the game and women who report on it.

That’s why I was shocked on Wednesday morning when I stood next to Roosters coach Trent Robinson as he explained that allowing Jennings to come back into the NRL and then celebrating his 300th game as a club internally, was not disrespectful to women.

It stunned me, and I forgot everything I wanted to ask in that moment.

Because it’s the exact opposite to the way I, and almost every other woman I have spoken to this week feels.

I’ve since spoken to Robinson, who is a decent man. At the core of this is a coach who just wants to improve the life of a player and will do whatever he can to make that happen.

But like any other person, I don’t like to be told how I feel. And I don’t like to be told when something is not actually disrespectful towards me.

To have our feelings dismissed in this way is deeply upsetting.

Sydney Roosters coach Trent Robinson defended the club’s decision to celebrate Jennings’ milestone game. Picture: David Becker

And more than that, it maintains a status quo where women are afraid to speak up in fear of being ridiculed, not believed, ostracised and overlooked.

I’m lucky enough to have a platform and feel confident enough to stand up for myself even when it feels hopeless, as a woman in rugby league, in situations like this.

Because not one person is to blame for the mess created by allowing Jennings back into the game, it’s many.

None of it makes sense.

We’ve been given confusing explanations on the difference between a civil and criminal trial that take me back to year 12 legal studies, but none of it properly explains why the personal and professional needs of this man seem to have outweighed the social impact of this entire shambles.

It boils down to a loose set of guidelines for allowing players back into this game that the NRL needs to fix, so we can avoid this situation in the future.

For now, we’ve been let down again, and I fear it won’t be for the last time.

Originally published as Pamela Whaley: Why rugby league has let down every woman involved in the game