Extract from my short book – Kicking a Goal for Masculinity – by Pip Cornall
Australia is a great sporting nation and much of our national identity and pride comes from our prowess in sport. For a nation of only 20 million people, we dominate the world in many sports—a remarkable achievement! In the past our young people had numerous sporting heroes to look up to—men and women who were positive role-models. In recent decades however, an ugly side has emerged—with sledging, performance drugs, violence, sexism, sexual assault, domestic violence and racism impacting many sports including Olympic.
As a former PE teacher I’m proud of our amazing sporting prowess on the world stage. However I’m not proud of the problems that have emerged and I write this book firm in the belief that we can turn the ugliness around—in fact, even more impressively, we can use our sport to promote positive change on a local and global scale. In a time of single parent families and with few male primary school teachers remaining, it is imperative that sportsmen promote healthy models of masculinity to our boys and young men.