Player Profile | Josefina Martorell, Argentina

Meet Josefina Martorell from Buenos Aires in Argentina. At the age of fifteen she was playing football professionally and since then has played in many different countries, from the US to Congo to Niger to Spain to Afghanistan - wherever she was living at the time. She is part of an organisation called Futbol Militante, where women occupy public spaces usually reserved for men, to play football. They have football programmes in place for boys and girls as young as 3!

I grew up in Buenos Aires, the capital city of Argentina. I had a very happy childhood playing lots of sports, always encouraged by my parents. My father would always ask me how many goals I scored at a tournament or at a game. If I said “four” he’d ask “why not five??”. It became a bit of a joke between us.

But even though girls are encouraged to play sports here when they are young, that falls away when they get older. When I grew a bit older the boys started calling me “marimacho” (tomboy). It made me stop playing with them - but it didn’t stop me playing.

I play football because I wouldn’t be myself if I wasn’t.

Equality is a very big question in an undefined time. Sport helps - in some way - tear down the walls of current social norms. Sport helps strengthen women and girls' self-esteem and helps challenge gender stereotypes that still block women from participating fully in social, professional and public life. Being naive I have the hope that we will soon reach equality in legal, economic, social and cultural terms, but being more realistic I simply hope that in Argentina, the levels of domestic violence decline; a woman is murdered every thirty hours here.

When I was nineteen I went travelling by myself across South America.  It was then that I realised my gender carried specific dangers – dangers to my life and dangers to my body. One particularly bad, dangerous experience happened with a man I met by chance. It was an experience unfortunately shared by many of my female friends so I didn’t make much of it. Years later I lived in the Democratic Republic of Congo where women experience many daily threats and fears; about 48 women are raped in DRC every hour. I realised that despite our cultural differences, as women, we shared specific experiences that made me feel close to them.

Climbing this mountain means a lot to me. Climbing this mountain represents the long struggle of women to realise their goals. Sports help make the fight for women’s empowerment a reality – if they can participate in sport, they can participate in any sphere of life they choose. I want to push myself beyond new boundaries – if I can accomplish this feat, it means I can accomplish many important things with my life.

Football plays a very important role in my life.  Through football I met some of my best friends and I even met my partner. I cannot imagine myself away from football for a long time. If a ball is rolling I am down for another match!

Do you want to sponsor Josefina and help her break a world record? Sponsor her here:

https://www.justgiving.com/crowdfunding/Josefina-Mount-Kili?utm_id=107&utm_term=YQ9bMKBW8

Player Profile | Introducing Esraa Awad, Egypt

Esraa joins the Equal Playing Field squad from Egypt. Esraa has played professionally since the age of 15 and was named Egyptian Footballer of the Year in 2010 with four Premier League titles under her belt. She has represented Egypt at the national level and participated in the African Cup of Nations last year. Here she tells us why she’s still fighting to level the playing field.

Want to help Esraa break a world record? Sponsor her here: https://www.gofundme.com/equal-playing-field-kilimanjaro

I was born and raised in Kuwait and was only 4 years old when I started to play football. When I was 12 I captained the boys football team - which was not easy. The boys on the team did not like a girl captaining the team. They only accepted me when I proved myself to be one of the best. I learned from a very young age that I will face a lot of obstacles being a girl - a girl who not only plays football, but a girl who actually plays better than a lot of boys too. But this just gave me more strength to carry on and made me understand that if I do not believe in myself than no one will.

I often see comments on social media telling me to “'go back to the kitchen". Everyone is starting to wonder when I will get married. Nine times out of ten interviewers will ask me if I’m not married because I play football.

“Football is my passion. When I play, I feel free and that there are no limits. ”

The first time I played for the national team I felt like I was on the top of the world. It was something I dreamed of since I was 8 years old - a dream come true for me. My family was so proud and from that moment on football (for them and for me) went to a whole new level. We have many years of frustration because as a national team we haven't achieved much yet, but the highlight of my career was beating the Ivory Coast and qualifying for the African Cup of Nations for the first time in 18 years. Years of fighting finally paid off.

“Playing football as a Middle Eastern woman is - in and of itself - an act of advocacy”.

The key to making changes possible is for all women to fight for the same goal and not give up. One day, there will be equality. My family has always been very supportive. My father and my older brother were always proud of me and how talented I was and helped me get better. My sisters and my mother were also very supportive and are incredible advocates for women’s rights themselves.  I am climbing to honor the memory of my late sister, Nouran. She passed away just a couple of months ago. She always believed in me, and always encouraged me. My mother brought us up to make the best out of anything that comes our way and after this tragedy, I have made the choice to come out of this  as a stronger woman and a better human being. Climbing this mountain with other exceptional women will be a stepping stone in recovering from my grief.

Want to help Esraa break a world record? Sponsor her here: https://www.gofundme.com/equal-playing-field-kilimanjaro

Opportunity knocks - Including behind the scenes

One of the reasons we are taking on a world record here at Equal Playing Field is to call for an increase in sporting opportunities and access for women and girls. But access and opportunities in sport relate as much to sitting in the boardroom as they do to stepping out on the pitch. Off the pitch, women are frequently side-lined from decision-making roles in sporting bodies whether on a local or international level. We believe that diversifying boards would make for much more inclusive decisions relating to for example, how to allocate budgets; would generate better strategies for growing the game beyond existing demographics; and would ensure “equality” is paid more than just lip-service.

And so, it’s with pleasure we congratulate Women in Sport, in the UK on winning a major campaign battle. From April this year all publicly funded sports governing bodies must adhere to a minimum threshold of 30% gender diversity to receive public funding.

Nevertheless (to borrow the battle cry that Senator Jeff Sessions inadvertently created when silencing US Senator Elizabeth Warren back in February 2017) Women in Sport are persisting. Their new campaign seeks now to go “Beyond 30%”. Having found that the percentage of women on boards has stagnated at 30%, they are now focusing their attention on senior leadership roles (the percentage of which are taken by women having actually dropped since 2014) as well as establishing healthy leadership development channels from the lowest rungs to the top. Indeed, the lack of a “sustainable pipeline of female leadership talent within sport” is one of the three persistent problems that Women in Sport identified as inhibiting progress.

Sadly, of the 68 national governing bodies, the Football Association (FA) has the third lowest percentage of female non-executive directors – only worse than the Angling Trust and the British Taekwondo Council. That is not acceptable for a sport with such massive appeal to women and girls and one with such aspirations for growth.  Indeed, the FA has just launched a brand new, very welcome strategy to double the number of girls and women taking part in football by 2020 (a strategy heavily influenced by the presence of Sue Campbell in a senior FA leadership role). The FA would now do well to get more women into those leadership development channels and in a wide variety of decision-making roles as soon as possible so that they can best better understand exactly how to do just that.

How it all came about | A message from the co-founders

You can’t. Two words women and girls have heard for centuries – especially when it comes to sport. The everyday challenges faced by women and girls makes the simple enjoyment of a game like football an uphill battle for many.

Yet in June, in a game like no other, two football teams composed entirely of women from more than ten countries will walk out on a volcanic ash pitch at the top of Mt Kilimanjaro - an altitude higher than Everest Base Camp - to prove that women can and will. It’s set to break the Guinness World Record for the highest altitude game ever played.

Why?

“The playing field is not equal” Says Laura Youngson, co-founder of the Equal Playing Field initiative.

“We want to use the climb to highlight the gender inequalities faced today by women in sport. Women have fewer opportunities to play sport, get paid less when they do, and don’t get the same coverage or respect in the media. I don’t want to be having this same discussion with my future children.”

The stats speak for themselves: 1.8 million fewer women are active each month in the UK than men. Even in the US – arguably one of the best countries for sports equality – at age 14 girls drop out of sports at twice the rate of boys. And a vicious circle between poor media visibility and poor investment emerges. Women’s sport in the UK accounts for only 7% of total sports coverage and Women’s sport sponsorship accounted for only 0.4% of total sports sponsorship between 2011 and 2013.

Something great

But it’s the everyday discrimination that grinds people down or gets people up.

“A lifetime of small interactions built up to an all-encompassing roar: an exclusion from a meeting because I was female; the guy being asked for explanations even though I was more qualified; the jest and so-called banter. I pass it off but kept thinking, it’s not just, it’s not equal, I can’t be complicit and stay quiet any longer”

“I remember getting a message at an un-nameable early hour from Laura - full of exclamation marks, and the words: I've had an idea!” says Erin Blankenship, Laura’s co-conspirator and Equal Playing Field’s other co-founder. “I knew it was going to be something great, was going to involve an adventure, and was something that I wanted to be a part of. Little did we know then how epic that idea would become.” 

Tangible impact

“I've loved and played football as long as I can remember and I wanted this project to reflect the love of the game above all else – sport has this capacity to transcend discrimination like little else. Doesn't matter who you are on a field. So as much as I revel in an opportunity to set a world record - in a game I love more than almost anything and around a cause I deeply believe in, it was important that we create tangible impact as well” says Erin.

So after breaking the world record, the women will disperse back across the planet and  work with local teams and organisations and run football clinics in ten countries to support the development and sustainability of women's football globally.

“Now we are looking at directly impacting thousands of girls and women in more than 14 countries, and supporting the women already fighting for their rightful place on the pitch at the global-elite level - which is exactly what we should be doing with this spotlighted opportunity.”

Dedication

Erin and Laura have started something unique and have generated huge enthusiasm and support for the project.

“Like many kids, I grew up reading the Guinness Book of World Records and felt inspired by their motto, ‘Dedication is what you need’. I found out that we can set a record that requires teamwork, adventure and most importantly, dedication. And I decided I would find 33 other adventurous women to do that with,” says Laura smiling.

Press Release - IWD

Women footballers to break world record for highest altitude game ever played. 

Two all-female international teams will battle it out at the top of Mt Kilimanjaro. They seek more than glory; they seek an “Equal Playing Field”.

In June 2017 two all-women football teams will battle it out for 90 minutes just below the summit of Mt. Kilimanjaro in Tanzania. If they succeed, they will break the Guinness World Record for the highest altitude football game ever played. The players, from more than ten countries, include former Canadian national Sasha Andrews, former German World Cup star Petra Landers, Afghan national Hajar Abufazl, former FIFA World Cup referee Jacqui Hurford (née Melksham) and pro players or competitive amateurs from Argentina, France, Egypt, Jordan, Mexico, the UK, US and the United Arab Emirates.

The Equal Playing Field initiative, formally launched today, March 8 2017, on International Women’s Day joins the movement to increase opportunity, equality and respect for women seeking to play or work in sport, and raise the profile of inspirational female sporting role models in the media. The week after the world record match, EPF will work with local teams and organisations in ten countries to host football clinics to support and advance women’s football development globally. The whole initiative will be covered and widely publicised by a team of award-winning filmmakers.

“The problem is as simple and powerful as our love of the game,” said Erin Blankenship, Equal Playing Field co-founder. “The lack of equality for and representation of women in sport is appalling across the board. Equal Playing Field is taking aim at the systematic inequalities girls and women face that limit their opportunities, acceptance and value as athletes and individuals, starting with those on a football pitch.”

“Playing a football match at this altitude has never been done before. We want to break a record to inspire other women and girls to keep challenging the inequalities in sport”, said Laura Youngson, Equal Playing Field’s co-founder. “Sport brings friendships and community, commitment and leadership, and strength and health. No girl should miss out on those benefits because of her gender."

The women seek to take the fight for equality in sport to new heights, more than 2km higher than the world’s highest official stadium. EPF is still in talks with potential sponsors and partnering organizations. For more information about this initiative and how you can get involved, please see www.equalplayingfield.com or email equalplayingfield2017@gmail.com