Maria Bobenrieth: How active girls can transform communities

Maria Bobenrieth: How active girls can transform communities

Maria Bobenrieth (0s):

I was born in Chile. My father is Chilean and my mother is Italian. And my dad was a doctor. And so when I was eight, we moved to the US, because he went to work for the World Health Organization. So I moved to Washington, DC. Didn't speak a word of English. So my family was a migrant family. My mother a multiple migrant. And so I grew up in the United States, in the DC area, and my universal language was sports. You know, I didn't speak English. My parents enrolled us immediately in Catholic Youth Organization sports. And I was pretty good at sports. And therefore, it made me, gave me a quick in, to form a kind of my own pride and family.

Maria Bobenrieth (42s):

And that continued throughout my life. Sports has played an important part in my life. I studied international business and got my masters in international business. And worked in Sporting Goods my whole life. And that led me eventually to work at Nike. And in my last job there, I got to combine my love of human rights, environment, LGBT rights with business. So I worked in corporate social responsibility, before anyone even knew what it was, many, many, many years ago. I had to really explain to my parents more than once what I was doing. And...

Sue Anstiss (1m 14s):

I think you've jumped right ahead there. I wanted to cover all of that off with you, but I'm just going to take you back a tiny bit if I can do. I've just got to know how Title Nine, if you can explain that a bit about Title Nine and how that impacted your own education?

Maria Bobenrieth (1m 26s):

Yeah, I forgot that. I did skip the part of that story. So I played varsity sports in high school, which in the United States is kind of a big deal. Again, that was my life. You know, I had been actually put in remedial classes, because we didn't have English as a second language. And so when I arrived in American fourth grade, I was eight years old. I did not speak English. And so they put us in what was then known as remedial, with the kids that, you know, had learning difficulties. And so I was really an underachiever academically, honestly, until college. But sports kept me tethered to academics, to school. You had to attend school to go and play. And I excelled. So I had four varsity sports, my entire time in high school, and I played center.

Maria Bobenrieth (2m 8s):

I played volleyball. And so that was, I graduated in high school in '77. And that was really right the year after Title Nine had been implemented. So luckily for me, the bar was a little low, in terms of athletic prowess and academics, actually. Because almost all the universities had to come into compliance and then they were offering scholarships. And so I did get a scholarship to go to university, an American university. And I played center on the volleyball team there. And that also really, I think, changed my life, because that was a university that was really focused on international development in the DC area. So it has been a constant in my life, giver of opportunities, creator of networks.

Sue Anstiss (2m 48s):

And Title Nine, just for those, cause it's quite a British audience. So those that don't perhaps know Title Nine and how it transformed education and this opportunity for sport, for girls in the US.

Maria Bobenrieth (3m 0s):

Yeah. So Title Nine was a law passed. I don't remember the year, '72/'76, something like that, which was a landmark case, which said that, you know, institutions and I'm probably going to misquote it entirely, but essentially what the gist of it was that if you were an institution at any kind of level of education and you were being government-funded, you had to give gender equity. So meaning, especially in the US, where sports are a way that a lot of kids get to university, it's quite a difficult, expensive trajectory to get to. And so there were a lot of young men going to school on all kinds of university scholarships from fencing, to wrestling, to American football, American baseball, I mean, you name it. And very, very few sports opportunities for women. And so not only did they say you had to create parallel opportunities.

Maria Bobenrieth (3m 43s):

So if there was a swimming team, you had to have equal numbers of swimmers, male and female, but you had to offer equal scholarships. And this was, wow, what a fight that was, because it's always, you know, it feels like when one part of the population gets their due rights, someone complains that something is being taken away. But it transformed the percentages of women participating in sports. And actually, the Title Nine work that has been done. And this is, I think really critical to think about, retroactively, 20 years on, at the celebration of the 20th year of Title Nine, there was a study done that looked at the high, high percentages of women that had been Title Nine athletes that were now sitting in places like, you know, and across public life, in business, in the private sector, in the public sector, in the charity sector, everywhere, where there was leadership in women, there was very often a link to collegiate sports opportunities.

Maria Bobenrieth (4m 37s):

And of course it totally makes sense. The skills that you build at, you know, playing at a higher level of sports, the teams, the leadership skills that you get to practice, make complete sense that the women that are coming out now, yeah, would be connected to the same sort of ethos.

Sue Anstiss (4m 52s):

Yeah. That's fantastic. To hear that ripple effect across society. Really. I'm going to go on to ask you more about that in a moment, clearly. What ambitions did you have when you left university? I guess you jumped into being at Nike, but what was your sort of transition to that role?

Maria Bobenrieth (5m 7s):

Well, it was a long time before I got to Nike. So I actually really, I wanted to combine my love of sports with my love of international business. So I started out selling shoes. I mean, literally selling shoes and other sporting equipment. I was a sales rep in California and I loved it so much. It was one of my favorite jobs. I drove from town to town and had my little bag of shoes. And that actually taught me a lot about leadership as well, because if you're really going to be good at selling things, you really have to understand what people need. It's not about coming in and dumping them with stuff they don't need, because they were my clients, you know, for years. And so I really learned the art of understanding what people need, and that trajectory led me onto a variety of jobs and international marketing and sales at a variety of companies.

Maria Bobenrieth (5m 50s):

And that's kind of how I ended up ultimately at Nike, at a moment when Nike had just been through the child labor crisis and was really making a statement around sustainability and realized that that was the next horizon to kind of complement their work around eradicating child labor and labor rights in general. And so they were looking for people that had both business experience, social experience and international experience. And yeah, I happened to be at the right place, at the right time. And I spent 10 years at Nike, pioneering that work. And it was an absolutely fantastic, fabulous experience.

Sue Anstiss (6m 25s):

I was going to ask you about that dilemma. I struggled a bit with Nike in terms of the amazing social impact it has, but hard to overlook some of the negative elements. So for you going in there, was that a difficult decision to make that decision to join the organization at the time? Or were you confident they were making inroads to change what had gone before?

Maria Bobenrieth (6m 45s):

Yeah, so, you know, what's really interesting is Phil Knight, the founder of Nike. So I had been in the industry for a long time, so I knew the complexities, but I also had traveled and lived internationally enough to know that actually for young women working in factories, was not ideal. And we can look back to our own history in the UK or the US or anywhere. The factory jobs were actually the first jobs. Typing jobs, factory jobs, you know, were the first entry level jobs where women start to earn their own money. And so the challenge that was really there, which I think still exists around fast fashion, is that the model fundamentally is exploitative, right? And so that's just a very difficult thing to address. However, I will say that what I really loved about being at Nike, in particular, is that there was really a true commitment to changing things.

Maria Bobenrieth (7m 28s):

And the, you know, when I was there, it was probably about 80,000 employees. It must be many more than that because I've been gone for 10 years, but almost every person I met at Nike went from being extremely proud of a company that was, you know, to being really thoughtful about not only the topic of labor and child labor and labor and equity, but really the topic of the environment. And, you know, these folks really wanted to make things better. And so the answer is it's complex, but I do believe, I believe it's better to sit at the table and try to improve things. Having said that, I really appreciate activists who are on the ground and holding accountable multinationals. The challenges, you know, we see them right now in terms of just trying to strike a balance between yeah, all of the economic and social challenges around the world.

Sue Anstiss (8m 14s):

I read a fantastic article you wrote actually, at the weekend, but about that balance of engaging together for bigger change, but obviously accepting, we don't have to agree on everything, but we can still strive for positive change together. You were global director of community investments, I think, was that your final role there, but what did that role entail? What was your day to day as it were?

Maria Bobenrieth (8m 36s):

So in my final role at Nike, we set ourselves a really ambitious goal of taking a portfolio of investments, which, you know, at that time was a pretty nice chunk of money and really looking at how sport could be a tool for social change. And what we did was looked at all of social issues, looked around the world, looked at, you know, sport and the magic of sport and never having a blind spot, because sport in itself, Nike aside, has many, many challenges around, you know, doping, cheating. I don't know, you know, you name it. And we really wanted to play to Nike's strengths. And that's really around inspirational young people. I mean, you can travel anywhere in the world.

Maria Bobenrieth (9m 15s):

And if Nike is involved, you can be sure all the kids and all the young people and particularly young men will show up. And so we partnered with bigger organizations like UNHCR and other folks, to really think about how to use that appeal of the brand, but more than anything, what struck me as interesting, and my boss is really, it was then Hannah Jones, really a visionary, was that we started to ask questions about gender in particular. And asking questions about, you know, what percentage, because we knew there was huge disparity in the percentages of the sports marketing budget for men versus women. I mean, it was ridiculous. If you look at the amount of money that Nike was investing in big clubs, you can only look at the Premier League and the players and the percentages that were being invested in women's sports and women in particular, it was a constant battle at Nike to get that on an agenda.

Maria Bobenrieth (10m 3s):

We thought, well, this money is really meant for social change. So let's do it a bit of a gender audit. Audit, I use that word quite loosely. We just tried to understand what percentages of that budget was being used in any form towards gender. And I don't mean only investing in women. I mean, addressing some of the ills around sport in gender, addressing gender-based violence, you know, gender-nonconforming kids, just a whole slew of issues. And it was a very, very small percentage. And so we started to really ask the question why, and try to figure out how we could increase those percentages. And in that we traveled around the world and just would ask people, you know, we immediately said, if you don't consider this in your proposals, we're really not going to fund cause we didn't want to perpetrate what was already not really great practices.

Maria Bobenrieth (10m 48s):

And this is really a long time ago. So, you know, 15/20 years ago. And so what we found was very interesting, Sue, because what we saw was that the same issues that were keeping girls from the playing field, were keeping them out of society. And they're not very sexy issues. You know, people tend to think about, oh, the right kit or just pretty extreme things. Actually it was things like period poverty. So if you don't have a way to manage your menstrual period, one week a month, it's not that you only don't play sports. You actually don't go to school. And over time you drop out. And what we saw, where girls were playing on teams, they were helping each other deal with this, because they didn't want the best players, you know, or all, any of the players to miss any of the matches. And so we watched those very good practices in some places.

Maria Bobenrieth (11m 31s):

There were other things like lack of female coaches. If I had an adolescent daughter, I certainly wouldn't, I'd have to really think twice about who I'd leave her unsupervised with, in terms of travel or anything else. There was just a plethora of male coaches, which meant really, there was a lack of safeguarding in many programs, just general safeguarding rules. There was a lack of safety to and from, you know, travel, but that meant that girls really didn't have safety in their communities, in terms of access to the field. So when we kind of propose to the communities, hey, if we start picking these things off, lack of changing rooms. So, you know, there was no place for girls to use the toilet and changing rooms. They didn't have bras. I mean, they did not have underwear. These are really basic, basic things.

Maria Bobenrieth (12m 13s):

And as we worked with sports institutions and others, women's rights organizations to address these issues, we saw not only that girls participated better in sports, they were able to develop agency. They were able to develop access to networks of friends. They did better in school. And so it was very quickly apparent to us that kind of the Title Nine magic in a way, in some case really incentivizing or forcing, it depends on how you want to think about it, participation of girls, may make programs better. And it made programs and communities better. And so this was transformative and it was kind of, at that time, was a radical idea. And that's what we put a lot of emphasis on. And that led to, you know, my love of continuing, my love of those, that combination of things.

Sue Anstiss (12m 58s):

And can you tell us more then, I guess, that natural transition into Women Win and how that was created and how you became involved?

Maria Bobenrieth (13m 4s):

Yeah. So I, at the same time, had been on a trajectory, actually it started at Cambridge University, doing a post-graduate program on partnership brokering. I really believed that and still believe that the challenges we have are so complex that we have to work in [inaudible] poorly. So, you know, together a number of brands, number of NGOs, on topics, check, but we also have to work intersectorially. So really looking at how the private sector government and the social sector. And can really work together and support each other, in where we have shared interests. So I've always been a believer. As we were talking a little bit earlier about shared interests, once there's a shared interest, then you can really rally people around topics like this at the time, the Nike Foundation, which was separate from the work we were doing was doing a lot of work on seeing adolescent girls as key to achieving their rights.

Maria Bobenrieth (13m 51s):

And their agency is key to the development of entire communities. And so I went to MamaCash, which is a women's fund, here in the Netherlands. It's one of the greatest, you know, most interesting, innovative feminist funds out there. And we went there and said, hey, we've discovered this. We think actually the next generation of feminists, which was a word that was, you know, really then co-opted much more than even now, it's made a comeback, but then to be a feminist, was almost something you, no one wanted to admit. But we went there and said, we think the next generation of feminists really are, there's a lot of potential here with sports. And, you know, based on my Title Nine experience, based on others' experiences. And the Netherlands is a country where almost all, I mean, excels disproportionately in women's sports.

Maria Bobenrieth (14m 35s):

There's not a sport for a country of 17 million people that women don't play at top, top level - hockey, yachting, rowing, I don't know, ice skating, handball. It doesn't matter. It's a, this is a country where there are really a lot of athletes. And so this was something, you know, generally accepted here, that girls, at least most girls that have the means, play sports. So we went to MamaCash and proposed to them that we form a very unusual partnership, where Nike would provide its core competencies and MamaCash would bring its feminist rights-based, you know, community, advocacy, participatory grant making approaches, into a joint project. And we started to work on a small project in Morocco. But there was a lot of resistance there. And I can understand there was skepticism, all the things you just brought up.

Maria Bobenrieth (15m 18s):

The three things that I think came up as issues were just in general, Nike being a private sector company. The second thing was girls was still not a high priority for them. There was enough work to do with women. And the third was very funny. They were like sport? Like that's almost insulting. We do really serious development and feminist work here, like, and you guys want us to focus on sport? So I really knew that cause I had lived that divide between feminism and sports. And that's been really a pleasure over the years to see happen. But at that time it was a very misunderstood context for feminism and women's rights. But the director of resource mobilization and the director of programs there, [inaudible], were really, both of them were runners and they got it.

Maria Bobenrieth (16m 2s):

And so the three of us decided, you know, to really think about how to move this forward. And then Astrid, after a year, really said to me, you know, listen, I really think this is a great strategy. I think adolescent girls in sports is the future. I'm convinced. And I'd like to resign from MamaCash. We offered MamCash to start a new kind of program and they didn't want it. So Astrid said, I think I'll leave and I'll start my own NGO. And it'll be focused specifically on equipping adolescent girls to achieve their rights. And we will use sport and play, as our, yeah, as our power, as our leverage. And, you know, seeing sports as a means, not an end, to really a rights-based leadership approach.

Maria Bobenrieth (16m 44s):

And so that was 2007. I became the chair of the board and she was the founder and executive director. We worked together for two years. Then in 2009, there was a reorganization at Nike. There was a focus back from kind of the approach that we had been championing in corporate responsibility into approach about getting kids active. And it was just a good time for me to move on. So I was thinking about my next job. And the board and Astrid said to me, Hey, we really need like the next level of development. Would you consider coming here and working with us? So I did, I became the executive director in 2010 and I've been there ever since. We've grown now to be a UK, US and Dutch registered organization.

Maria Bobenrieth (17m 29s):

And you know, we're not huge, but we've really, really pioneered a lot of the approaches I'm talking about, in a time when, even in development, although, sport for development was starting to take off. Certainly it was not the juxtaposition of with girls in there and, and now it's become pretty common.

Sue Anstiss (17m 47s):

And why did you think, you mentioned, didn't you, that that kind attitude of feminism and the path towards sport, why do you think, looking back, that sport wasn't almost an obvious place to embrace and make change, even 20 years ago?

Maria Bobenrieth (18m 1s):

Let me answer that by saying why I think it's taking off now. What I've found so heartwarming this year, if you look at Megan Rapinoe and you look at the US women fighting for equal pay, you look at, especially in football, women really taking back this space, you can see the best players in the world, you know, boycotting their national teams or standing up to the kind of disparity. And I moved back from that and look at the political side of which is in many places of the world, in Argentina, we work with an organization called [inaudible] that filled an entire stadium, to push for the pro-abortion legislation. Or you look at the fight of Afghan women even to have a football team. I think this generation, and probably because of things like Title Nine and all the things that have happened in the UK and other places, I think this generation can take that step.

Maria Bobenrieth (18m 50s):

And doesn't see any challenge with having a singular, you know, they don't see multiple identities or multiple political identities or social identities as a challenge. I grew up in a time where, you know, if you were, it's even in high school, if you were an athlete, you were, you know, or you were an intellectual or you, I don't know. We tended to form much tighter groups. And I think social media has a lot to do with that, that young women also, there's been a resurrection around the word "feminism" and not having that be a, you know, a bad word. It's kind of something that's, I don't know, worn with pride. So I think there's been a confluence of several factors, but I think it's because of a lot of the work that women like you and I, and did honestly, to bridge those two places.

Maria Bobenrieth (19m 32s):

I do think there's an element of homophobia here 20 years ago. I think sport was seen as a place for lesbians. And there was already a division, particularly in the US and I think around the world, where a lot of feminists were trying to separate or distance themselves politically from the perception of being, you know, lesbians or man haters or whatever. And so, yeah, it was just a very odd combination because, and there were a lot of athletes who didn't want to be pinned as feminists because they just wanted to play sport. And so it was, you know, the politics and sport, even the battles, the battles to attain our rights. Like when I played sports in high school, we got the boys leftover uniforms. We got the crappy gym. We got the crappy gym times.

Maria Bobenrieth (20m 12s):

And we never, ever considered striking or questioning that. We were just happy they were letting us play, grateful. Yeah. So, you know, it's a more entitled generation and good on them. They protest one day animal rights, the next day, human rights, they have a much more educated, broad agenda, and they have the means in social media and other ways to organize. And I just really think it's so brave. I had, you know, really tears in my eyes, when you see a young American footballer take on a political bully, who doesn't need to be named here, but really to say, this is who I am. And I'm American. I'm patriotic. And yes, I can take a stance around Black Lives Matter and other social issues. Now you've seen the politics and sports colliding in the best way possible, especially in the US, but other places, you know, really addressing social issues like racism and homophobia.

Maria Bobenrieth (21m 1s):

So I think in general, those places, sports allowed itself rightfully to take on political questions. It's wonderful to see.

Sue Anstiss (21m 9s):

It is indeed. I'd love to understand a little bit more about your thoughts on why you feel that investing in girls is so important to our collective future?

Maria Bobenrieth (21m 19s):

When you go into adolescence as a young woman, so you can, as a young girl, really, and I did that, play sports, run around, keep up with the boys. And then there's a point in your life, where your body changes. And you really move into becoming, not a woman, yet, but a young woman. And not only do you sense the changes in your own body, but the way the world perceives you and your place in the home, really changes, in many parts of the world. And in my family. My family was not a very conservative, but a pretty traditional Latin family. And my father didn't think that, you know, he wasn't that interested in the girls in the family playing sports. There was just a lot of association then of femininity. So my mother's idea was for us to be quiet, to be feminine, whatever that meant.

Maria Bobenrieth (22m 2s):

To be pay attention to the things that were going to make us more appealing, I think, especially to men. And that's, you know, that was kind of the history of that. And in many parts of the world, you really become in danger then, of early enforced marriage, female genital mutilation of, you know, other, of moving from being the property of your family, to being property of your husband's family. And so the age between 12 and 16, what we know from many studies is, if you can stay in school and it's also true in many parts of the UK, you know, those are the high risk behaviors. You know, if you can avoid getting pregnant, like teen pregnancy, if you can stay in school and get through that period of your life, you come out as a very different young woman at 18.

Maria Bobenrieth (22m 48s):

And most programs in development, either focus on children or they focus on women and often in sport for development, this, there's this word that I really think should be banned. It's called "youth". Youth is an euphemism for young men. It's very, rarely when you talk about youth, you know, this is a youth program. When you look at the numbers and that's what I learned at Nike, if you really unpick the numbers, it's very few girls. They're not welcoming for girls. So from a development standpoint, our societies, and we know that that the many challenges, if girls married too young or married too early, or have children or can't control their bodies, if they're subjected to sexual violence, the entire family and the entire society suffers. So well educated, but you know, young women who postpone having children, who postpone marriage, will do better and have the right to do so.

Maria Bobenrieth (23m 34s):

And we will all do better because of that. So you don't get to be 21 and all of a sudden, you know, become a politician or a business person. You really, we need to invest in young women in the UK and the US and other parts of really the global North. What we see now, is things about body shaming. You know, one in four girls in the UK is self-harming. And so I really think that while the stakes have changed and many things have improved, we've seen teen pregnancy go down. We still, our girls are disproportionately at risk from so many things online and peer pressure. There's just still this constant pressure for girls to look a certain way and be a certain way. And we have a responsibility as a society to navigate that and mitigate that so that we have, yeah, healthier human beings, who already have leadership, but get a chance to practice that leadership.

Sue Anstiss (24m 24s):

I've got so many questions for you, but my next question, I was going to take you, on the leadership question, I've heard you talk before about, it's not about helping girls to become leaders. Can you talk a little more around that?

Maria Bobenrieth (24m 36s):

Yeah. We're not there to do anything, but give girls the opportunity to practice their innate born leadership. And I really do argue there's a professor named Fred Coalter, who told me once, and I think it's true. It really made me think about this, that many of the girls that end up enrolling in sports programs, which they find resistance to in their communities, they're probably going to be successful anyway, just because innately, they have a kind of courage and leadership. But every single girl, every single girl has innate leadership. It's in her. What sports does, is it gives you the opportunity to practice that leadership. To develop that leadership. To fall down and get up. To raise your hand and use your voice. Pass me the ball. You know, things that we are so counterintuitive to what they're taught in every day.

Maria Bobenrieth (25m 18s):

To be quiet. To sit quietly. To be demure. And I just think that that is what's the role that sports plays, which I really argue, very few other things can give you, even if you're not a great athlete, getting on a team, you know, showing up, standing up, playing together, winning, losing, you know, and doing it all over again. These are the life lessons that we know many, many successful men got to do. And I think girls really, really deserve that opportunity.

Sue Anstiss (25m 46s):

I was looking again, at your annual report and truly shocked. I feel I know the statistics, but I clearly don't. In terms of early marriage rates and the death of young women in pregnancy and childbirth. And all that you've mentioned there in terms of gender-based violence, really. So how do you personally not become overwhelmed by all you witnessed, clearly having a massive impact, but even reading that I felt distressed, you know, reading those statistics.

Maria Bobenrieth (26m 12s):

Yeah. Well, you know, just statistically, there are, I don't know, probably close to 600/700. I don't know the number exact anymore, but 600/700 adolescent girls in the world. And a huge disproportionate number of them are really at risk. And like I said, even the ones that have huge amounts of wealth and opportunity, during this period, it's just tell. And very few of us get through it unscarred. You know, the only answer to that is just come with me to the field. Like when you see the courage and more than anything, when you see the joy, so people often say, well, yeah, you know, but instead girls should be doing, studying, and we should pay attention to schools. And I say to you, that joy is transformative. So when you see girls for the first time, or very few times that start out in a program like I did with my friend, [inaudible], you throw a girl a ball, it hits her in the face because she has no concept of her body or how to catch a ball.

Maria Bobenrieth (27m 5s):

And you come and she won't look at you. And you come back six months later, and she is in the middle of the, you know, net ball game. And she is pushing and shoving and just laughing and falling down and getting up. And the sheer joy and my bottom line is at the end of the day, I go to sleep thinking about all the smiles I've seen that day. And I have never been anywhere, even in the most difficult context, you know, homes for young mothers, most of whom have been violated and are truly survivors of heinous assault. But you know, you go there and you watch these girls play and you play together. And the humanity of it, the love and the energy.

Maria Bobenrieth (27m 45s):

And I say, you know, if all we could do is bring joy for one hour a week, for a few years, to some of these young women together, their lives will be transformed. Joy transforms us more than anything else. And so there are many strategies. This is not a silver bullet. This strategy will only help you if you've got very good other strategies. Yes, we need schools. We need to make sure they have access to good medical facilities. We need psychological support. This is just one kind of really great booster in your toolkit. And I think the secret sauce is joy. You know, it's just so fun. Throw a ball anywhere, and kids will come out of everywhere. And in 10 minutes, if it's well managed, the kids will just be having a great time.

Maria Bobenrieth (28m 26s):

And I think that's what's been missing for a lot of girls

Sue Anstiss (28m 30s):

That's, and it's interesting that, sometimes almost overlooked, that that element of that sport brings, I think in terms of communities. We talk a lot about the fight for equal pay and contracts in women's sport, but in some parts of the world, obviously women have very few rights even to watch sports. So I wonder if you can tell us a little bit about this history and the situation in places like Iran.

Maria Bobenrieth (28m 51s):

Yeah. So I'm not an expert, a legal expert at all, but you know, the battles are the same. So it's really about access to public space. And I think that this is really in many places in the world, which is, again, the honor of the family is carried with women. And what I will say about this, because this comes up often for me, where people ask me, you know, where's it hardest. And I will tell you that orthodoxy, never good for girls, never good for women. So it doesn't matter what religion it is or what culture it is. If there's orthodoxy, what is first compromised are girls and women's rights. And it's a way of controlling us. And controlling young women. And so I think that when those battles are won, like the public stadium and when people like, and to their credit FIFA really step in and force those changes or in Afghanistan, where they really forced there to be a women's team and then forced out people who, men who were abusing the girls on the team and other, you know, the IOC forced in 2012 London teams to bring women, you had to have female athletes.

Maria Bobenrieth (29m 50s):

Like these things are critical for women's rights. And I think that that's really a key starting point, but most of what we work with, isn't at that level. Mostly we work with, really communities where actually, when you go and talk to people as to why they don't want girls to play sport, or they're nervous about it, and this means, you know, parents, imams, priests, nuns, whoever, the school teachers, the school masters. Then when you have conversations, what you really discover is that everyone wants the best for their kids. I've never, ever met a parent who didn't want the best for their kids. And they are either have misinformation. So there's a lot of misinformation about girls participating in sports, or they're genuinely afraid for the right reasons. There's no female coaches.

Maria Bobenrieth (30m 30s):

There's no female supervision. Getting to the field, puts them at danger. And then there's the real, real challenge of unpaid care. Meaning that those girls need to watch their siblings. And so you combine all these things. And what you really see is, again, what I said in the beginning, if we start to pick these things off one at a time. So in Iran, those brave women, who, you know, just fought for a basic right to get in a stadium and cheer on their team, those doors, it's very hard to close those doors once they open. And I think that's also part of the fear.

Sue Anstiss (31m 2s):

You mentioned FIFA there, and obviously making huge advances in terms of gender reform in recent years, I know you along with women like Moya Dodd, have certainly played a really huge part in terms of that progress, but how have things changed, do you think in the last decade or so?

Maria Bobenrieth (31m 17s):

Well, you know, I can't even put my name in the same sentence with Moya Dodd, in terms of the bravery of, you know, she's one of my sheroes. I mean, she has been in the lion's den and she does it in the nicest, like, kindest, with that Australian accent that you don't even know what's happened before it's happened to you. But Moya is one of the bravest people, I know. I mean, she has really, with the level of integrity and kindness and understanding, and she's a great listener, you know. But I think over time what's happened is that the world has moved, and the accountability has moved. And while it's really imperfect in many places, I do think that the leadership of those organizations is really understanding the benefits actually, of having the diversity, the benefits of the growth and explosion of women's football.

Maria Bobenrieth (32m 1s):

Like that's where the, a lot of the growth is coming for at national level. If you just look at the country that I live in now, my adopted country of the Netherlands, when I came to the Netherlands, there was very little money going into women's football, which is crazy. Because one of the disparities that we look at, which is really interesting is for a long time, we looked at national ranking of men's and women's teams, and saw that, for example, the Netherlands men would be ranked first or second, but the women's team would be ranked 20th. It was also true in the UK for a while. And it's still true of many of the Latin American countries. And then you can really see sexism in sports, because it means that they're not investing. It doesn't mean that the women aren't good athletes, if you have a system already that's producing championship men's teams, there's no reason you can't build a parallel system for women.

Maria Bobenrieth (32m 46s):

But the investment and the will isn't there. And I came to the Netherlands and I was shocked coming from the United States, which is one of the few countries where the women's team is really high and the men's team barely made it to the, it was seen as a women's game. So I came to the Netherlands and I was, you know, working at Nike. And that's one of the first places I went to was the KNVB. And to our team at Nike who was working in football, it was a huge investment. Nike sponsored the Dutch national team. And they were like football? Women don't play football here. Real women play hockey. Only, you know, only lesbians play football. Like why would we invest in football when our hockey team does like that's considered. So there were two elements, I think it played, or several.

Maria Bobenrieth (33m 26s):

There was just flat out misogyny. There was definitely homophobia. And then there's a really class aspect of football, which is, you know, in many places, it's really been traditionally more of a working-class sport. Like even the young men that come up through it. And so, yeah, that was really evident. And that has changed. There have been pioneers, like [inaudible] who's on our board, you know, the first Dutch coach who really got the women, once they start winning, everybody forgets about everything they believed. And this is one thing we've seen. Nationalism, Trump's sexism every single time. So it doesn't matter where it is, you know, put your women and have them win a medal or have them do well on something. You can look at India, the gold medals have come from, you know, women. And then all of a sudden, everyone forgets everything and gets behind that.

Maria Bobenrieth (34m 8s):

And so once the Dutch women started doing well, now they fill stadiums. People are kind of tired of the entitlement in some cases, the brattiness, or I don't know, you know, men's sports and now the women's team has held up as this, yeah. And people love, love to watch them play.

Sue Anstiss (34m 24s):

I love that phrase, nationalism Trump's sexism, every time, I'm going to use that. I find myself using that in the future, I'm sure. That's so true. Isn't it to articulate it in that way. You've mentioned, I guess how much we empower, however much we empower women and girls in sport and physical activity. Ultimately in many societies it's men, that will be the gatekeepers. So can you just share some of the best examples you've seen of how sport can be used to engage men and boys in those kind of narratives and actions around the rights of women and girls?

Maria Bobenrieth (34m 54s):

Yeah. Interestingly, actually I would say for us, and again, we're working in community sports, right? For us, often the mothers are the hardest gatekeepers, because they really want their daughters to have a good future. And they do see sport as a dangerous place where it will make them, I would say less marriageable or whatever. So it's an interesting perception. Often sport is a language that men and boys really understand well. So the love of sport actually is a shared interest. That for, I would say most of the time when we have conversations with men, they really get it. Like, you know, if you say to them, you know, how much you love football and how crazy you are about it, they get it. Like that addiction and passion. Where it gets touchy is if there's limited resources, right? So if you go and there's, you know, one pitch or one ball, and then you get into the challenge of who gets access to that and who, you know, who has the right to that?

Maria Bobenrieth (35m 41s):

So it is, I think, one of my favorite stories is we're working in Egypt and it was one of, after one of the earthquakes there. And actually, there was just a whole lot, when women are in purdah, when they can't leave the house, it's already hard. But when you have something like an earthquake and then, you know, what is normally something that hopefully looks like a bit of a garden and some sun, and now your intense, women cannot leave those areas. And many, many years ago, when we first started, what we saw was the levels of depression for girls and women was just huge. They just they're, and also inhumanitarian challenges, and particularly in some of the camps, there just isn't enough space. And so who gets access to that space?

Maria Bobenrieth (36m 23s):

It will be boys. And so there's no place for girls to play. And in that program, what happened was the imam really saw that women were, you know, he was seeing terrible depression. And so with the local community, there was a kind of conversation about this. And so there was a tent set up, where the girls could play and then everybody could hear them screaming and yelling. And people like, of course, got suspicious. What are they doing in there? You know, like it just, they were having fun. Like the idea of girls and women having fun was, you know, somehow insulting to some of the men in that community. But the parents, whose girls were in the program, immediately saw the changes. And so the imam decided that, and this was really a great story.

Maria Bobenrieth (37m 6s):

They decided that we needed to get a bus and take the girls up into the mountains, away from the camp, to kind of prevent this. And he went went because he did, he wanted to see, you know, really also I think, wanted to see what was going on. Came back from that trip said, you know, every Friday, he's just telling people, this is really good for our community. You know, our girls and women, like he saw it. And so I think it's about experiencing it. And often the thing about sports is when we have programs, we always invite the families. We always invite the fathers, the brothers. And when they see what's happening, when they get the sense of it, when they see the joy, it's not very hard. This is a very, very easy sell. You know, there's no, often no discussion.

Maria Bobenrieth (37m 48s):

I've never, ever, we have worked in some really interesting places in terms of restrictions for women. I've never worked at a situation where eventually yes, sometimes we have to make it safe. So, you know, men can't get in. There's somethings you have to take into consideration, but I've never, never had someone who isn't a convert once they've actually physically seen it.

Sue Anstiss (38m 8s):

Fantastic. I've heard you reference that Women Win has an adopted model of successful failure. Can you tell me a little bit more about what you mean by that?

Maria Bobenrieth (38m 17s):

Oh yeah. No, it's our mantra. We have to fail every day. I mean, you know, our commitment here is if we're not failing, we're not doing enough. I mean, this, the challenge for adolescent girls is too big. And so we really, early on, decided that we would have a very agile way of working, which is fail fast, fail hard, fix it and do something else. And I mean, this is starting with a, do no harm context is not to be like crazy cowboyish, you know, doing crazy stuff. But we really, really have to be willing, to work on the edges. You know, sport is an edge and we have to be willing to take some risks and not endanger anybody. But at the same time, not be afraid. Like I said, to sit down and talk to the people in the communities who are most vehemently against it, to listen to them, to go to places where, yeah, it doesn't seem like it should be the first priority.

Maria Bobenrieth (39m 5s):

And sometimes in our best attempts, they fall short. And then we come back and think, okay, we need to do something else here, because that didn't work. So what went wrong? And how do we adapt and adjust? So everything we've learned, all the games we have, the methodologies. And we take some pretty excellent partners in this, you know, with us, which is people who are experts in many areas around sport.

Sue Anstiss (39m 30s):

In terms of COVID, how is that impacting your work and the future for this space?

Maria Bobenrieth (39m 38s):

Well, so yeah, this is one of our big questions. You know, what is the future of sports and particularly sports and the alignment of sports and girls and women's rights? And I think it's a very, very deep question, we will have to ask ourselves about, you know, the scenarios. There's kind of four scenarios that'll happen. We hoped in the beginning, there would be a gradual recovery and that we would keep the gains that we've made, because we've really had some, as you know, like better than most people we've had some really hard-fought gains. The second scenario was that you know, we would do fits and starts, which is more what we've seen around the world. That people would be able to start playing in the Netherlands. You know, now if under 18 you can continue to play sports, over 18 you can't. So there's access questions and all of that.

Maria Bobenrieth (40m 20s):

The third is really what has happened in many places, the perfect storm, where the pandemic has brought about a social political, economic, and health crisis. And so, you know, it's become very challenging to do anything. And then we are really optimistic and opting for the great correction. You know, what we believe is, again, despite whatever failures we may have, we cannot accept to go 10 years back. We cannot. When the schools open and when there is, you know, again, spaces opening, we cannot have girls go back to staying home and unpaid care. And because of the economic crisis, all of these things are a challenge. So a couple of things we've really been focusing on, which is being very realistic and saying, okay, one of the key areas that is my, our new passion is girls that are either institutionalized or girls or teen moms.

Maria Bobenrieth (41m 6s):

So even in our own programs, if you get pregnant as a teen, the chances are that we can't, you know, the programs we work with won't accommodate you. And in many places it'll be punitive. You'll have to leave the program, yet, we really believe teen moms need access. So we have a program in Kenya that, you know, really focuses on teen moms. The reality, is hard as this is, is that nine months from now, we will see teen pregnancies on the rise. And so addressing those things, I think we can be really optimistic that this generation of young women, you know, have seen gains that they're not going to go back to. And really when you look at the Olympics and all of these events that are happening, I think there's enough strength to say, you know, women's sports needs to be on equal part, as we rebuild, let's rebuild better. Let's address some of the things that weren't that great to begin with.

Maria Bobenrieth (41m 48s):

And I can imagine in places like the UK and some of the communities that, you know, are the least served communities, if this is going to be a strategy, then let's go after the boys and the girls that we need to get out of the house. And back into mental health, I think is one of the areas we see a huge need. Most of the young people that are going to come out of this, especially girls are going to be traumatized in one way or the other. And we got to get them off screens. And we got to get them into the pitches. So let's make sport fun for them. That's the big thing we're really looking at adapting, you know, our games and everything else. So that there's joy back in. And joy, I think will be the way back.

Sue Anstiss (42m 23s):

So finally, in closing, you clearly worked on so many incredible programs globally with many partners. If you had to just share a couple of projects that most inspire you today, what might they be?

Maria Bobenrieth (42m 35s):

Funny, you say that. So my team only allows me every year to work on one actual program. So I always get to pick my favorites. And they actually, they're sometimes driven by places I've never been, but there are three programs right now that are absolutely fascinating to me. One is one of our partners [inaudible] in Argentina. It's really a bunch of incredible feminists, who've been fighting, feminists who bridge this divide of football and women's rights, in a country where people are as you know, crazy football mad, but the rights of women to play football have been just marginalized forever. And then they also filled a stadium.

Maria Bobenrieth (43m 15s):

I think I said this earlier. 55,000 for national women's game, 55,000 women wearing green handkerchiefs, which were for abortion rights. And so they they've taken it to another level in terms of political. They work in [inaudible], you know, which is a community that's quite underserved. And they've just been there for 15 years, working with the community to address some of the issues. So that's just, you know, I can't wait to go there also, who wouldn't want to go to Buenos Aire, but those guys, I've seen the program. It's phenomenal. We, this year have started a dialogue with FIMI. It's indigenous women's fund. And really having a conversation about how to support FIMI and work with FIMI.

Maria Bobenrieth (43m 56s):

They have an interesting outlook on sport as a way to reclaim societal customs and culture. And girls in indigenous communities have been really marginalized out of even indigenous games in the US and Canada. Lacrosse is a very big sport. It's traditionally an indigenous sport of, you know, first nations, native Americans, but girls were forbidden from playing. And in many places, there are so many indigenous games. And so one of the programs, one of the women at FIMI told us about, is a program in Nicaragua, where there is a community leader, who teaches boys and girls how to make arrows. And so they do archery, but it's all brought through how to really reclaim their culture and reclaim their heritage. And so we have this dream of one day working with FIMI to, you know, think about indigenous women's games or something like that, or just really, really think about a kind of a different aspect.

Maria Bobenrieth (44m 45s):

And then the third program that I dearly really respect and love is there's, you know, a lot of activism happening around sport. And I think in particular, adolescent girls in Russia, right now. And the Russian republics. And so, yeah, I think that, again, the idea of the events that are happening in all of the work that's being done around human rights, those are the programs that really inspire me. Like we talked earlier about, you know, being brave and making mistakes. But if you look at all of those areas, that there's so much potential that we haven't even started to untap yet.