Happy international women’s day

Current Superpesis (Naisten) champions Jyväskylän Kirittäret
Photograph from Kirittäret Facebook (c) Jyväskylän Kirittäret 2019

To celebrate International Women’s Day I decided to write this post. Whilst my blog focuses on the men’s Superpesis, I am a big fan of the women’s game too - sadly the team I support disbanded their women’s team some time ago, so I have mainly followed the men’s game. Due to my many competing demands on my time, I decided just to focus on the men’s game for the blog; however it is important to recognise and promote the women’s game too.

Popularity of women’s sport

For decades (if not longer) women’s sport in general has taken a back seat to men’s and in some cases (such as the Football Association in England) been purposefully oppressed. In the modern age, many sports are playing “catch up” when it comes to promoting a women’s competition. Last year saw the creation of the Women’s Super League in Rugby League for example, which helped to boost equality and publicity in the game, even though Rugby League has been a competitive sport since its split with what is now known as Rugby Union in 1895. Pesäpallo on the other hand has a long history of equality and inclusion in the sport, which is one of the reasons why I am so passionate about it.

Women in pesäpallo

Unlike some sports, women have been part of pesäpallo from its early stages, with the first national women’s championship being held in 1931. The championship has been held every year, except during the Second World War, with some of the sport’s greatest names emerging. In 2012, to mark the 90th year of the sport, the Pesäpalloliito (Pesäpallo association) inducted 20 names into a Hall of Fame. In 2014 5 more names were added. Amongst those inducted are 5 women - as equals in the sport, alongside their male counterparts. I am not aware of any other sport having such a system and often female athletes and players have a separate system of recognition for their achievements (if at all). Such names as Seija Happonen, Päivi Ikola, Tuula Rantanen, Anja Rummukainen and Tuula Salonen are an inspiration to budding Pesis players, irrespective of their gender. To honour all of the players in the hall of fame I will be writing a post for each person, so I will not go into details here at this time.

Conclusions

One of the things that inspires me is how the women’s and men’s game attracts strong support and equal exposure in terms of game coverage. I am not aware of any other sport that has such an arrangement with the media and it is a credit to Ruutu that this is the case. The closest sport that has a solid women’s game and coverage that springs to my mind is Cricket, in particular the women’s Big Bash League (T20) in Australia. With my background steeped in cricket in the North of England, I fondly remember women’s cricket being a step ahead of other sports and wondered why other sports didn’t recognise gender equality. Today I am pleased to see the many advances in promoting women in sport, but sadly many sports do not give equal recognition or credit to women. In my opinion, pesäpallo is far ahead of many other sports.

As international women’s day celebrates and recognises the achievements of women across the globe, Melbourne was host to the T20 women’s World Cup, an international cricket tournament that has gained a huge following (in particular in Australia) over the last few years. The final was played between Australia and India and displayed some world class cricket and athleticism - truly an inspiration to women around the world. In 2 weeks time Pori will host the semi finals of the women’s Halli-SM tournament; I for one cannot wait to see the teams in action and look forward to the season ahead.

Wishing all women around the globe a happy women’s day.