Words by:  Alice O'Brien
Art by:  Kenneth Toh

I have only a few words to say: Sport is a place for men. That, right there, is the sentence I messaged my mum after completing my final day of a three-month-long internship at a sports media outlet.

I haven’t stepped foot into one since.

I don’t consider it a career-defining moment. After all, my career right now mostly consists of frantically finishing university essays and a minuscule number of publications. However, it was defining in the sense that I FELT I was a woman.

Normally, when I embrace my identity as a woman, I love it. For me, this means moments with my girlfriends on the couch, sipping wine or the pure joy that comes with the last day of my period when I can finally wear a white skirt. It’s a beautiful feeling and a feeling that represents my friendship with femininity.

(For the sake of anonymity, I shall name the outlet X)

I still remember my first day at X.
I stood in the mirror looking down at my black heels, sleek brown skirt and white button-up, and I thought…god, I look old.
But after that first day, when I stood in the mirror again, same outfit, same heels, I thought…god, what the fuck.

What happened between my leaving and coming back from X was this:

The entire office of workers, every single one at every single desk, was a man. Men in suits. Men in shirts. Men in jumpers. Men. Everywhere I looked.

At that specific moment, I’d never been more aware of my tits. And for once it wasn’t because I was thinking, damn the tits are titttting in this top, but rather I wanted them to disappear.

I hated it. I hated that I was the only woman AND on top of that, I was just the intern.

And so, it began.

The constant feelings of being minuscule, overlooked, judged, fearful, embarrassed … hopeless. The constant feelings that stayed with me every single day I was at X. It was isolating and lonely.
I know men and women can be friends, I know this, and the men in the office were never unkind. But, the sports media industry is predominantly male. I knew that going in; it’s a well-known fact. Yet, for the first time, I actually felt the weight of it.

It’s more than just realising men surround you, it’s realising you’re in a space designed and maintained for men. It’s been true for centuries, on and off the field.

I felt out of place. Not because I couldn’t keep up with the work (oh I was GOOD … not to brag), but because in every direction I looked, X was a platform of continuity of male importance. The shows had male hosts. The games aired were male-dominated. Even the air smelt of African Lynxx.

This is not a piece about defiance.
It’s not about rising against the odds.
It’s not about being strong or embracing who you are.

This is a piece about losing faith under the weight of an internalised normality. A silent scream from a scared 21-year-old girl forced to embody defiance every day at that internship. I did not choose that. I did not want that. But by showing up every day, I chose to defy the normality of male dominance in sports.

Fuck that I had to do that in 2024. Fuck X for not employing women. Fuck the sports world for making women invisible. Fuck the goddam patriarchy.

After that experience, deep down, a part of me will always see sport as a place for men. But, with time comes clarity and with clarity comes realisation.
A realisation that every woman in the sports media landscape is invisibly holding hands, quietly brushing tears of frustrations as they wake each day and go to work bearing this weight of defiance.