Women who cry wolf

I understand the lengths these women will go to to be seen with footballers - to be invited to awards nights and have their picture in the paper - but also to sleep with footballers. Anecdotally, I have heard from two independent sources of a group of women whose sole aim is to work their way up until they reach the Brownlow medallist.

In the absence of all facts in October last year, it was only ever fair to assume that both parties were as intoxicated as each other, and I fail to see why the word of an intoxicated woman in a compromised situation was more valid than the word of an intoxicated man in that same situation.

It seems that a sportsman’s side of the story is as good as illegitimate based on the very fact that he is a man.

The commentary revealed a gross imbalance between the believability of a man’s word against a woman’s in certain situations. However, this belief is itself surely rooted in a distorted form of sexism.

If we are to believe women over men in sexual context, we are subscribing to the view that men are in fact wild beasts who must satiate their physical urges and that women are no more than unwitting victims who haplessly fall into their hands.

We ignore that women too are powerful and have the agency and ability to harm men. Ask any male teacher unfairly accused of assault by a teenage girl with an agenda - and there have been many. These men lose respect, perhaps their career, and the stink of suspicion, even when their names are cleared, will never really go away.

There is another issue at play here. We elevate sportsmen (but not sportswomen) to a status resembling divinity. Really, they are ordinary young men with an extraordinary aptitude for physical strength, speed and agility.

Many are not yet educated or have not worked a job in the ‘real world’ before finding themselves edified by men and women alike. The recent misbehaviour of four St Kilda players while in New Zealand epitomises this very issue.

None of this justifies any kind of violence, sexual or otherwise. In fact it shows that there remains an issue in the AFL, one that is not yet resolved.

However, it is dangerous to ignore women’s agency or to assume that women are always victims in cases of alleged sexual misconduct. This is perverted feminism at its very worst.