It is never the victim's fault

I'm still functioning and my life is not over by any means, but I will never ever forget this. Whenever I think (about it), I just want to spit, it's just disgusting, absolute(ly) disgusting … (I have) trouble looking in the mirror because (I) feel dirty.

And if we let this incident and others like it slide because of the amount of time that has passed, we will fail to acknowledge the appalling pattern of sexual assaults across the football codes. Some of these are:

• 2004: Bulldogs players accused of gang rape;
• 2008: Broncos players accused of rape;
• 2009: Sam Newman's disgraceful treatment of Caroline Wilson on The Footy Show;
• 2009: NRL's Greg Bird's glassing of his girlfriend's face during an argument;
• 2009: reports that a soccer player committed a sexual act with a 13-year-old girl;
• 2009: a stripper being used to "stir up" an AFL Amateur Football team.

Myth No. 3: There's no point in speaking out in support of the victim.

Mia Freedman tackled this issue eloquently in her blog post recently. When a journalist asked her to comment on the scandal, her reflex was to go the "no comment" route, because once before, when she had criticised the misogynistic culture of the NRL on the Today Show, she had met with aggressive abuse from football fans.

But then, I thought about it. And I thought about the brave women who came forward on Four Corners to tell their stories. I thought about female sports journalists like Rebecca Wilson and Carolyn Wilson who have repeatedly written passionately and courageously about the issue. And I thought about Tracey Grimshaw who, on ACA the night before her interview with Matty Johns, spoke out stridently condemning him and the culture that could allow such a thing to take place, as well as the off-hand way it was handled by her colleagues at The Footy Show during Matty Johns' public apology last week.

And I thought to myself, THIS [her fear of speaking out] is why nothing ever changes. THIS is why no NRL player has ever been convicted. THIS is why this disgusting behaviour has been allowed to continue behind closed doors for so many years … And I thought about how much I admire all those women for standing up and making their voices heard. And I was ashamed that I was thinking of staying silent.

I encourage every one of us to also pick our words carefully when discussing this topic. The semantics really do matter. Jill Singer, in her Sun Herald opinion piece "Disgraceful League of Their Own", writes:

Group sex. Despite the fallout from the NRL sex scandal, this expression is still invariably being used to describe the behaviour of the disgraced Matthew Johns and accomplices. How could any reasonable person use such a relatively benign term regarding the degradation and trauma caused to a teenage girl by a conga line of hulking, rutting men? The calculatedly mild language being used in discussion about the behaviour of these sportsmen helps explain a culture that allows the sexual assault of women to thrive.

Myth No. 4: Misogyny is simply a part of male sports, there's nothing we can do about it.

Dr Easteal acknowledges that there is indeed a culture of misogyny inherent in many Australian male dominated sports:

Misogyny is ... derived from the emphasis upon aggression in the enculturation of males which is manifested in the type of sports which are popular. Males are more comfortable with males, they tend to socialise and communicate at a non-intimate level with other men, and they are apt to have a low regard for females. The latter is evidenced by both the type of verbal comments directed at women and the high frequency of physical violence toward female partners that has been well-documented (Mugford 1989).

The NRL admits too there are massive problems within the code and have invested over $1 million in an attempt to re-educate players. Many would argue that this is too little too late and that a firmer hand needs to be taken with players who behave in a manner that is clearly unbecoming of the sport. Brisbane chief executive Bruno Cullen publicly acknowledged that it is time to get serious: "I don't want him (Matthew Johns) to be victimised or ostracised - I don't want to cost him his job - but from a rugby league perspective, and a result of the stories that have come out, Matthew Johns is the wrong person to be any sort of face of rugby league whether that be on the Footy Show, Channel Nine or the NRL, whoever."

There are plenty of things we can all do too to help bring about change.

For starters, New South Wales Government Primary schools have put the NRL on notice: they will no longer host visits for players until the league takes decisive action to curb the problems that are plaguing the sport. Dr Dan White, The Executive Director of Catholic Education, Sydney Diocese, has taken a particularly firm, and admirable, stand: "People responsible for rugby league have to realise that organisations like ourselves are concerned that if this sort of behaviour goes on in the future we have to review our association with the code or club concerned ... Any sport not in keeping with the ethos and values of our school system over the long term runs the risk of being discontinued as the preferred sport in our schools."