It is thoughts and behaviours that portray a sense of entitlement over the female gender. It is an attitude of supremacy, and it is unnecessary and grates on the people who are exposed to it. Most don’t feel able to challenge because of culture or upbringing, but they experience it as abrasive at best and abusive at worst.

Lots of behaviours are unconscious and are replications of learned behaviours. Misogyny has existed for centuries, and some men have a vested interest in maintaining that archetype and structure. They expect to inherit the same level of masculine entitlements as men had in previous generations and seek to punish those that would attempt to diminish their ‘rights’.

Some concessions are permitted, and token females are ‘allowed’ to succeed but most display masculine characteristics of aggression and ruthlessness to an even greater degree than men. They are either 'patronised or tolerated' and are often prone to take the fall for others’ failures. Glass ceilings exist because they were put there by men to keep women ‘in their place.’ Even the use of such language is pervasively male supremacy dominated.

Women who challenge this are labelled as ‘rabid feminists’ which is clearly derogatory.

At Red Kite we are working to develop a more tolerant and skill-based society which is authentic, and merit based. We believe in ‘doing with’, ‘being with’ and ‘supporting’ as opposed to ‘doing to’ ‘telling’ and ‘dictating to’. Our mantra is ‘nothing about me without me’ and this serves us well in ensuring that we don’t overstep our boundaries. We celebrate difference and diversity and embrace humanity in all it’s forms but we remain vigilant and cognisant that for generations females have been denigrated for having and expressing opinions and 'masculine' skill sets so that they need extra encouragement to display those skills and attributes now. We know that equality doesn’t mean treating everybody of all genders the same, it means being sensitive to differences and difficulties and levelling the playing field for all players especially those who have been told for generations that it’s unladylike to even consider playing ball at all!