I wonder if Ntambi Ravele, the outgoing Premier Soccer League (PSL) marketing chief, is aware of the number of times she has said that ”leadership is not about whether one is a man or a woman, but about what he or she can deliver”.
If it is not a personal mantra, it should be. It’s certainly firmly embedded in her psyche.
Ravele is probably best known for her work at the fishbowl that is the PSL. She has been a successful sports administrator, but her interests do not centre on sport alone. She is a determined and active promoter of women’s rights on and off the sports fields.
Sport has always played a major role in her life. Ravele grew up in Chiawelo, Soweto, close to a playground that had a basketball court, and she played football with boys in the street.
At high school she was involved in the management of her school sports teams and it seemed only logical that, when she decided to study further, she chose to become a physical education teacher.
Ravele says she enjoyed her work at the PSL and commanded respect from her colleagues, but she has decided that it is time to change focus. From next month she will be putting her life experience as a sportswoman, teacher and marketer into a business venture that she hopes will benefit struggling sports organisations, and women’s sports in particular.
She says the workplace is an extension of the society. ”Like any other sector, women are not given a chance to show what they can do. There is a stereotype that sport is just about games, [it is] not [regarded] as a business or a career.
”When women are given opportunities, often they are not given enough support. They are given positions to fulfil things like employment equity and to be politically correct, so that the companies can tell people ‘we have women in high positions’. This does not happen only in football, it happens in sport in general.”
Ravele is a former chairperson of Women and Sport South Africa and helped found the Women and Sport South Africa project while she was still employed by the Department of Sport and Recreation. She famously and successfully campaigned against compulsory gender testing during the All Africa Games held in South Africa and against a clause in the South African Boxing Act barring women from taking part in the sport.
She says gender prejudice makes it almost impossible for women to excel in sport, either as players or administrators.
Ravele feels strongly that the media do not help and this needs to change. She gives as an example a newspaper caption that read ”game, match and fat” — instead of game, set and match — referring to the fact that Monica Seles had put on some weight.
Such taglines create the impression that girls have to be ”perfect” to participate in sports and this discourages those who do not see themselves that way, she says.
”When I was with netball, we also complained about photographers who took pictures that focused on the body of an athlete rather than what she was doing.”
Ravele says another problem is that sporting facilities are hardly ever women-friendly or cater to their concerns.
”These days many gyms have facilities where people can leave their children while they train. Because of that, more women, who otherwise would not be training, are able to.”
But, she says, sports facilities don’t offer this option. Many women who have children have to leave their children with a babysitter while they train. Sometimes the sitter lives far from the sports facility and the mother has to drive long distances.
She says many women are scared to leave their children in the care of others because they fear their kids might become victims of sexual abuse.
”These are very real concerns for most women,” she says. ”You find that many facilities don’t have security or managers. That is why parents don’t want their children playing too far away from them. They want them close by.”
Ravele believes that many girls don’t get the same support from their families as their brothers do. She says fathers are often able to go out and support their sons, while mothers are holed up with domestic duties.
It comes as no surprise to learn that if Ravele were the chairperson of a parliamentary committee on sport, she would campaign for gender quotas, much as the present incumbent is doing for race.
”When I worked at the Department of Sport, the then-minister Steve Tshwete wanted us to form a pressure group to monitor whether women were adequately represented in sport.” She says the group was starting to make its mark, but crumbled soon after the minister died.
”People are not feeling the pressure any more. In business and in politics people are talking about quotas. If we had kept the pace [of Tshwete’s drive], we would be talking a different language about sport.”