Sexism in Refereeing

Disclaimers:
a) I write this as someone who experiences a lot of life as a woman. Although I have a non-binary gender identity, I feel this is irrelevant here as I present in a feminine way and I am AFAB.
b) As this is written from the perspective of a cis(ish) woman, I can't say that it encompasses the experiences of trans women who referee this sport. It may be that a lot is the same, but I don't want to speak for that demographic.
c) This is not written to be an accusation against anyone specific in this community, especially not the hard working referees and RDT people we have. This problem is systemic from society and I believe largely inherited from other sports.

Quidditch, you have a sexism problem.

This problem extends further than the underutilisation of female and AFAB players to an area I feel is often overlooked partially because there are too few of us overall - refereeing. Referees in general don't seem to talk about their experiences that much (part of the reason for me starting this blog) so I think this will be fairly new information to a lot of you; I apologise if you are one of the people I have had this rant to already.

First, let me address the facts. This season, by the numbers, AFAB and/or female referees make up approximately 33% of the total qualified referees and the same proportion of head referees. However, a number of those only qualified recently and missed the biggest tournament of the UK season, BQC. This may not sound too awful, especially as it is much the same proportion as Team UK for the number of female players, but with refereeing AFAB people aren't so much fighting the inherent bias of our society towards encouraging boys into sports and not girls. If anything, we should have more qualified AFAB referees, as girls are often told they are better at exams. Either way, I believe that referees in quidditch should represent the population - using the binary for ease of maths, that would make it a 50:50 split. We are a long way off from that.

The problem gets worse when you consider who the 'best' referees are. If you attended Whiteknights you might have heard people talking about their ideal referee teams with themselves as the head referee: this was a discussion I started to see just how many AFAB/female people would be picked. And whilst the 'non-male' proportion was fairly large, it was dominated by AMAB people. I must admit that my own dream referee team is far from the 50:50 split I talked about above, and I start with the distinct advantage of actually being AFAB. This all generally points to the fact that currently, most of the best referees in the country are AMAB, across all types. But why?

I'm going to try and answer that question by detailing the direct impacts sexism has had on me over the two seasons I have refereed in this sport.

When I referee someone for the first time, especially someone with a big personality, they will try to test me. These personalities are almost always male, and definitely bigger than me. And the tactic a few of them use to see how I bear up under pressure? Intimidation. It doesn't happen often, but I have had people physically assert themselves over me to try and change a call. Pro tip: it won't work, I'll still give you a card, and if you try anything else I will put your butt on the floor. But would they really try that if I wasn't a woman? Whether or not they try to intimidate me, why do they feel they have the right to question my authority on pitch? I shouldn't have to prove myself.

I'm pretty loud as a referee. When I raise or project my voice, it is fairly high pitched. This is because my larynx hasn't seen much testosterone in its life, and I have no control over this. However, it does mean that I'm often accused of sounding angry and or upset when all I'm being is loud. This often leads to people misinterpreting what I'm trying to say, simply because society has imposed that an AFAB person cannot be loud without being shrill, and must therefore be being negative. Obviously this is compounded if I've had a long day and my voice breaks - the same is unlikely to be said of an AMAB referee. Oh, and I also have to try even harder to be loud because I'm starting closer to the ground, so my words don't go over everyone's heads (literally, not metaphorically).

There's also this expectation from players that because I'm female, I'm less likely to give cards. So when I do - because there's no talking your way out of cards with me, only into them - I'm seen as being excessively harsh. Last season I was definitely on the harsh end of the spectrum, sure, but not to the extent I was accused. Referees this season with similar track records aren't mocked as much as I was last season, it is simply attributed to them being new, not their gender. I don't think they should be mocked, far from it - I just wish I hadn't been.

When I was first starting out, there were very few other referees to learn from. This meant that developing a style was very much trial and error - I can't referee like someone who is 6ft tall because I am not 6ft tall. I have to move differently, I have to stand in a different place, I have to conduct myself differently. Most of the guides and advice seems to be written by 6ft people, too. Also, said guides don't cover what you should do if someone head and shoulders above you, with significantly more weight behind them, is kicking off on your pitch. Dealing with male violence as a woman is a lot different to dealing with it as a man. Though that said, I've also had people overly concerned trying to 'rescue' me from situations I had completely under control as a ref - even though it comes with the best intentions, still sexism.

One of the main things referees have to be is confident. I am confident, but I feel I have to overassert this from time to time to convince other people that I do know what I'm doing. I have to compensate for my lack of stature with a confident presence. But I have to do this in a way which won't get me one of my most hated labels: bossy. So I counter this with a healthy dose of humour and lightness, and I purposefully send myself up occasionally to make sure I avoid being seen as having a negative attitude. This is not something I want to have to do. But captains generally are much happier with my performance as a referee if I smile and laugh at appropriate moments, even if it is not as good technically as a comparable game where I was putting less effort into being a walking bag of positivity.

So what we have here are a number of factors which could, I suppose, affect all referees. However, they match up very well with issues I have experienced in other areas of my life which were specifically there because I am a woman. I experience it as sexism. It is certainly only AFAB people who come up to me at tournaments and tell me that they wish they could referee, but they aren't sure they could handle x situation or x person like I did. Yes it's a nice compliment in some ways that I dealt with it, but why should I have to come up against that situation in the first place? The fact that other women are being put off because they see men trying to use their size or sex or whatever to get out of a penalty says a lot.

Changing track a little, I want to address the issue of the gender balance in referee teams for big games - finals, semifinals. Games where you have essentially the entirety of a tournaments' referees at your disposal, save for conflicts of interest. I think a lot of time tournament directors pick the first referees that come to mind, and yes generally this is going to get a good referee team. I'm certainly not going to advocate giving the BQC final to anyone but the best head referee. However, I think that assistant and snitch referee positions are unfairly and disproportionately given to AMAB people, simply because there are more of them. As an AFAB person, I find it disheartening when I see a referee team made up entirely of AMAB people. Quidditch should be entirely mixed gender, and there are plenty of AFAB assistant and snitch referees who are good enough for semifinal level games (most of them are nowhere near as high pressure as BQC) but don't get the experience, and aren't given the confidence to ask because they only ever see AMAB people doing those roles. I'm obnoxious enough to insist I assistant referee games when there aren't conflicts of interest, but not everyone is, and they shouldn't have to be.

The proportion of top-level referees being AFAB should be the same as the overall proportion of referees being AFAB. This isn't currently the case, certainly if you look at the past few tournaments.

I know that these things are going to take time to change. The culture around how people talk to referees in general needs improvement, and with any luck addressing issues of sexism that I covered above can be done at the same time. However, I think that as a community we need to encourage more female players to referee - I think there are more people interested than people realise, but the dominance of 'big male voices' can put them off. We need to give them chances to excel, by not assuming that they are going to be worse than their male counterparts simply because they don't play the sport as physically. We need to improve our referee resources to be more inclusive of all people trying to referee, and we need to recognise the barriers society has created which females need to jump over to get into refereeing.

Having more female referees in the pool will also increase the number of role models an aspiring referee has - it's so much easier to get into something when you see lots of people you can relate to doing it. Currently I'm one of very few AFAB referees given top-level games, so lots of people have to look up to (or down to...) me, and the way I do things isn't going to suit everyone, just like my role models didn't provide me with all that I needed to become the referee I am (that said, please don't snitch referee like I do, I'm not a great snitch referee, there are far better people out there).

I hope I haven't scared anyone off with what I've written above. I've refereed a lot of games for a lot of teams, and instances that really affect me are pretty few and far between. Generally speaking, the quidditch community is very good at not being openly sexist - what sexism occurs is deeply ingrained from society and I don't think stems from any belief that there is a superior sex. But it's something to be aware of for everyone. I hope that I can provide resources on this blog that help someone improve their refereeing, or give someone perspective on why referees act the way they do, or maybe even give someone the push to take up the striped shirt. And I hope that I can do it in a way which supports everyone equally.

If you have any thoughts on this topic that you'd like to discuss with me directly, please get in touch!