Every female member of St Kilda's staff is undertaking an empowerment course as the club seeks to encourage women to rise into senior positions at Seaford and within the broader football community.
While still smarting from being overlooked for one of eight AFL women's teams for the inaugural competition starting early next year, the Saints have continued to try to advance the cause of women within their organisation. All of the more than 30 women on the club's books are involved in the program – which involves mentoring, workbooks and an online-learning component. The three-month program started this month. The pro-female push is part of the club's broader focus on diversity, an ideology that led the Saints to pioneer the AFL's first gay pride game against Sydney in August. St Kilda were the first club to appoint a woman on their coaching staff, signing Peta Searle in 2014.
Emmeline McIllree – the club's general manager of customer, people and performance – said the program aimed to make women feel they belonged. "You're coming into a male-dominated industry and made to feel sometimes like you don't fit and that you've got to change," she said.
"And I guess what this is saying to us is that it's not for us to actually change, we're not broken.
"It's about giving females the skills to speak up and ask what they're entitled to."
The Saints are one of several Victorian clubs taking steps to promote gender equality. Collingwood put eight of its female staff members through a women's leadership program this year, and plan to do so again in 2017. North Melbourne last month announced they had joined forces with the Victorian government in a new workplace equality and respect project, while Richmond have helped fund a gender equity research project. Essendon have a diversity working group and Carlton recently held a forum for more than 100 female members. Melbourne – whose marketing chief Jennifer Watt won this year's Graeme Samuel Scholarship and is seen as a rising star of the industry – have an approximately 50-50 split between men and women in their non-football staff.
McIllree said the long-term aim was to increase the number and tenures of women on the AFL Commission and executive. "It's one thing them being there but another thing about them being sustainable and successful," she said.
She also hopes the first female club chief executive isn't far away. "I do know at an AFL industry perspective there has been a huge focus on female development, and I guess starting to increase the pipeline of talented females for those more senior executive positions.
"What we're seeing in the industry, there is no shortage of females in the lower-level positions, but certainly you see a significant drop-off when you get to those more senior positions."
McIlree said there was a "frightening" level of female administrative talent within the game.
