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00:00Respect Her Game, powered by Guardian Media, in collaboration with Anson Macau Group of Companies,
00:10the University of the West Indies St. Augustine Campus Institute for Gender and Development Studies,
00:15Jamaican Mountain Peak Coffee, Tampax, Always, Crown Her, Jameson, the Diabetes Association of Trinidad and Tobago,
00:22the Trinidad and Tobago Cancer Society, and Trinidad and Tobago Association of Psychologists.
00:28I'm Christy Ramnurain. Welcome to Respect Her Game, the series where we deal with the sexualization of girls and women in sport.
00:38Joining me for this discussion is Dr. Gabrielle Hussain, Senior Lecturer at UE. Welcome, Dr. Hussain.
00:45Thank you so much for having me, Christy.
00:47Now, Dr. Hussain, you actually came up with the concept of Respect Her Game.
00:52You want to tell me where, you know, that actual concept came from?
00:56Absolutely. So, I'm the mother of a 14-year-old girl. She's a triathlete, and she trains six, seven, sometimes ten times a week, as it's three sports.
01:10So, I also go to different sports, swimming, running, and cycling as well.
01:15And when you are the parent of an athlete, and you know how exhausting it is, and how hard they train, and you're getting to a competition, and you're talking to them about their mindset, and what's their strategy, and, you know,
01:33how are they thinking about themselves, their body, their strength, and their determination in this moment.
01:41And then, you get to these competitions, and first of all, the music is extremely loud, which I think is a challenge for neurodiverse kids, but a different conversation.
01:51But the music is also inappropriate, and so I got fed up of hearing Gal Benova, literally, at the start line.
02:02I got fed up of bringing my 14-year-old, who is swimming at 4.45 in the morning, to then reach here, and I think be in an environment where the lyrics that she is having to get her mind focused within,
02:18those lyrics are, in that context, very sexualized, and very demeaning, and very inappropriate, considering that it's youth sports.
02:29And as a parent, as a mother, as the mother of an athlete, along with the other parents of athletes, I felt that we were doing our young athletes a disservice.
02:40And we were doing youth athlete development a disservice.
02:43Because, on the personal level, you have the kids, the parents, the coaches.
02:48But then, the environment that they're in is one that's not aligned with everything else that's happening to give our girls, but also our boys, the best chance of being the best athletes they could be.
03:02Okay.
03:03Now, you've been, you know, an activist of sorts, speaking about issues in the past.
03:10Having experienced this yourself and being able to come up with an actual plan to make a change, was it hard to do that?
03:22You know, you do have corporate buy-in.
03:25Guardian Media is also partnering with you on this campaign.
03:29So, when I had the idea, I thought, you know, first of all, I need to stop this.
03:37I need to not carry my 14-year-old, who's been training so hard and is focusing on getting her best time,
03:43and then having her deal with this music that is sexist and inappropriate for children, in particular.
03:51And I want to be clear, Christy, I'm not making a commentary here on culture, music, carnival, or anything else.
03:57Here, we're talking about what's best for young athletes and for youth sports and also for girls.
04:06And so, I approached the Sir Optimist, Denise Deming, actually, who has also been very supportive for a long time.
04:16And when you're in women's organizing and feminist organizing, you always want to partner with those women's organizations on the ground
04:23who've been out there doing the work, always build those community connections.
04:28And so, Denise Deming and I collaborated, put together the proposal.
04:32I must say that Guardian Media Limited was exceptional in coming in as a corporate partner to take the lead in this campaign.
04:40As a media house as well, they understood the power that the media has in being able to raise awareness,
04:48create public conversation, spark an idea in people's minds that they hadn't been thinking about before.
04:55And so, putting the power of the media to part of this campaign, which is a national conversation,
05:01was absolutely essential and really, really valuable.
05:05And I mentioned before, you know, you asked me what I thought about the campaign.
05:09And I did see, I didn't think about this before.
05:12And I think we've just grown to be accustomed with whatever music is played when we go to sporting events.
05:20Because I do attend events.
05:22My brother-in-law is, well, a former national footballer.
05:27So, I've been to several football events.
05:30I've been to cricket.
05:33There's a gymnasium where my children go to school.
05:38We've been in the gymnasium with them.
05:41They are not members, but we've been there.
05:43And, you know, you just take for granted that this is what the music is.
05:49And, you know, no actual thought process and what it should be.
05:53Do you think now that this project is launching, the perception is going to change?
06:04That's the hope.
06:05Now, change doesn't happen overnight.
06:07Change has to happen through a lot of engagement with people, conversation, listening.
06:15And I think over time you do see change.
06:19In fact, our history as a Caribbean is one that shows us that change is always possible.
06:25And that there are people willing to join a movement to create it.
06:29This particular campaign, it has three parts.
06:32And the first is this conversation, to talk to people.
06:35And I found that parents, not just of girls, but parents of boys who are doing football,
06:40who are saying, you know, listen, this is not how we are raising our boys.
06:44So when we're carrying them to a football match, this is just not music we want to expose them to
06:49for them to do sports.
06:51So for our athletes to do sports as minors, as adolescents, as children,
06:57I think we have to approach the environment that we are putting them in from a child protection perspective.
07:04That is, we need to ask ourselves, what is the safest environment that we can create?
07:11What is the healthiest one?
07:13What is the most respectful one?
07:14And what is the most empowering one for youth athletes, but especially for girl athletes?
07:20I know for my 14-year-old, I don't want music that's sexualizing women.
07:27At the moment that I'm trying to tell her, be confident about your strength and your determination
07:32and your ability to use your bodies in a way that can bring you success that you've worked,
07:44that you've trained really hard for.
07:46So these are very contradictory messages.
07:49And they also influence how boys see girls.
07:52So in other words, where are the spaces for children's development and youth athlete development
07:58that is safe from the constant sexualizing of women and girls that takes place everywhere in our societies?
08:07When our youth are going to the Olympics, they're not going to be playing music at the Olympics, right?
08:12When they're going to sporting events and they need to get their head in gear,
08:16we have to ask ourselves, is this music helping them?
08:18So as a community from the top, from the ministry to corporate partners that are hosting events
08:25at which they have youth coming to participate, to the coaches, the sporting associations,
08:31and the parents as a whole, we need to ask ourselves, if the children are being put first,
08:36are we giving them the best, best chance of success on and off the field?
08:41And in terms of how they see themselves and they see each other that we can give them?
08:45You know, in today's Sunday Guardian, I would have done an interview with Destra Garcia.
08:53And in that, she was speaking about the power of music, no matter what the genre is, how powerful music is.
09:01And it takes me to a little discussion I had with one of my girls.
09:05And she was telling me that a colleague of hers, now she's just eight, asked the teacher if she could sing,
09:11he could sing, sorry, a sukkah in class.
09:14And he started singing the one with, I have a good, good spirit.
09:18Yeah.
09:19And then the teacher, this is a Muslim school.
09:22Yeah.
09:22The teacher told him, you're singing about alcohol.
09:25Yeah.
09:26The child did not know that the actual song was about alcohol.
09:30And, you know, children, they know these songs word for word.
09:35And these are the songs that are very quite popular.
09:39Yes, they are.
09:40You know, we just went through the long carnival season.
09:45You know, I'm getting to the point, how do we separate?
09:51Because these songs are powerful on their own.
09:54You know, they play over and over.
09:56The children love these songs.
09:58But when you come to the messaging in these songs, how do we separate what's good for our children from what we really don't want them to hear at this point in time in their lives?
10:10Well, what I definitely like to see is that we set some boundaries on what we do play.
10:15So there are some songs that are just completely inappropriate, which I have heard many, many times at events.
10:21So, you know, there are the songs that are acceptable, if you want to call it, you know, but there are songs that are just so sexualized, they should not be played around children and adolescents.
10:34And particularly for me, this campaign is, I would like to go to sporting events where my daughter's competing over this next year.
10:44I know that I don't need to protect her in that space from the messages that are sexualizing women and girls in that particular moment.
11:01Like, I would like her to be free in that space of having to deal with something that we all know women and girls have to deal with from the time they're conscious of being a girl for the rest of their lives.
11:12And so that's why I'm arguing that this, we think about it as a child protection approach and we think about the key words, healthy, safety, empowering and respectful and ask, are we creating those spaces?
11:26Now, we do want to have these conversations and we do want to wrestle with them and what is the best chance we can give our athletes.
11:35But we also want to provide alternatives.
11:37So one of the things that this collaboration with Guardian Media Limited and with other partners and with the Institute for Gender...
11:44I was actually going to get to that, my next question, but you can go ahead.
11:49Yeah, and with the IGDS also, one of the things we wanted to do is not just raise consciousness.
11:54And I'm hoping this conversation is had by DJs on radio, by parents.
11:59I'm hoping sports associations have this conversation internally and say, listen, is this the best we can do for our youth?
12:06Or can we set some boundaries?
12:08Can we say we want this whole world of music out there, Christy, that we can draw on?
12:12And we have a lot of talented DJs who can cut and mix and edit and overlay music.
12:18And so there's a lot of...
12:20You know, when you challenge people to rise to an occasion, very often they do.
12:27And suddenly you think a change that we didn't even know we could make or a change that we didn't even imagine it was possible to make so quickly, we could.
12:37Because we can come around the idea that there's a common good here, one that we can all buy into for our children.
12:44So one of the things the campaign is going to do is have a competition, a national competition, in which DJs of any age...
12:54So if you have a 12-year-old DJ at home, tell her or him to send in their mix, in which DJs are being invited to send in youth sports mix sessions.
13:07In other words, give us an example of what a session, a DJ session, like how we might do a private Ryan or a DJ Anna, give us an example of what a mix session would look like that you would play at a sports event with 4-year-olds, 8-year-olds, 12-year-olds, where you want to free these girls from the constant sexualization.
13:28You want to give all youth athletes the best chance of respecting each other, and you want to give boys a chance to be in spaces with girls and respect those girls for their game, not for their sports skills, not for their sexual skills.
13:43And so we're going to have this competition, this DJ competition.
13:46I'm hoping we get tons and tons and tons of mixes that are sent in, and then they'll be judged, and we'll see what the winning mixes provide for us.
13:55I think that is an actually really good concept, and you were speaking before, and I'm smiling, because in secondary school, I was part of my school choir.
14:04I went to Tabakit Composite.
14:05Mr. Paul was the music teacher, and I can't remember, but we sang Heal the World at Sandfest for quite a number of years.
14:14It was the most popular song, and it is a positive song, a song which is very popular as well.
14:22And, you know, even for graduation, there are the classics which are played over and over at all schools in the country.
14:31And I was smiling because I think there are these songs which can be played.
14:37And, you know, when you go to music festivals like Sandfest, you hear these positive songs.
14:43You know, sometimes you'll hear the medley with Ahsoka and Calypso Mix.
14:47Exactly.
14:48But the positive songs are the ones which actually take the platform more than the party songs.
14:56This is it exactly.
14:57So my daughter's dad is a DJ and music producer and editor and remixer, actually.
15:03And so because we come out of this long familiarity with what you can do with a mix, you know, that you can layer music.
15:13So you can layer Soka melody with lyrics from another song.
15:19Like there's so much that DJs can do now so easily.
15:22So this is really a campaign that's bringing out the DJs who want to play music, who want to have their mixes heard and letting the DJs run the campaign.
15:33It may also be using popular rhythms and changing the lyrics, which we saw happen over the carnival season as well.
15:39People taking, you know, lyrics, I mean, sorry, rhythms and making it their own.
15:44This is it.
15:45So we have this opportunity to do this.
15:47So there's three parts to the campaign.
15:49And the first is that we're having this conversation.
15:51And I hope we have the conversation is happening nationally as well.
15:55And over the years that this collaboration may continue with Guardian Media Limited, I hope that each year we reach more people.
16:01And in five or 10 years, this won't even be a discussion because it's just something that we wouldn't do out of commitment to protecting our children and giving them the best chance of success.
16:11And then there's a competition where we're hoping that as many DJs as possible send in these fantastic mixes.
16:19And the purpose of the competition is to say, OK, not only are we critiquing, but we're creating an alternative.
16:25We're immediately creating something that we want to see.
16:28And then the third part of the campaign is what I hope we will see at the end, which is a huge corporate commitment made by a wide range of corporate partners that sponsor youth sports events, sponsor youth sports teams, cricket, swimming, everything.
16:44And that they come on and become a corporate community that is committed in their own events and in their own corporate sponsorship to challenging the sexualization of women and girls in sports, particularly in terms of the music that is played.
17:02And so that way, the winning mixes can get played for the next year at all of their events.
17:09That's great visibility for the DJs who win.
17:13And it also means that when I go to the start line with my daughter at some of these events next year, we're going to be hearing the winning mixes and we're going to be able to see the change that we wanted and that this can happen so easily, so quickly.
17:28And it's such a cool way is, I think, a really fun and great aspect of this campaign.
17:34Do you see any challenge in getting this project done?
17:40I mean, you're launching, but we still have to get the DJs to submit and corporate to even, you know, come on board.
17:48Do you foresee any challenges?
17:52Well, I don't foresee challenges, but change is always incremental and you have to be prepared for the long journey.
18:01It's never just immediate.
18:03And even if you do receive, even if you do achieve change, it's never just lasting.
18:08It's always something you have to continue to raise consciousness about.
18:11So I think for some DJs, they're going to be challenged to provide those mixes, to layer on the melodies with a mashup of some other song.
18:21And I'm hoping that this is an opportunity that DJs are excited about.
18:26And I don't see a challenge with getting the corporate partners to sign on because I think this is something every parent, every DJ, every coach can identify with.
18:38Somebody said to me, well, the kids, the kids like the music.
18:42I said, that's true, but kids don't, aren't necessarily making the best decisions about what's healthiest and best for their development.
18:52That's why we have adults.
18:53That's why we have children.
18:54Children have parents and they have school principals and they have others because it's up to us to make them conscious of what's best for them.
19:01And just to bring this back to International Women's Day, again, a long struggle.
19:07If we want to change women's lives and sexual violence is ubiquitous, it's a ubiquitous fear in every woman's life, in everywhere in the world.
19:18Sexual violence begins for women as children in terms of child sexual abuse.
19:25And one in five women in Trinidad and Tobago has experienced non-partner sexual violence.
19:30So if we think about this as a women's rights issue, first of all, then we begin to see us making change when women are just girls and beginning to change that environment of hyper-sexualization with all the harms and dangers and unwanted attention and so on that it draws.
19:47And then when we think about it for adult women, there's a massive global movement right now amongst women athletes to challenge the sexualization of women.
19:56And so there have been a recent court case in Spain with a woman challenging for how she was sexualized, like at the moment of her winning a game.
20:07That big kiss?
20:08Yeah, with unwanted sexual assault, essentially.
20:10And women challenging how they're made to dress, for example, in volleyball and saying, listen, this is challenging how they're photographed and how camera angles and also how media talks about them.
20:24So we are joining a global movement led by women athletes in which we're empowering young girl athletes, but also young boy athletes to understand that we want sports to be a place where girls can develop without having to fight all of these other battles.
20:47Because their main battle is beating their time, and if that's the game we're sending them into, then that's the game we want to respect.
20:57Now, for the naysayers, because there will be naysayers, you know, that here she goes again.
21:04This is another woman's issue, she's pushing, but you are the mother of an athlete.
21:10Yes.
21:11You are there with her at every event she's doing.
21:15When you are there, tell me, what is her mental state like when she's preparing for, you know, one of her meets?
21:27What goes through her head and what goes through your head?
21:31Well, she's 14, and I'm certain she would not want me telling you what's going through her head because she's at an age where I can't speak for her safely.
21:42But I can tell you that the athletes are nervous.
21:46You know, you're in the car, you're telling them focus, you're telling them you've trained for this.
21:51They have to get, like, winning is a mindset, and it requires that you are very, very capable of putting everything you have in that moment, everything that you have, to doing the best that you can.
22:04If you want to get on a national team, if you want to beat your time, if you want to get a scholarship.
22:09And there are serious youth athletes all across our nation who really require us to give the spaces that we're putting them in, to give those spaces the sense that they are thought about or thought through in terms of what's best for them.
22:31So, you know, the kids are nervous.
22:35They are working on their focus.
22:37They're dealing with crowds sometimes.
22:39And I can tell you for some kids who are neurodiverse, and that is a lot of children.
22:44You brought that up earlier in the interview.
22:47Can you explain to us what neurodiverse is?
22:49Some kids may be autistic.
22:51Some kids may have sound sensitivity.
22:53Some kids may have anxiety.
22:55They may have ADHD.
22:57I think these are underdiagnosed because we don't test enough.
23:01And there's nothing wrong with these kids.
23:02That's just how their brains work.
23:04But when we play very, very loud music at these events, it doesn't help those kids who have those sensory issues, who may then get dysregulated, who may be then fighting the impact of the sound on their ability to function physically or mentally or even emotionally.
23:23And so I keep asking myself when I go to these events, who is this music being played for when it's being played this loud?
23:30Who is it being played for when these songs are being played?
23:33Is it being played for these children?
23:36How much is this space about what's best for the children?
23:40Because we all got to get in line and do what's best for them.
23:43And that might require lowering the music for the kids who have a sound sensitivity, many of whom are undiagnosed.
23:52So we read their behavior as erratic or as misbehaving or as unable to settle down when we don't realize they may be overstimulated by their environment.
24:01And the more time you spend with children is the more you realize that children are along a spectrum and you want to make a space that they're in where they're trying to do well the most inclusive and the most considerate for the widest variety of them.
24:17To give them, of course, the utmost comfort.
24:20Yeah, to give them the safest and healthiest space in which to try to do their best.
24:25So there might be naysayers, but, you know, Christy, I haven't encountered any amongst parents or coaches.
24:32There might be amongst the teenagers because, you know, as you said, they're already socialized to this music.
24:40But I think by doing this, we're giving them a greater consciousness that it's important to think about the environment around them for themselves, for others, for their own children.
24:50And to constantly to see themselves as capable of making change and to constantly be aware that we want to create in our society the best environment for us to grow and thrive.
25:05You know, we're talking about humans here.
25:07And just yesterday I had a conversation with somebody and this has to do with the big trucks passing through Woodbrook during Carnival Monday and Tuesday and the loud noise and the vibration from the noise and how homes, especially the colonial homes, are damaged.
25:25And these are structures, buildings.
25:28So, you know, it's not just with people.
25:32Yeah.
25:33But also structure.
25:34Yeah.
25:35So all of this is true.
25:37I want to bring it back to, as you've asked, you know, I want to bring it back to how I feel at those events.
25:43I feel as many parents do, we've put everything towards these moments.
25:49We're up at 3.30.
25:51My daughter sometimes cycles at 4.30 a.m. around the savannah.
25:55She's up at 3.30 in the morning and she's not the only one.
25:58Swimmers are swimming at 4, 4.30.
26:01These kids have worked hard.
26:02The parents have worked hard.
26:04The coaches have worked hard.
26:06And the sporting associations have worked hard.
26:08And when you get to these competitions, you just want what's best for your kids.
26:15Yeah.
26:15You want to give them the best chance of success.
26:18And as the mother of a girl, I'd like to give her the opportunity to be in spaces where she's not sexualized, where she doesn't have to deal with the sexualization of women,
26:30where she doesn't have to see that as normal, where she can be free of that so she can see her body and learn to relate to her body in other ways,
26:42and where she can learn to value herself and where the boys that are her teammates can also get the opportunity to value her on the basis of her sports skills and not have the constant reiteration of women's sexual skills
26:58and sexual attractiveness and all of that be constantly, constantly reiterated at a super high decibel in their environment.
27:07And so I want to go.
27:08I don't even mind if it's quiet because the parents will be screaming for their kids anyway.
27:13Yeah.
27:13But I want to go and know that this environment is the safest, healthiest, most empowering, and most respectful one, the kind that she deserves and the kind that we fight for, particularly around International Women's Day.
27:25Sorry.
27:26No, no.
27:26When you look at American television, there's always a baseball game.
27:32Yeah.
27:32And it's at these smaller community grounds, so to speak, and you don't hear music.
27:40No, and in fact, I don't remember when I was a child growing up in sports spaces that you did have this kind of music playing, nor this loud either.
27:49So when you go to the Olympics, there's no music.
27:52And again, the parents and the coaches and the sporting associations are putting in so much, and these young athletes need the community to do the same.
28:02And I think particularly for our girls, particularly in a world in which girls are not safe from sexual violence, in which women are not safe from sexual violence, in which highly sexualized content can constitute a form of unwanted sexual attention and unwanted sexual messaging.
28:23Where it is everywhere, sports is the ideal space, just like school, in which girls are taught to be valued for their minds and not their bodies.
28:35Sports is the ideal place where girls can relate to their bodies differently in ways that they have earned, worked hard for, in ways that are associated with strength and success.
28:49Sports is the ideal place, and that boys respect them as athletes.
28:53Yeah.
28:53So we just have a couple minutes left, and I want to go back to the competition.
28:59You know, how long is it going to run for?
29:02How do DJs submit their mixes?
29:05So you should pay attention to Guardian Media and Liberty is going to be launching this campaign tomorrow at Gulf City.
29:18And at that campaign launch, we will then kick off all the range of social media across all platforms.
29:27So if anyone wants to submit a mix, and I hope many people do, just go on to all of the Guardian Media limited platforms, social media platforms.
29:40You can probably tell us what some of those are, and you'll find the information for submitting there.
29:44The competition will be running until the end of March, and there will most likely be a launch of the next iteration of where the mixes are going to go,
29:57we're hoping the Ministry of Sport, we're hoping all of these corporate partners agree to play these mixes, these winning mixes at all of their events.
30:05So there'll be a launch of the where do we go from here with the change we want to see at a closing ceremony, an award ceremony that happens in mid-April.
30:13So I'm excited.
30:14And, you know, we're excited as well to see or hear what these DJs come up with in terms of these different types of mixes.
30:26Dr. Hussain, thank you so much for joining us on Respect Her Game.
30:31And, you know, I'm looking forward to see the outcome of this project.
30:35I wish you all the best and tell viewers you can read more about this project in the Sunday Guardian.
30:44Thank you for viewing.
30:45I'm your host, Christy Ramnerain.
30:54Respect Her Game, powered by Guardian Media, in collaboration with Anta Macau Group of Companies,
30:59the University of the West Indy St. Augustine Campus Institute for Gender and Development Studies,
31:05Jamaican Mountain Peak Coffee, Tampax, Always, Crown Her, Jameson,
31:10the Diabetes Association of Trinidad and Tobago,
31:12the Trinidad and Tobago Cancer Society,
31:14and Trinidad and Tobago Association of Psychologists.