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Open Right

Anna Krien: The conversation we need to have: Consent, power & empathy

Session Info:

“If they don’t read it, they don’t play.” These were the words of a local footy coach who told Anna Krien that he had given a copy of her non-fiction book Night Games: Sex, Power and Sport to each of his U15’s players.

In this award-winning work (the author became the second woman to win the William Hill prize for Night Games, the world’s top sports literary award) Anna Krien follows a young footballer who, only shortly after moving to Melbourne and joining the Coburg Tigers, becomes the accused in a rape trial. What begins as an accusation of a pack rape, involving high-profile players from the Collingwood Football Club, soon sees Justin (whose name has been changed for privacy reasons) left hanging. He is dropped by his famous friends, their well-known lawyers and his club, left wondering how things had gone so horribly wrong.

Krien’s narrative of this trial serves as a background to the twin points of focus of her book. First, she dissects the culture surrounding elite sport (specifically AFL and NRL) and how such a culture supports and enables, even encourages, treating women like ‘meat’, or ‘not fully human’. Second, she ventures into what she terms the ‘grey zone’ between rape and consent. The two are connected, she argues, because ‘treating women badly shades into a culture of abuse, which in turn can shade into rape.’

In this session, Krien will talk about her journey in Night Games and encourage students to consider the power dynamics of group behaviour and how to negotiate true consent, discern the difference between a good joke and a bad joke, separate the joy of sport from locker room culture, and recognise and resist ‘talking trash’ about females. The session can be challenging and confronting, but ultimately ends on a message of hope for there is so much to be gained from opening up these conversations, most importantly a bond of respect and friendship across genders.

Topics:

  • True consent
  • Power & empathy in group dynamics
  • Footy culture
  • Women in sport
  • Mateship & Friendship