Transcript: A to BE Episode 14

Mimi Kwa (00:00):
People say life is a journey, not a destination. But how do you know you’re on the right path?
Jo Stanley (00:10):
If only we could see the signs when they appear.
Mimi Kwa (00:13):
Well, I’m Mimi Kwa.
Jo Stanley (00:14):
And I’m Jo Stanley.
Mimi Kwa (00:15):
And on A to Be we speak to fascinating people about how they navigated their way to be here now having profound impact on the world.
Jo Stanley (00:26):
We hope our conversations will help you reflect on everything you’ve been through to get here, the triumphs, challenges and bumps along the road.
Mimi Kwa (00:35):
And if you haven’t already, find your own map to what matters.
Chloe Dalton (00:41):
I was playing over in Dubai in my debut tournament for Australia in the World Series when I was playing Rugby 7s and I made a tackle and ended up working out that I needed to be taken to the hospital to have an x-ray done.
(00:53):
I was actually told by the doctors in that hospital, “This shouldn’t have happened because girls like you, you shouldn’t be playing sports like this. You need to leave this sport for the men.” And I just was so taken aback.
Mimi Kwa (01:06):
Now, Jo, I am just in awe of our guest today. She is the highly talented, highly acclaimed Chloe Dalton, OAM no less, and she is a not one, not two, but a triple-sport athlete.
Jo Stanley (01:21):
Overachiever. She plays professional Aussie rules, she’s played rugby union and basketball at the highest levels.
Mimi Kwa (01:29):
Winning Olympic Gold with Australia’s Women’s Rugby 7s team in 2016.
Jo Stanley (01:35):
And because this woman clearly thrives on purpose and doesn’t have enough on her plate, during lockdown, Chloe came up with an idea to recognize and celebrate the stories and achievements of female athletes to address the gender inequalities in sport.
Mimi Kwa (01:50):
Chloe has such an extraordinary A to Be, we can’t wait for you to listen. And lucky for me, who knows not much about football or any sport at all, her story does transcend sport itself.
Jo Stanley (02:04):
Chloe Dalton, I have to begin, well, firstly, welcome to A to Be.
Chloe Dalton (02:09):
Thank you very much for having me.
Jo Stanley (02:11):
I feel I need to start, hand on heart, with a confession, and that is I can neither catch a ball nor throw a ball. In fact, I’m quite terrified of balls, have never played a team sport and would consider myself the opposite of athletic. So when we talk to someone, who is so extremely talented across three codes, I don’t know, it feels like there’s a lot for me to understand about who you are.
Mimi Kwa (02:42):
Jo and I are underqualified to be interviewing you, actually, so we’re just going to let you go now, Chloe. Thanks for joining us.
Chloe Dalton (02:49):
It’s been a real pleasure. Thank you so much.
Jo Stanley (02:57):
I guess this feels like a weird question, and it might sound weird for you to hear it, but you’re so clearly talented. Your talent crosses codes, basketball, you’re a gold medalist in the Australian 7s rugby. Now you play Aussie rules for GWS.
(03:12):
So your natural talent is obvious. Are you aware, have you always been aware, that you have a natural talent athletically?
Chloe Dalton (03:20):
I don’t know if I’ve always been aware. I think my story’s been an interesting one because basketball was my main sport that I did as a teenager, and my drive as an athlete came from being seven years old watching Cathy Freeman at Sydney 2000. And I always love, I do lots of like keynotes and things, and I always love, as soon as I say it to a room full of adults, just the nod, the knowing nod that I got from both of you because it brings back so much, that moment and-
Mimi Kwa (03:49):
Well, everybody was inspired by that, but we didn’t go on to winning Olympic medals or joining pole vaulting.
Chloe Dalton (03:57):
It’s a good point, actually. It’s a good point. I don’t know. I just ran with it. Well, I mean, I was seven years old at the time, but I was like, “I want my very own Olympic gold medal.”
(04:05):
And it was an interesting experience with basketball because I worked my way up the ranks and I started to play in the WNBL with the Sydney Uni Flames, and I was like, “Awesome. I’m like one level below the Opals, the national team, getting closer to that goal of representing Australia at the Olympics.” And then I had the very harsh reality of sitting on the bench a lot and waving the towel and giving out high-fives and not really contributing a lot else to the team. And so I think I knew that I was coordinated and I had talent, but I don’t necessarily think that basketball was kind of my main sport and so I really struggled with my confidence in that environment.
(04:44):
So I think a lot of time like when people will talk about my bio or whatever as an introduction, it’s like three professional sports, it sounds like it’s been kind of this like tick the box. It’s been a pretty easy journey. But I think basketball was a very humbling experience for me and probably taught me a lot about patience and perseverance, but also getting the right balance between being realistic enough to put your hand up and say, “Maybe this isn’t what I’m best at doing.”
Jo Stanley (05:10):
Well, but also about finding your fit, right? Like you might have incredible talent, but if you’re not actually in the space that you’re best suited are you able to shine there.
Chloe Dalton (05:22):
Yeah, and I loved, once I started playing rugby, I actually found it really liberating.
(05:29):
And I don’t talk about it a lot, but with basketball, I actually was so anxious. And I’ve had anxiety as an adult, which I probably just didn’t realize when I was younger that that basketball was something that kind of brought it on.
(05:40):
And it’s a pretty rough sport. Like it’s a ball that just fits into the perfect-sized hoop, so you’ve really got to be perfect, you know? Like it seems a little bit ridiculous to talk about, but basketball is a pretty brutal sport. And if you’re a centimeter or two off on the day and you keep missing, it’s so easy to kind of get in your head.
(05:58):
Whereas rugby or AFLW that I play now, if I kicked to my teammate and it’s a meter off, my teammate has the ability to adjust. And so there’s an element of forgiveness that comes with these sports that I had no idea about when I was playing basketball, but I actually found it quite freeing. And it was almost, like you said, it’s almost like I kind of found what was right for me and what was the right fit when I changed sport.
Mimi Kwa (06:20):
So sport itself and your competitive nature, you grew up with brothers and you’ve got some funny stories that go with that, don’t you, when you just decided you were going to be unstoppable.
Chloe Dalton (06:32):
Yeah. My older brother and I, in particular, were super competitive, and I remember so clearly… I’d heard the kids on the back of the bus, like I learned swearwords from the kids on the back of the bus when I was probably five or six years old.
(06:46):
And I remember that afternoon, my brother and I played probably a game of cricket out in the backyard, and he was so competitive and I was a couple of years younger than him, so it wasn’t often that I would be close to beating him at that age. But when I was, he would always change the rules at the very last minute, and it just drove me mad, like I just got so angry. And so he tried to change the rules so that he could still win the game, and I just chased him around with a cricket bat and yelling profanities at him and had my mouth washed out with soap.
Jo Stanley (07:16):
I had my mouth washed out with soap when I was a child, and I will never forget it. It didn’t stop me from… I’m a very sweary person. I just didn’t do it in front of my mother.
Chloe Dalton (07:26):
Yeah. It’s just a strategic decision.
Jo Stanley (07:28):
That’s right. But it’s interesting that, because my daughter plays Aussie rules footy, she’s 14 and she has no siblings, and I see the girls who have brothers and the way they play. Wow, like there’s just a physicality that you develop when you have just that natural wrestling that siblings bring, right?
Mimi Kwa (07:51):
I think that fearlessness to survive or that drive to survive with older siblings, especially.
Chloe Dalton (07:58):
Yeah, absolutely. I think that competitiveness and the physicality of growing up with brothers for me was definitely something that I think contributed to my sporting career, mostly in a positive way.
Mimi Kwa (08:10):
So when you watched Cathy Freeman and you got all inspired, like the rest of the population of the world, you did something different, though. You actually took steps towards a goal, towards a dream.
(08:22):
Were you the sort of little girl that had a vision board, or did you write something on your wall, or did you have posters on your wall of people that you idolized? Like what was going through your head at the time that really helped cultivate this journey for you?
Chloe Dalton (08:37):
Yeah, it’s funny. Thinking back to the posters and things, I, at the time, I remember Mom bought me this really cool hardcover Cathy Freeman book, and it talked about this story of her writing the time that she wanted to run. I think it was on her bathroom mirror.
(08:53):
And so I was also doing high jump. And so Mom and I would do this thing where every time I’d clear a new height, we’d write that height on the wall of kind of my bathroom door as I’d walk through. So I’d see it every time. And the idea was that if I’d look at that height every time, I would almost normalize it. So that when I went to try and jump over it, it didn’t feel like this big and scary thing.
(09:12):
And then when I got into basketball, I put the Michael Jordan Wings poster where he’s got his arms out. That was like on my roof, so I’d lie down and look at him before I went to bed. And I mean, if I had the choice, it probably would’ve been Lauren Jackson or someone else. But Michael Jordan was what I could find as a basketball inspiration in a poster format. So I definitely had things like that around me.
(09:37):
And then mom was amazing at scrapbooking. She used to spend hours and hours. She’d head up to her friend’s store that was nearby on the Northern Beaches and get all the matching cardboard and trimmings and make all of these photos and things look beautiful.
(09:50):
And when I was maybe 10 years old, she got me to write down on a piece of cardboard that went into the scrapbook when I was running at National Cross Country Championships about what my dream was. And I wrote something along the lines of, “My biggest dream is to one day be standing on the Olympic podium,” and I said, “smiling the biggest smile I have ever made.” My dream was to go to the 2012 Olympics, so I missed it by four years, but I’ll take it. I’ll take 2016.
Jo Stanley (10:17):
It’s just amazing. I mean, that is so beautiful to hear how engaged and obviously critical to your development and sense of ambition your mom was.
Chloe Dalton (10:27):
Yeah. Yeah. She’s been, oh, almost makes me get a bit emotional, actually. Yeah, my whole family and Mom, in particular, have been such incredible supporters of me throughout my entire sporting career. And even now, Mom’s just absolutely the best.
(10:43):
Like she’s got this really beautiful ability to kind of stop and celebrate the little things, which is something that, oh God, I’m going to make myself cry even more now. But she got that from her mom, my beautiful grandma who, unfortunately, passed away earlier this year.
(10:56):
And one of the things I loved most about Granny, she was also a really huge part of my sporting journey, but Granny had this beautiful ability to stop and appreciate things. Like I’d go and pick her up and take her to do some hydrotherapy in the pool and go for a swim. And we’d be walking out to the car probably with like an appointment time we needed to be at the pool and she’d be like, “Chloe, have you looked at the clouds today? Look at the way they have formed in the sky.” Or she’d point out how vibrant the lavender was in the garden or whatever it was.
(11:26):
And I think my mom also has that beautiful trait, probably more in like just actually stopping and celebrating little things each day. And I really love the way that Mom’s been able to do that. And I, obviously as a child, you never appreciate what your parents do, but it’s been so beautiful, the relationship that we now have as an adult, that I can appreciate and understand how much Mom and my whole family have invested into my dreams and what I wanted to achieve.
Mimi Kwa (11:53):
And how beautiful to have such strong female connections in your life, you know? You’re so lucky.
(12:01):
But it’s also so important to have those female role models and relationships in your life, especially at a time when you were a young girl, when there wasn’t a lot of visibility around women in sport.
(12:12):
Was that something that you were consciously aware of at the time, or did you ever think to yourself, “Where are all the women in the roles that I want to achieve?” Or did you seek them out? I mean, you couldn’t find a photo of a woman to pin on your ceiling above your bed. It was Michael Jordan.
Chloe Dalton (12:30):
Yeah. I don’t know if I consciously thought of it at the time, but I so clearly remember the disappointment that I felt after the Olympic cycles and the Paralympic cycles.
(12:41):
Because for me, like I touched on Lauren Jackson and Anna Meares, like they were two of my biggest idols as a kid. And I just was obsessed at watching them and the way that they performed over such a long career. But also every time they’d get interviewed post-game or post-race, they just seemed like the coolest people, and they just seemed like real true Aussie-
PART 1 OF 4 ENDS [00:13:04]
Chloe Dalton (13:03):
… coolest people, and they just seemed like real true Aussie heroes. And I loved that as I just was so inspired by them. And then it just felt like they disappeared for four years and I couldn’t find out really anything about them. I just was as a kid… You know when you just want to know as much as you can about people like that?
(13:17):
Yeah. So I think it was, I didn’t probably consciously think about, “Why is it that I don’t get to see them?” but there was a level of disappointment there. And probably the way that it played out, I think, was that I knew that I wanted to win a gold medal, but I didn’t really know which sport I was going to do it in or how I was going to get there. I just kind of had the end goal and thought, “We’ll just work it out along the way and see how it goes.”
Jo Stanley (13:39):
We will get to this incredible platform that you created, The Female Athlete Project, because I feel as though you are now being that for all of the little girls and the teenage athletes who are looking for role models. You’re providing that now, which is amazing.
Chloe Dalton (13:54):
Thanks.
Jo Stanley (13:55):
But this choice of yours, “I’m going to win a gold medal,” I just love that precision-focused ambition.
Mimi Kwa (14:06):
The surety about it.
Jo Stanley (14:07):
Yeah. I mean, similar, I once interviewed Chloë McCardel, who has the world record in crossing the English Channel, and she was the same. She’s like, “I’m going to have a world record.” And she had to choose in what, right? For me, it would have been eating eggs or something, but she chose… Well, not that, but you know what I mean?
Chloe Dalton (14:27):
They are good.
Jo Stanley (14:28):
Yeah. Well-
Chloe Dalton (14:28):
They are good.
Jo Stanley (14:28):
But what-
Chloe Dalton (14:28):
So versatile.
Mimi Kwa (14:32):
This could be a new career choice for you, Chloe.
Chloe Dalton (14:35):
Yeah.
Jo Stanley (14:35):
But what is in you, do you think, to not listen to the voices that we all have that say, “That’s crazy. Everyone wants to win a gold medal, but not everyone does. You can’t do that”?
Chloe Dalton (14:50):
Yeah. I think something I’ve realized probably throughout my change of sporting careers has been that I really hate not being good at things. And so I think there’s a real sense of stubbornness that I think that I’ve utilized to my advantage in a way. There’s obviously downfalls of being stubborn in that sense, but I think to me, I almost have backed my ability to know that I don’t want to not be good at this. So I know that if I give myself enough time, if I give myself the best resources, if I find the very best people at what they do and ask them the questions and put myself in a position where I am teachable and willing to learn and willing to stuff up and not be good, because I know that in time I will get there. Does that make sense?
Jo Stanley (15:41):
Yeah. And the fact that failure is so much a part of that.
Chloe Dalton (15:45):
Yeah. And I’ve really loved the feeling that’s come with doing something new. There was a Steve Jobs quote that was, “The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of becoming a beginner again,” along those lines, and it really resonated with me when I started something new, and particularly after we won the gold medal in Rugby Sevens and I started playing AFLW, which was a completely new sport. I’d never grown up watching it. I didn’t even know the rules of the game. So I was learning from the very base level. But it was actually really cool to be like, “I’m not good at this, and it’s okay for me to not be good at this, but I won’t be okay if in two years I’m still not good at this.” So I think it was almost this having to be patient in knowing that it would come, but I guess having grace with yourself to allow yourself to stuff up and fail.
Mimi Kwa (16:39):
Have you always had that grace? When did the penny drop that you needed to show yourself some grace and forgiveness for shortcomings in something that you were obviously striving to be perfect at?
Chloe Dalton (16:51):
Yeah. I definitely have not always had it. I think there’s also an element where wanting to be really good at things is kind of the opposite to that, right? Because you’re not necessarily good at giving yourself that grace. I think the biggest phase of my life where I’ve learned that has been through injuries. Over the past couple of years, touch wood, I’ve been injury-free this AFLW season, which has been amazing and a huge relief, but I had a couple of years where I returned to Rugby Sevens and wanted to try and go to the Tokyo Olympics, but four weeks out we were playing a tournament up in Townsville, and my teammate and I came from opposite directions to tackle the same person and I fractured my cheekbone in about four places, had to get surgery to put plates into my face and miss out on my second Olympics, and then moved to Sydney and started playing AFLW with the Giants, and just had a few back-to-back injuries.
(17:47):
So I’d almost had two straight years of just being injured, and I just felt so much frustration and this feeling of not being in control. I think sport is the most brutal career, in a sense, because you don’t get out what you put in with sport. If you work as hard as you possibly can, you’re never guaranteed success at the highest level. You’re never guaranteed that your body’s going to work. You’re never really guaranteed a contract in the next year. It’s a pretty brutal industry in that sense. And I think it was really hard throughout those two years to be kind to myself and to my body because I felt so angry that I was doing all the right things and my body wasn’t cooperating. But yeah, after time and working with sports psychs and I guess just waiting it out, I came to realize that sometimes that stuff just happens and you can’t do anything about it, and I’m doing the best I can, and that’s sometimes all I can do. And sometimes you just have shit luck.
Jo Stanley (18:49):
I mean, so much of it is about acceptance, I guess.
Chloe Dalton (18:52):
Yeah, I think that’s a huge thing, and I briefly touched on that anxiety piece before. I think when I’ve had my own mental health stuff around insomnia and anxiety, and part of that, the way that has impacted my sporting career is often with my anxiety, I found the more that I tried to fight it, I would just spiral and get more and more anxious. But it got to a point where, again, a lot of sessions with the psychologist, but that sense of accepting it and not that feeling of, “Oh, I’m feeling anxious,” and then getting more and more anxious. It’s like, “I’m feeling anxious and that’s okay. There might be a reason, there might not be a reason, but I’m just going to accept that that’s how I feel right now.” And I think that sense of acceptance can apply across so many facets of life just to be okay with it and acknowledge that, “You know what? I’m just doing my best here.”
Mimi Kwa (19:39):
Just doing the best that you can. And Chloe, you mentioned that you were experiencing anxiety when you were much younger in sport, but you didn’t know that that was the language to put to it. Was there a point in your career when you actually started to question your mental health and wellbeing and when you actually sought help beyond what was just being, I guess, offered at the club as part and parcel of the day-to-day?
Chloe Dalton (20:06):
Yeah, I think there was a really clear point for me. I came out of quite a horrible relationship and had almost isolated myself from my support network and went into a pretty bad place mentally. And I avoided going to see a psychologist because I just didn’t want to.
Mimi Kwa (20:24):
Was it pride, or shame, or just you were too busy? What was the reason? Because a lot of people have barriers to seeking help, so I’m just interested to know what yours was.
Chloe Dalton (20:34):
Yeah, I don’t think it was busyness. I think that I would have used that as an excuse. I think there was an element of not wanting to face it in a way. And probably for me, there was a fear of, “What if I go and do this and it doesn’t help? Then what? Where will I be then?” But I had some pretty incredible staff members at Carlton, at the club I was at at the time, who forcefully encouraged me to go and see a psychologist.
Jo Stanley (21:01):
I love that.
Chloe Dalton (21:04):
It almost got to the point where they said, “You need to do this before you come back to training again.” And I was like, “Okay. That’s fair enough.” And so I did a huge amount of work. I was seeing a psychologist and a psychiatrist. I just had to mind bike. I was seeing both of them and doing a lot of work because I was not sleeping and I was a real mess. But it was quite incredible. It was through the AFL Players’ Association. They’ve got quite amazing support for access to mental health services. So those sessions were all covered through the players’ association, which I’m so incredibly fortunate for because, unfortunately, that is something that can be a huge barrier to people, the cost of those services.
(21:40):
But yeah, I learned a huge amount about myself, and it took a really long time to work through. But one of the things I really loved about it was the life skills that it equipped me with. In those early stages, I was obviously dealing with some of the different things that happened, but from those mid to later stages of my weekly or fortnightly sessions with my psych, I would do work with her about having hard conversations with people in my life that I needed to have and dealing with conflict, because I used to suck at it. I hated hard conversations. I hated conflict, so I’d avoid it at all costs. And so I found it was really practical and helpful. I think sometimes with psychology, people don’t understand that you may have really horrible trauma that you need to work through, but it can actually just be a really practical way to help you work through day-to-day things that you’re dealing with as well.
Jo Stanley (22:30):
I really love that your journey started with Cathy Freeman and that inspirational moment. All of us are standing on the shoulders of the women that have gone before us in whatever field we’re doing, and in many different aspects of life, but particularly in sport. And you have been involved in this campaign where you’ve got these one of a kind boots that have sort of been inspired by trailblazers. Who have been important to you? What stories have been important to you?
Chloe Dalton (23:02):
Yeah, it’s been a really, really cool initiative to be involved with because I think, like you touched on, there’s been these incredible trailblazers. And I think for me, as a player in this generation, I get to carry on what they have done. I now get to play semi-professionally at the highest level. And it was a part of what drew me to AFLW in the early stages of the competition. When I saw it on TV, I loved this storytelling element of the fact that there were so many women who for so long had wanted to play at the highest level but never had been given the opportunity, and now finally, the AFLW was here, and it was this thing. I saw it and I was like, “I want to be a part of that. I want to put rugby and basketball together and see if I can get involved in that.”
(23:46):
And to have the chance to meet… I met Lynn Smith, one of the ladies who donated her boots to be put together with all of these other women’s boots that I was then gifted this pair of, which is so special. I got to meet Lynn and chat to her. She talked about the fact that she went down to the local market and bought this pair of boots. They weren’t even a branded pair of footy boots. She then put an ad in the newspaper in 1979, I think it was, to advertise to see if there were other women who might want to play footy like her because she couldn’t find anyone playing at club footy at the time. And it was really special. Lynn and I just got to hug each other, and I just got to say thank you for her boots but also thanks to her for having the courage to really lead the way. And the fact that I now get to benefit from what she’s done, it’s really, really special.
Jo Stanley (24:38):
I mean, it’s so much a part of our story, the people that have gone before us. And Mimi, you are a true historian. You are very good at digging up the history of your own family. But it’s so interesting to think, actually, just as you say, we wouldn’t be here without it. But also we learn from those generations before us, don’t we, Chloe?
Chloe Dalton (24:58):
Yeah, absolutely. And I think it’s funny now that I see the 18-year-olds that come into the club who get drafted and who don’t know necessarily the stories of those women and the struggles that have come before them. So I think there’s a level of responsibility that we have. And I think that’s why these boots are really cool, because the idea is that I will one day be able to gift them to the next generation. And I think it’s a really powerful piece of actually holding onto the stories of these women who had to go through some pretty horrible things to even get a chance to play footy. I do think I can’t wait for the day that the 18-year-olds walk into footy clubs and have a full-time salary. We’re definitely moving towards that with the new collective bargaining agreement that’s just been agreed upon. But I kind of look forward to the day where they don’t have to know the struggles. But I think there’s also a really important balance of making sure that they do know the struggles for them to be in that position.
Mimi Kwa (25:55):
Well, of course, and as Jo said, I’m a huge believer that we really need to understand our past to be able to step into our future in a much better, well-rounded, healthier way. And that’s exactly what you’re doing. You’re picking up the baton where those before you have left off, but what it looks like or can look like to people on the outside is that you’ve just blazed ahead through these three codes of sport and you’re achieving, achieving, achieving. And of course you’ve been wonderful in talking beautifully around the mental health issues that you’ve faced. But have you also faced discrimination throughout your sporting career? I mean, you must have?
PART 2 OF 4 ENDS [00:26:04]
Chloe Dalton (26:36):
Yeah, one of the stories that immediately comes to mind, I was playing over in Dubai in my debut tournament for Australia in the World Series when I was playing Rugby Sevens, and I made a tackle and something in my wrist felt a little bit off and ended up working out that I needed to be taken to the hospital to have an X-ray done. And it came back that there was a really decent fracture in my wrist. And I was pretty young at the time, maybe 19, 20 years old, traveling over to the other side of the world, my first time representing Australia without family and friends over there. I was actually told by the doctors in that hospital, this shouldn’t have happened because girls like you shouldn’t be playing sports like this. You need to leave this sport for the men. And I just was so taken aback and I think there were parts of that statement that were probably reflective of the cultural and religious practices in the country that I was in.
(27:27):
But for me as still a pretty young person, I hadn’t found my voice yet. And I just was overwhelmed by the injury. But the statement like that, I wish I could go back now and have my turn again to respond in a kind way. But when I reflect on that experience, there are a few things across my career that have happened. There’s been many things across my career where I’ve faced discrimination just for being a woman in sport. But I now feel so different that I’ve found my voice and feel like what we’ve been able to do through The Female Athlete Project is to give other people a voice in that space as well.
Mimi Kwa (28:07):
And if you hadn’t had those experiences, those moments where you face the challenges of inequity and discrimination in sport, I guess you wouldn’t now be the voice for so many other women and young girls coming through.
Chloe Dalton (28:22):
It’s definitely really shaped what I’m doing now and what I’m so passionate about now. I think it took me a little while to realize what I wanted to achieve with my platform that I have through sport. And a few years ago I worked out that it was the gender equity piece and since then I’ve really taken that and run with it. And I think important to acknowledge that I’m also a white able-bodied athlete who, yes, I face discrimination for being a woman, but there’s so many different levels of discrimination that women of color have faced, athletes with a disability have faced. And I think it’s really cool to have a platform that can also provide a safe space for those athletes to also voice their experiences too.
Jo Stanley (29:07):
Well, tell us about The Female Athlete Project because I just love it. Similarly, I created Broad Radio or first thought of it when I was in lockdown during COVID, and I think this also was a baby of COVID.
Chloe Dalton (29:20):
It was a COVID baby. It’s a pretty cool thing to be able to start, and we obviously had a lot of time for thinking of ideas and the ability to execute them in different ways. I started it in the garage of my mom and dad’s home in about October of 2020. And both of my brothers have really good skill sets that have been able to compliment. My older brother’s in sports marketing and my younger brother’s a videographer. And my older brother just said to me, because he knew that I had this passion and wanted to do something, but I didn’t know where to funnel it. And he said, “Just start the podcast. Just do it. You just got to do something practical and then see what happens from there.”
(30:02):
And so started it in the garage and we started to put more podcast content on social media and we wanted it to be about sharing the stories of these incredible female athletes because I got so frustrated with the fact that we have so many incredible female athletes who should be household names, but they’re not household names because they haven’t received the media coverage and attention that they deserve.
(30:25):
And so that was the original goal in setting out to have these athletes’ stories told in that space. We started to put the podcast content on social media and as we started to experiment a little bit, we’d put news and highlights about X athlete was on the other side of the world and they just broke a world record or won a world championship, or there’s been a crowd record that’s been broken.
(30:47):
And we started to get really great engagement on that type of content. And we realized again, what a huge gap there was in that space as well for people just being able to get really quick up-to-date news and highlights about what women in sport were achieving. Because again, it’s improved the coverage of women’s sport, but even just a default like the little section on the news on the radio, and there’s a little snippet of sport at the end. It’s always about AFL in the men’s or NRL or men’s sport. And you might rarely get a little… Well, Ash Barty’s retired, but a little Sam Kerr, Ash Barty type athlete gets a little snippet, but most often it’s just the men.
(31:26):
And I think it’s been really cool to see the way that The Female Athlete Project as a platform has grown, and to actually prove that there is a real appetite and a real demand for women’s sport. I think a huge component of that is yes, there are people who are real sports fans and might follow a specific sport or a specific women’s sport, but across the board I think we’ve seen a huge growth in our community because people just love seeing women excelling and breaking barriers and breaking records because I’m such a huge believer in the power of sport in Australian culture in particular, to actually change people’s attitudes about where women belong more broadly in society.
Jo Stanley (32:12):
And the kinds of ways women can behave that’s competitive and can be rough and can roll around in the dirt. This is why my daughter loves footy. She’s allowed to go out and get muddy, the muddier, the better. One of the things, I’m often on your Insta, and I saw recently a cricketer who… She says, “I need new bat.” And then she smashes the ball and the bat breaks. I think her name’s Grace Harris. I don’t know who she was playing for, but the bat just goes flying. She has smashed this ball for six. And I just loved that clip because you never see women go, “Oh Jesus, I need new bat. Well, I’m just going to hit the shit out of this thing anyway.” And it broke. I was like, that is not the way women behave generally. Women behave in ways that are perfect and pristine and sexy and pretty and polite and all these things, but not in sport and not on The Female Athlete Project.
Chloe Dalton (33:08):
And I think that’s a really cool example that you touched on there. I don’t know if you’re a big cricket fan, but we got thousands of likes on that video from people who may not have watched a lot of cricket in their lives, but it wasn’t necessarily Grace hitting a six that people resonated with. It was the whole video, the way she behaved, but then the way she was able to do something that was so powerful and strong and still be like, ” All right, now I’ll go get my new bat.” I think it’s the perfect example of people want to be able to celebrate those moments and those athletes in those moments without necessarily having to be really attached to the specific sport or team.
Mimi Kwa (33:44):
It’s such an amazing thing that is playing out on your watch, Chloe, because you’ve got sport in itself, which is a galvanizing entity, so people are galvanized over sport. But then you’ve got the feminist idea that is playing out, that is also galvanizing people, and people just wanting to see women succeed and as you say, break those barriers. And you’ve been able to bring both of those together. Are you feeling like this is it for you, this is the space that you want to keep working in, or do you have bigger dreams? Is there another gold medal within the realms of podcasting or maybe another sport? I’m speaking metaphorically, of course.
Chloe Dalton (34:28):
I think sport-wise, the big goal is to win a premiership. That’s definitely what I want to tick off in AFLW, but I think it’s been really cool to find what feels like my purpose. I’m a qualified physiotherapist. I did my degree at Sydney Uni while I was playing basketball. I haven’t worked as one for a number of years now because I think the more that I’ve started to do with The Female Athlete Project and in the media space, I’ve realized that that’s what gets me out of bed in the morning. I absolutely love it. I think I get so much out of sport as an athlete. I obviously have my drive and I know the way that sport can bring other people so much joy, and I think that’s been really cool as an athlete to understand that.
(35:10):
But to me, TFAP as we call it for sure, a lot of words, has been this really powerful thing of it’s so much more than me as an athlete. It gives me so much drive to keep doing what we’re doing, to keep growing so that it can make an impact for the athletes at the elite level. But I think one of the key things that drives it, and I chatted about it a lot in my book, is the dropout rate of girls from sport. By the age of 17, 50% of girls have dropped out of sport, which to me is just a devastating stat because I think it just is such a beautiful thing the way that it’s so good for you, but it can bring you so much more than just the physical benefits playing sport. And so I think it’s really sad to see there’s so many barriers for young girls and young women from getting to enjoy that.
Jo Stanley (36:00):
I do want to touch on your book, but you just made me wonder, can you share with us the person you are because you play sport?
Chloe Dalton (36:11):
I think the person I am because I play sport is, I hope, someone who can be considerate enough to accept the strengths and weaknesses of other people around me. I think it’s been a really interesting lesson that I’ve learned through sport and probably through my experience heading into Rio in 2016 with that Aussie Sevens group that we were all very different personalities with very different backstories and experiences, and we went about things in very different ways, but we were so united in what we wanted to achieve that we were able to achieve success. So I think sport has taught me a lot in that respect.
Jo Stanley (36:52):
That’s not an answer I would normally expect to hear. I reckon people… You’d expect to hear, “Oh, I’m competitive,” or “I’m willing to…”
Mimi Kwa (37:02):
Or, “It’s made me tough,” or “It’s made me resilient.” But that’s such a beautiful answer.
Chloe Dalton (37:05):
Thanks. I didn’t want to give you the job interview. I’m good at turning up on time. I feel like it’s a classic sports one.
Jo Stanley (37:14):
Yeah, we don’t want job interview. We don’t have a job for you, Chloe.
Chloe Dalton (37:18):
I’m really devastated to hear that actually.
Jo Stanley (37:22):
Maybe down the track. Definitely, I can see Broad Radio and TFAP collaborating at some point.
Chloe Dalton (37:27):
I would love that.
Jo Stanley (37:29):
I would love that too. We have a certain, very much aligned for the same goal. You did write a book, Girls Don’t Play Sport. It’s a manifesto advocating for female athletes. It explores where we’ve come from for girls and women’s sport and the disparities that still exist and where we need to go. I want to understand what is something that you uncovered in writing that book that gave you a fire in the belly to keep going?
Chloe Dalton (37:54):
It’s a really good question. I did a huge amount of research for that book. I knew that when I started writing it that I wanted to make sure that it was not too data heavy, but I wanted to make sure that there was enough data and stats and research to really back up these arguments, because unfortunately, on a daily basis I get into arguments with the trolls on social media pages that just have these really old school ideas. And I love having stats and data to prove them wrong and leave them a little bit speechless in that context. In the book, I wanted to make sure that it was there in a way that was really consumable and not in an attacking sense towards the trolls. I don’t think the trolls are going to read my book anyway, but I wanted to make it so that people could learn.
Mimi Kwa (38:41):
You could offer to send them a free copy.
Chloe Dalton (38:45):
Maybe that’s the way to go.
Jo Stanley (38:46):
That might shut them up.
Chloe Dalton (38:47):
Laughs
Jo Stanley (38:47):
It’s a waste of a beautiful book. Those idiots, they don’t know.
Chloe Dalton (38:55):
They don’t know. I think in terms of the research piece, there were so many parts of it that probably surprised me, but I think the piece around the sports bra is one that’s coming to mind. The fact that it was only a couple of decades ago that a sports bra was designed for the first time by a woman who wanted to go running around her neighborhood. And I think she made it out of two jock straps that she put together to create a sports bra, because there was nothing on the market, because why would a woman need a comfortable bra to exercise in? Because that’s not what she was meant to be doing back then. I think things like that really blew my mind.
PART 3 OF 4 ENDS [00:39:04]
Jo Stanley (39:36):
Yeah, my God. And why would she want to exercise in the first place? And if you’ve got big breasts, well, you should be at home just being sexy for your husband, right? There’s no place for actually feeling good in yourself.
Chloe Dalton (39:51):
No place.
Jo Stanley (39:51):
Chloe has brought almost our origin story for this episode.
Chloe Dalton (39:55):
I didn’t even plan that. I love that.
Jo Stanley (39:57):
It’s perfect, but I’m going to bring one as well. This is a feature that we have in the show where we bring an origin story of a well-known thing. And this is one that was inspired for me, I wanted to reengage with this story, and you probably already know it, Chloe. I know, Mimi, you do. Your book inspired me in this, because you touch on pay disparity in the book, I know, between men and women’s sport. And so this one, it’s relevant to this conversation and the amazing work that you’re doing in advocating for women’s sport, it begins in 1970 when tennis was booming. We had personalities like John McEnroe and Bjorn Borg, and that exploded onto the court, and it was a time when the crowds were huge, loving tennis. I know you play tennis, do you Mimi?
Mimi Kwa (40:41):
Not very well, but yes. Let’s say that I’m the member of a club.
Jo Stanley (40:45):
I imagine, Chloe, you play tennis and probably could have gone to Wimbledon, I’m guessing?
Chloe Dalton (40:49):
Absolutely not.
Jo Stanley (40:51):
Okay. Anyway, whilst we had John McEnroe and Bjorn Borg and all those superstars, women too were very popular, Billie Jean King, Chris Evert, but no surprise, women were relegated to back courts and paid virtually nothing, while men were treated and paid like superstars.
(41:07):
So nine incredibly courageous women, tennis players, and you’re nodding, because you know this story, Chloe, you could jump in and join the chorus. The most high profile of them was Billie Jean King, and two of the nine were Australian tennis players as well, they broke away from the main tennis tour and started their own, and they signed $1 contracts with World Tennis Publisher, Gladys Heldman, to compete in a new women’s tour. It was called the Virginia Slims Series, not ideal, cigarettes, but anyway. It was the ’70s. And they were known as the original nine, and they started this tournament to great sacrifice. We learned this, didn’t we Mimi, because we were at a function earlier this year where Billie Jean King was interviewed, that they were not allowed to be included in any training facilities back in Australia, they were told, “No, you can’t use any of our equipment.” They were basically-
Mimi Kwa (42:08):
Yeah, nothing, no support whatsoever. How they even had the determination to keep pushing through with their passion for sport, with nobody in their corner, is incredible.
Jo Stanley (42:19):
But because their determination was to be recognized as their own athletes and to set up a career path such that now the women tennis players, because of those incredible nine women, are paid, not the same as the men yet, but at least they have obviously this enormously successful tour and they are recognized and paid well. But Chloe, I bring that up, because that was to great sacrifice that work that they did. And I wonder, have you had to put yourself on the line for the work that you do in advocating for women’s sport?
Chloe Dalton (42:56):
Yeah. Yeah, definitely. I think probably what I touched on around the social media piece, I think that’s something that really quite heavily impacts me in this work with The Female Athlete Project. It just feels really relentless a lot of the time, these negative comments and these trolls. And it’s quite interesting, because the way the algorithm works these days, when you have a post that’s popular and that’s generating conversation, it spreads to people who don’t follow you. And you get more and more people engaged in this conversation who aren’t necessarily supportive of your message and what you’re trying to achieve. So it’s a little-
Mimi Kwa (43:34):
Who are not your people.
Chloe Dalton (43:35):
Yeah, exactly right. And it’s a little bit confronting sometimes to read the volume of messages. So I spend, at the moment, I’m probably spending an hour a day on Facebook blocking hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of accounts. And I get to the point a lot of the time where I just turn off comments on the post, because it just gets out… I don’t have the resourcing and I’ve got an amazing team around me at TFAP, a small team of people, but we just don’t have the resourcing to be monitoring things like that. And I think that’s where I feel like even though we’ve seen this incredible growth and progress, it’s still something that weighs quite heavily on me, how common it is this not only the belief, but the idea that people feel comfortable with their name and photo, a lot of them won’t have a name and photo, but a lot of people do with their name and photo, putting these ideas in writing on a public forum, and they’re okay to stand behind that and say these things out loud is pretty disturbing sometimes.
Mimi Kwa (44:31):
It’s frightening.
Chloe Dalton (44:32):
Yeah.
Jo Stanley (44:33):
Oh, that would be an enormous toll for you. Particularly if you’re someone with anxiety. I just know whenever I’ve had something like an attack, even if you know they’re idiots, even if you can say and rationalize, “Okay, they’re not my people,” it’s a negative energy that’s directed at you. When it’s hundreds of them, that’s outrageous.
Chloe Dalton (44:54):
Yeah. And I think I’ve seen a lot of athletes and high profile people who’ve talked about, “I just don’t go on there. I just don’t read it.” But I think, I don’t know if that’s possible to do, and I take my hat off to the people that can actually do that and just avoid it altogether. But I also feel like I’ve got a responsibility, as the founder of the platform, to make sure that it’s not actually reinforcing that and probably reinforcing it as well for a lot of the young boys that see it and then feel like they need to keep spreading that really harmful message too.
Mimi Kwa (45:24):
Oh, it’s a really difficult position that you put yourself in, isn’t it? Because you’re putting yourself on the line to do something good for the greater good of society, community, and for men and women and for equity. But then it’s just must be so draining and time-consuming to have to keep responding in that way. And if you switch off comments altogether, then you’re actually not going to be able to receive those really positive, supportive comments, or be able to support those really constructive conversations that come out of what you post. I certainly don’t have the answers for it, but I feel like there has to be a better way, doesn’t there?
Chloe Dalton (46:00):
Yeah. Yeah. I haven’t worked it out yet, but if you find anything out, please let me know.
Mimi Kwa (46:08):
I will let you know. I was just wanted to, on that, something else, at grassroots, there’s still a lot of, I suppose, naivety around gender equity. And even when it’s unconscious, it still can have quite a negative impact. So for example, Jo, you did mention that I’m the member of a tennis club and play tennis, so I don’t play tennis, but I am a member of the club and my daughter plays tennis, and she had an issue last week where one of the coaches was saying to the boys, “Oh, you’re not going to let a girl beat you, are you?”
(46:42):
And just for that to still play out now, and I made a comment to the club and they chatted to the coach about it and it’s being addressed, but it wasn’t just once that that was said, it was a number of times. And beyond that, there were other things said to the girls, calling them chicks. So, whereas once upon a time, maybe that was tolerated, but certainly not now. And I think that this happens with children in a group, in the care of sometimes older coaches who have come through in a different era to the rest of us perhaps, or maybe the same era, it’s worrying. How do we get the message through to sporting codes across the board what is actually acceptable?
Chloe Dalton (47:30):
Yeah, it’s a really good question. And it makes me really sad when you hear those stories, because unfortunately they are still really common. I think a lot of the time we think we’ve made such great progress, but maybe that’s just us in our small little circles of friends that feel like we’ve made this great progress. So, it is a really tricky one, and I think it probably… If I look back at when I was at Rugby Sevens, I actually got to be an ambassador for Our Watch, the organization that does a lot of work in the domestic violence space. And I was initially quite hesitant about being an ambassador, because I knew how important the conversation was, and I didn’t feel equipped with the right skills and information to talk about it. And they just said to me, “Come and do the training course and then you can make a decision from there, and see if you feel comfortable to be an ambassador.”
(48:20):
And in that training course, we talked so much about these gender stereotypes that are reinforced in community sport, in the home about how boys should behave and how girls should behave. And when those stereotypes are reinforced over a really long period of time, it continues to reinforce this power imbalance that exists. And unfortunately, that is the underlying cause of domestic violence. And I think for me, when I did that training course, I was like, “Whoa.” Obviously it’s a really big issue, and obviously not relating your specific story to that context, but I think-
Mimi Kwa (48:58):
No, but the relationship is very real between reinforcing gender bias and the end extreme result, which can be domestic violence. So it’s very real.
Chloe Dalton (49:10):
Yeah, absolutely. And I think Our Watch really utilized the power of sport to spread this message. And Jo, like you touched on before, girls in the mud, playing footy, making tackles, that is so important. And I think also this idea of actually in the right method, making sure that someone from the club has the conversation with the coach. And you don’t know what his intentions are, you hope that maybe he was naive to think that that was an okay thing to say, but you hope that once the conversation has been had, there’s a sense of him understanding why it carries so much power, reinforcing those ideas. So, yeah, it’s a really hard thing to tackle, but I would say that the more that young people, boys and girls, can see women playing contact sports, existing in these environments, being given equal resources, equal pay, all of these equal opportunities, that’s how you can indirectly, hopefully start to change some of these reinforced stereotypes.
Jo Stanley (50:12):
Wow. Chloe, you did say earlier that you found your purpose and you speak with such power when you talk about this.
Chloe Dalton (50:21):
Thank you.
Jo Stanley (50:22):
Do you feel like it’s a drive now? It’s the thing to get you out of bed in the morning?
Chloe Dalton (50:27):
Yeah, absolutely. It’s been a really cool journey. It hasn’t been a long journey yet. I hope it will be a long journey in this space.
Mimi Kwa (50:35):
All power to you, Chloe Dalton, you’ve stepped into your purpose and we wish you so much luck on your journey.
Chloe Dalton (50:42):
Thank you so much. I’ve absolutely loved chatting to you both. It’s been really, really fun.
Jo Stanley (50:49):
Thank you for listening. We love you joining us for our A to B chats.
Mimi Kwa (50:53):
Yes, we do. Please see our show notes for our acknowledgement of country and all the people who help us put this podcast together, as well as interesting links to our guest’s work and other references we’ve mentioned.
Jo Stanley (51:04):
We’re Jo…
Mimi Kwa (51:05):
And Mimi from A to B. Rate, follow and get in touch on our website.
Jo Stanley (51:11):
And let us know who’s A to B you’d like to find out about.
Mimi Kwa (51:14):
We can’t wait for you to hear our next conversation.