An article on the BBC website has set out the biological realities of women’s rugby while calling for action to mitigate them.
England women’s player Shaunagh Brown declares ‘Deciding to have a baby would end my rugby career’.
No children with the women
She goes on: ‘A couple of seasons ago, Harlequins men won their first Premiership title for nine years. After the match, there were so many kids on the pitch celebrating with their dads.
‘As I watched the lovely scene, it hit me that if my team – Harlequins Women – won our Premier 15s final a couple of weeks later, nobody’s children would be on the pitch.
‘Why? Because nobody had any.
‘I am currently with England at the Rugby World Cup in New Zealand and we have one mum in our team: Marlie Packer.’
Oddly enough: ‘Marlie did not give birth to her son.’ Er, how did she manage that? Use a surrogate?
Marlie Packer is not ‘a mum’
No. Shaunagh is too woke to admit it but Marlie’s ‘her son’ is not actually hers. Oliver is the child of her lesbian live-in lover Natasha. Ms Packer is quoted on the RFU’s website saying: ‘My team mates know that I’ve had a baby that my partner has carried.’ The expression ‘I have had a baby’ is truthfully only uttered by a mum who has actually given birth. Marlie Packer is fooling herself. She has not ‘had a baby.’ Natasha has.
The common sense view that a mother is one who has physically brought forth a child is endorsed by the Bible, both in the Old Testament:
Song 8:5 Who is this that cometh up from the wilderness, leaning upon her beloved? I raised thee up under the apple tree: there thy mother brought thee forth: there she brought thee forth that bare thee.
And in the New:
Luke 1:57 Now Elisabeth’s full time came that she should be delivered; and she brought forth a son.
Not just small men
But back to the topic. Shaunagh explains: ‘As a woman in rugby, it is the norm that you do not get pregnant until you finish your career.’
She is engaged but putting off marriage and/or starting a family until her playing days are over. She will also have to be aware of women’s biological clock.
‘I am 32 now. You have to stop playing contact rugby as soon as you get pregnant so that would at least be nine months out of the game.
‘Then you add on however long it would take me to get back after and at that age trying to get back to the highest level of rugby does not feel like a realistic goal.’
She is calling for ‘Good maternity policies’ which will ‘make you feel like you belong as a woman in rugby.’ The RFU ‘is bringing in a new policy that will offer us much more support as England players.’
She concludes: ‘We are women. We are different. We are not just small men. We have different needs.’
Women’s cricket
Why is maternity such a big topic? It’s because sports authorities, and above all the media, are obsessed with promoting women’s team sports. If it isn’t cricket, it’s football. If not football, rugby, even rugby league. But not hockey. Women’s hockey needs no promotion.
With the new ‘Hundred’ cricket format both the women and the men play matches against the same opposition on the same ground hours apart. The women go first, so the men have the prime spot and more TV coverage, despite the pretence that both sexes are equal.
And of course, the boundaries for the women are brought in and the balls they use are slightly smaller and lighter. Girls cannot hit the ball as far as the blokes and it’s nice for spectators to see sixes scored. The downside is that not as many 2’s are run in the women’s game, for two reasons. Firstly, there are not so many gaps on a smaller pitch. Secondly, men can run a lot faster between the wickets as Welsh Fire women’s bowler Alex Hartley explains on the BBC website.
Women fly economy
For the women’s rugby union world cup, the pretence at equality fell apart at the airport. British Airways is ‘the Official Airline Partner to England Rugby’.
When the deal was struck in 2018, the airline and the RFU boasted that BA would fly the ‘men’s and women’s squads to tournaments around the world.’ A statement at the time read: “The partnership will see British Airways fly the England Men’s and Women’s teams to matches all around the world, including to Rugby World Cup 2019 in Japan and Women’s Rugby World Cup in 2021.”
However, this was before New Zealand were named as hosts of the women’s tournament. It was also shunted to 2022. BA does not fly to New Zealand. The women flew by Emirates, with, no doubt, a lengthy wait for transfer in Dubai. Moreover, whereas the men always fly business class, the women went economy. Why is that? GiveMeSport.com explain: ‘the RFU have stressed the women’s side is loss-making and that the organisation is limited in what it can invest in.’
Railing against creation
The Premiership Rugby website describes Shaunagh Brown as a ‘trailblazer’. She is also ‘a former discus, hammer and shot-put thrower for England’.
Of course women athletes face the same problems trying to schedule child-bearing. The difference is athletics is not a contact sport. Women can continue to compete while pregnant. So are women rugby players asking too much? Is Shaunagh Brown railing against creation itself? After all, the Lord Jesus reminded his hearers:
Mark 10:6 But from the beginning of the creation God made them male and female.
Is Shaunagh really picking a fight with God Almighty? The rugby unions can offer no end of advice on how to resume training after childbirth. But she is still a woman and the reality is, women carry babies and women give birth.
Men can carry on playing professional rugby into their late thirties, as we read here. Women who want a good shot at conceiving cannot sensibly do that.
Bodily exercise
Therefore, bearing in mind playing longevity and the extra marketability of men’s rugby, and clubs are more likely to invest in their men players rather than their women.
As the RFU admitted, women’s rugby makes a loss.
Obviously it’s good for the nation’s health if women are exercising. At the moment, twice as many men take part in physical activities as women. Christians are often reminded of the words of the Apostle Paul to Timothy:
1Tim 4:8 For bodily exercise profiteth little: but godliness is profitable unto all things, having promise of the life that now is, and of that which is to come.
But that is a matter of priorities and the word ‘little’ means for the little time we are here. Moreover, that word was written by a man who thought nothing of walking from Jerusalem to Damascus and who used sports and training metaphors constantly:
1Cor 9:27 But I keep under my body, and bring it into subjection: lest that by any means, when I have preached to others, I myself should be a castaway.
Why the push for women’s sports?
So why the manic enthusiasm for women’s sports? Here is one Annie Bell desperate for some kind of women’s sports dividend from the triumph of the England women’s football team. They are called the ‘lionesses’ by the way. Whatever next? Are gender-specific words like ‘actress’, ‘seamstress’ and ‘manageress’ due for a comeback?
Lev 19:35 Ye shall do no unrighteousness in judgment, in meteyard, in weight, or in measure.
Here is CNN complaining about pay for women in sport while Anya Alvarez in the Guardian thinks she has spotted a disparity in the marketing budgets for men’s and women’s teams and players. Is that as unfair as she suggests? Digiday quotes one Ari Chambers, social creator at HighlightHER, saying: ‘Investment could be there if people are willing to believe that women can be profitable.”
Feminist ideology vs the market
No doubt the push to promote women’s team sports so avidly stems not from concerns over the health of the population but from feminist ideology. There will be some of the same thinking that sees it necessary to dragoon girls into Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths (STEM) subjects. Above all, clubs and national bodies, even advertisers, and especially media outlets, will not be spurning the opportunity of a nice bit of virtue-signalling.
Of course, we are bound to proclaim the Lord Jesus is God, not the market:
1Cor 15:25 For he must reign, till he hath put all enemies under his feet.
Nevertheless, if more people will pay more money to see testosterone-filled men crashing into each, hoicking cricket balls into the sky or making football passes that reliably find their intended target than the women’s version, then at some stage that is what ruling bodies and advertisers alike will have to confront. There is no real problem here, no injustice which scripture can condemn, only God-given gender realities and, if left to themselves, market forces.
So for heavens sake, Shaunagh Brown, regard your feminine biology as a gift from God, not an obstacle to your career.
Prov 31:10 Who can find a virtuous woman? for her price is far above rubies.
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It is just another wretched attack on God’s sacred creation ordinances found in Genesis 1-2. Had the UK church bothered itself to stand up for the Gospel of creation over six days we would not be in the mess we are in now. It is very difficult to find a church leader who believes or understands the importance of the creation message let alone preach it. As a result we have the continuous attacks on the heterosexual family unit based upon a loving relationship between a man and a woman, raising children if they want to, not terminating them through mass extinction abortion. In order to have this you have clear gender roles for a man and a woman. The give away is the physical and emotional make up of the two genders. Men are naturally suited for more physical work, therefore the hard stuff is for men, not women. It follows that women’s rugby and other physically stressful ‘games’ for women is an absurdity, also note running hand in hand with this is the denigration of men and manhood. Note again how the UK church is silent to point if complicity.
Incidentally, the church is not much better; every time you appoint a woman to lead a church you deny the role to a man, actually you take part in the denigration of men. This is the reason why the New Testament is negative about a woman running a church; because of gender distinct roles. This will change as persecution kicks in. Very few women are going to want to lead a church in the times we are moving into because physical persecution is very harsh for a woman.
‘Not to speak is to speak, not to act is to act’ – people in church need to wake up and speak out.
Compared to the powerful point being made in the message from Denning, my message may sound rather trivial, but I wish your website would quote from the Bible translated in the vernacular. Having served for 25 years on the General Synod of the Church of England, I understand most of the issues about liturgical language, but using an archaic language can be an unnecessary turnoff for many people.
Having started my church involvement as a choirboy and server over 70 years ago I understand the love that many have for the old language – it’s burnt into my brain! But it does seem somewhat of a “turnoff” these days.
Thanks FrNigel, that’s a very good point.
Would you please kindly suggest a ‘vernacular’ version universally-accepted in the church?