'Decades on, I still haven't forgotten the horrible thing my Year 5 sports coach said.'

Last night, I was paging through Australian Vogue when I came across a photoshoot of the Australian women’s national Rugby Sevens. My first thought was: “I have to tear this out and stick it on the wall, above my desk, so that Emmy can see it.”

This was out of character for me, as currently, the space above my writing desk is adorned with a Miu Miu fragrance ad, a poster I designed for one of my husband’s stand-up comedy shows, a Hello Kitty swing tag and a photo of a Gucci shoe. I’m no sports fan. I didn’t watch the women’s Rugby Sevens win gold at the Rio Olympics last year, nor did I tune in for the first game of the inaugural AFL women’s league this month. But some things are more important than personal taste, and this was one of them.

This fierce, gorgeous portrait by Justin Ridler of a celebrated women’s sports team needed to be seen by my three-year-old daughter. I wanted her to know, right now as her memories are just forming, that there’s no such thing as being “just a girl”.

“Just girls” is what my Year Five soccer coach called my team, as we sat on the grass at his feet, after we’d been defeated at the regional semi-final. We were the proud members of our primary school’s very first all-girl team. It was 1992, I was 10 years old, and I’d just learnt that no matter how good my team was, no matter how hard we fought or how fearless we’d been, the big people in charge would still see us as “just girls”.

Now, please don’t think that I was some sort of athlete. No way. I’d shown a tiny bit of moxie in the try-outs, and then somehow landed on the team. I spent every single game standing at the back with my arms folded, because I was too scared of being hit in the face with a hurtling soccer ball. I was weedy and bespectacled and practically friendless. I was no athlete.

But at that semi-final, something happened to me, and I actually played, and I played hard. When my team and I arrived at the suburban soccer oval and saw the other team, and we freaked out. Their star player, Onna, was enormous. She was twice my size in every way, and I was actually scared. Yet something about that fear motivated me, and I made a vow to battle these almost-women and make my position in the team count.

There was one moment that will stick with me forever, because it was the first time that I truly gave a game my all. I remember standing towards the edge of the pitch, kicking and kicking the ball in defence. A girl from the opposing team was right in front of my face, pounding that ball back, and I defended with all of my might. My coach – Mr Matthews, a young, male teacher that everyone adored – shouted, “Go Carla, GO!” It is probably the best athletic moment of my life.

After we lost (i.e. had our butts kicked by the other team), we sat in front of our coach as he congratulated us on getting so far in the competition. He was proud of us, too. He finished his speech with a funny story, of how he’d tried to intimidate the opposing team’s coach.

We listened as Mr Matthews told us how he’d sidled up to the other coach mid-game, right when things were getting exciting. Mr Matthews told us that the other coach was really getting into the game, and was stressed out and screaming. And that’s when Mr Matthews went in for the kill.

Women’s sport for the win. Post continues after audio.

“So I said, ‘Why are you so stressed?’ to her. Then I leaned in and said, ‘They’re just girls. Who cares whether they win or lose?’”

We all sat there, waiting for the punch line to come. Then Mr Matthews explained it to us.

“It’s just a joke! I said, ‘They’re just girls’ because people don’t usually care that much about the girls’ teams. I think you guys are great. It was a joke, to make the other coach feel bad. ‘They’re just girls’!”

We laughed this time.

Academically, I was at the top of my class. It had always been that way. I read a lot, often choosing books that were way beyond my years. I knew about stuff. But I still didn’t get this joke. My peers, many of whom were having too much fun being kids to care about school (as they should), also didn’t get the joke. But all of us laughed, because we loved Mr Matthews so much, and we felt lucky that he was even talking to us. We bathed in his handsome smile, and it felt so grown-up to be laughing at a grown-up joke.

I now realise that I mistook ‘grown-up’ for ‘sexist’. So often, those little jokes about females being weak and un-athletic are a little test placed there to see if you are ‘mature’ enough to laugh it off, to accept (wrongly) that women can never have the same strength, success or athletic prowess as men.

I didn’t learn much about soccer that year. But I sure as hell learnt a lot about how female athletes are viewed and treated.

We’ve come a long way since those days. In 1995 – two years after my fateful soccer semi-final – a young Gwen Stefani and her band, No Doubt, burst onto the scene with their song Just a Girl. A sexist slur was turned into a feminist anthem instead, as Gwen gave voice to the frustrations of being a teen girl in the 90’s. “I’m just a girl, all pretty and petite/ So don’t let me have any rights/ Oh, I’ve had it up to here!” Gwen sang, with blistering sarcasm.

Today, when my daughter happily kicks her little Barbie ball around and yells “Goooooal!”, we tell her that she could be the next Ellyse Perry, the Australian soccer and cricket player. No Bend it like Beckham shrines here, folks. For us, it’s all about the girls, the women who do it first and last and are not ‘just’ anything. We’re thinking about enrolling Emmy into soccer classes, because she loves playing her toddler version of soccer so much. We tell her that she is strong, fun and kind. And that above all, being called a ‘girl’ should never be an insult.

In 2017, Mamamia is committed to covering all aspects on women's sport. Check out more of our sports stories here.