'We’re finally celebrating our women sports journalists, and sports-lovers are the winners.'

I was watching Offsiders a few weekends ago and tweeted my delight about the even gender balance on the panel. I’ve since found myself pleasantly surprised to find a woman on Offsiders almost every Sunday this year.

In fact, this wasn’t the first time I’d been recently surprised by a woman’s presence in one of the last great male-dominated cultural areas. Whether it’s the NRL Footy Show’s co-host Erin Molan, Rebecca Maddern joining the panel for the AFL Footy Show in Melbourne, or Mel McLaughlin hosting the Big Bash League, women are starting to have a much more prominent voice in Australian sport. And to be honest, I nearly fell off my couch when I saw that Fox Footy finally had a handful of women hosting shows.

Perhaps this is a trend, and we’re seeing more and more women finally entering the public eye to talk about sport. If it is a trend, it’s exciting. We’re finally hitting an age of having prominent women sports journalists, and it’s great.

About to kick off… @wwos @nrlfootyshow @brisbanebroncos @nqcowboys

A photo posted by Erin Molan (@erin_molan) on Mar 25, 2016 at 2:06am PDT

But so what? Why doesn’t even matter that more and more women are appearing on our screens, in our newspapers and on the airwaves talking about sport?

You can’t be what you can’t see, which is why representation is so important. Seeing and hearing people who look and sound like you creates the impression that sport is something that I, as a woman, can do and can have valid opinions about. It’s something I can talk to my workmates about of a Monday morning. It’s something I can use as small talk at networking events.

As long as our participation is conditional on male acceptance and approval it reiterates the idea that we are secondary players in our own society.

Hearing expert views and analysis from Kelli Underwood, Alison Mitchell, Caroline Wilson, Amanda Shalalah and Angela Pippos adds to the types of views and can only strengthen the type and variety of analysis that’s out there about sport. Having more voices, more views and more backgrounds shaping what we hear is a huge benefit to the landscape.

Sport is a key and powerful part of the Australian cultural landscape. Cutting women out of that effectively removes women from an important part of public discourse. It teaches young men and young women that women have no place in having an opinion on sport. That women’s opinions are not valid. It removes women from an important part of cultural engagement.

One of the criticisms leveled against women, and a reason given for women not being qualified to provide commentary, is that women haven’t played most sports at an elite level. Leaving aside the issue of women’s opportunities to play elite sport, there are many male broadcasters who similarly haven’t played sport but are nonetheless valued for their experience. Last time I checked, Bruce McAvaney, Gerard Whateley and Anthony Hudson hadn’t played much elite AFL between them. This doesn’t stop any of these men from providing terrific insight into a game.

We’re also seeing more and more women moving away from sideline roles and colour pieces and into a greater analytical role, particularly in hosting television shows on sports analysis. Progress is slow, and the important roles in sideline commentary and game analysis is an area where progress continues to move at a snails’ pace.

Female sports reporters can often get the short end of the stick. Watch Karl Stefanovic prank sports reporter Yvonne Sampson get pranked by Stefanovic below. Post continues after video.

However, commentary remains a key area where women having been making progress at a much slower rate.

Women have been commentating on women’s sports for years, and men have been commentating on both men’s and women’s sports for some time. But women commentating on men’s sports is something that networks have only tentatively experimented with and that’s yet to see full commitment. It’s not as though every man who commentates on sport is a delight to listen to or provides a great deal of insight. Channel Ten and the ABC had women commentating on men’s cricket this year and it was one of those moments where you don’t realise what you’re missing until it’s there – hearing women’s voices was a genuine delight.

The arguments of women “not sounding right” or being “too shrill” for television or radio to me simply underscore exactly why we need more women commentators. Because the sound of a woman’s voice being an expert opinion or analysis should sound equally as natural as a man voicing an expert opinion.