Episode 24 - Pitch Invasion - Taking On Equality For Women In Football with Karen Dobres

What happens when someone who never liked football ends up helping to change the game—forever? Karen Dobres, former Lewes FC director and author of Pitch Invasion, joins me to share how “Equality FC” became the first club to equally resource their men’s and women’s teams, and what that taught her about leadership, allyship, and challenging the status quo.

Love it or loathe it, football shapes our culture. In this episode, Karen Dobres—former director at Lewes FC and author of Pitch Invasion—tells the story of how a community-owned club on England’s south coast made global headlines by equally resourcing their men’s and women’s teams.

We explore:

• How an “outsider’s eye” became a superpower for change
• The business case AND moral case for equality in sport
• Building new audiences (and why Prosecco on tap and oat milk matter!)
• Allyship that actually shifts culture
• Reframing “imposter” feelings and staying resourced in tough boardrooms
• Why women’s football is charting a different, more inclusive fan culture
• Equality → Equity → Emancipation: what might need to happen next

Karen’s book Pitch Invasion is a witty, heartfelt account of this journey—available via Amazon, Waterstones and all good bookshops.

Connect with Karen: 

LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/karen-dobres-07a54b176/

Instagram https://www.instagram.com/karendobres?utm_source=ig_web_button_share_sheet&igsh=ZDNlZDc0MzIxNw==

If this episode resonates, follow the show, leave a quick review, and share with a colleague who cares about gender equity at work.

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✨ Produced by Mary Gregory Leadership Coaching

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:00

Hello and welcome to G-Leads Collective Podcast. I'm Mary Gregory, and I'm so glad you're here. This podcast is a space for honest conversations about what it really means to lead us a woman today and how we can all show up with more courage, care, and clarity. You'll hear from inspiring women, powerful allies, and bold truth tellers who are changing the game not by playing tougher, but by leading smarter, softer, and stronger. Hello and welcome to this week's episode. So, love it or loathe it, football is our national sport, and it's hard to avoid the influence it has on our communities. But what happens when a woman who has no interest in football suddenly finds herself not only loving the game, but also helping to change it forever? And what does it take to challenge one of the most male-dominated industries in the world from the inside out? Today I am joined by Karen Dobres, a former model, counsellor, feminist, and author of Pitch Invasion. From 2017 to 2020-22, Karen sat on the board of Lewis of FD, the first football club in the country to pay their men and women players equally. And in fact, they are still the only football club in the whole world, both pro or semi-pro, that pay their men and women equally. With Equality FD emblazoned across their shirts, Lewis FSD didn't just play football, they used it as a vehicle for social change. And in her new book, The Pitch Invasion, Karen shares her witty, heartfelt, and sometimes hilarious journey from zoning out when football was on the television to negotiating multi-million pound deals and leading a pioneering stand for gender equality. Today we'll be exploring her story from what she's learnt about leadership and allyship along the way, and how football and the fight for equality still has lessons to learn. Karen, I am so pleased to have you here today. Thank you so much for giving up your time.

SPEAKER_01: 2:10

Thanks for the lovely introduction, Mary. I'm so pleased to be here.

SPEAKER_00: 2:14

It's a real delight. Well, I can't wait to get into this conversation. So to get us going, let's just talk a bit more about well, what happened. You're somebody who hated football. How did you get embroiled in eventually becoming a director of a football club?

SPEAKER_01: 2:30

Well, I mean it it's it's a funny story. I never liked football growing up. Uh I my family, my immediate family didn't like it. As in, my dad didn't follow it. I had a sister and a mum. Uh, I was born in 67. Um, all I saw of football was hooligan fans on the front pages of newspapers, or men on the back pages, or men on the telly playing football, or um in the school playground, it was the boys who played football, and us girls were kind of at the edges of the playground playing hopscotch. I just didn't think it was for me. And then when I went to a football match, I was in my teens actually, and my cousin Gary was playing for Brentford FC, and I felt very threatened there. I felt it wasn't a safe place for me. I felt, you know, slightly harassed even by the beery blokes around me. Um, and I just thought I'll never go back again. Then again, in uh when I was going out with the guy that was to become my husband, he took me to a match at Wembley uh that I thought when he said we were going to Wembley, I thought we were going to like take that or something. And it turned out to be England versus USA. And uh it was so boring. Like it was, it was just there were these men, I didn't know the rules of the game, there were these tiny men because we were up in the gods playing on this oblong pitch. There were lots of men around me drinking beer, and um, yeah, there was just nothing there for me. And so I I didn't like it. I associated it with the overpaid egos and threat. Yes. So what changed? Well, what changed is my husband uh is a massive football fan, and we moved from London to Lewis, this uh small town near Brighton on the south coast of England in 2007, and he immediately started to support the local football club, Lewis FC. When Lewis FC was on the brink of financial ruin in 2009, he and five other fans bought the club for a pound, paid off its debts, and then proceeded to mutualise it so that it's owned by, well, now it's owned by 2,500 people who pay£50 a year for that privilege. Um, and because it became community-owned, the agenda of the club changed. So they thought about the club as a community asset that should be available for everybody, and they started to see that the women's team were doing exceptionally well and actually question why they were paid 10 times less than the men. And so Charlie and one of his co-directors, Ed, said to me in 2016 that they were thinking of doing something radical. And they said, You're a bit of a feminist, you know. What would you say if we said we were going to pay the women the same as the men? And I was gobsmacked because I'd never been to the football club to watch a match because I just thought football, that's their stuff, you know, not mine. And I didn't know that women played football. I did not only did I not know that they weren't paid anywhere near the same as the men, I didn't even consider that women played. So steeped was my experience in men playing football and women just being wags, you know, accessories to the main event and not doing anything on the pitch. So I I was cops back as I said, well, I I'd say, why aren't you paying them the same? And also I want to go to watch them. I want to see what this is about. So I went down to Lewis FC's home ground, which is called the Dripping Pan, and I watched a women's football match, and I it wasn't what I thought football was. It felt safe, I had a cup of tea, I was chatting to people, I wasn't overcrowded, there weren't many people there, about a hundred people were there at that time in 2016-17. And I saw these amazing young women on the pitch doing things that were the opposite of how women have been socially conditioned to behave and particularly to perform in public. So there they were on the pitch, shouting, taking up space, being strong, using their bodies in a way that, you know, was just fantastic to me as a middle-aged woman. They were, you know, they were they were focusing on the ball, they were making decisions on the spot. You know, we're we're in a leadership podcast here. They they were they were literally doing everything that a leader needs to do on the pitch, in public, and people were cheering them for it. And I I want I wanted my daughter to come and see this, I wanted my son to see it, I wanted my friends to see it. And I I didn't understand why I had never known about this phenomenon that was the antidote to all the sexist guff that I was continually fed, you know, on social media or in the media. And that I'd experienced in my life to that to that point. So I um I thought it was great. And then to get to the to the answer to your question, I volunteered to tell other women like me that didn't like football about what was going on at Lewis FC because I knew that if we didn't get more people to watch the women's matches, we couldn't answer the critics of equality who said they don't deserve to be paid the same as the men because they don't get the same crowds. But I I I knew that if I didn't know about it, then there must be other women that didn't know about it.

SPEAKER_00: 8:01

Yeah, so there's a real commercial need for from that perspective to demonstrate that women can be just as attractive when it comes to the numbers on the gate as men can be.

SPEAKER_01: 8:11

Yeah, I think it there's a okay, so then I found out more about the history of women's football and that it actually had been banned for 50 years from 1921 to 1971. And at the point that it was banned, it was attracting higher crowds than men to the matches. So there was commercial potential there, but it had been completely squashed. So there's a social justice argument to paying women, let's say resourcing women equally to men, and we'll come back to that in a second, but there's also an economic argument for it, because any business knows that if you have a potential product that has never been marketed, you know, and that has had a severe disadvantage via the other product having a complete monopoly for years, um, then you need to put extra resource into that product and invest in it to make it work. But you know it has the potential because it was once getting bigger crowds than the mature product, right? So uh I think there's a there's a double argument to resourcing women equally in football. There's the the one about it's the right thing to do, but there's also an economic one where there's a lot of potential for return on your investment. So yeah, I mean it it it made sense on many, many levels.

SPEAKER_00: 9:26

Great. So there's the moral argument and the economic, very, very strong. So, how did you get going then in attracting more crowds towards the club and to watching the women's game?

SPEAKER_01: 9:37

Well, at that point, there were mainly men on the board, and the women that were on the board are two amazing women, actually. One was the football coach and one was operations manager, and neither of them had the time or inclination to go and market to other women. And when you've got men marketing to women, it's a different story, right? So here I was, a new customer, if you like, who had been really impressed by this uh phenomenon of women playing football. And I'm also a communicator. So I volunteered to go and tell specifically women's groups about what Lewis were doing, and to say to them that even if you don't like football, please come in solidarity with the cause for gender equality. Because, you know, if you're counted at the gate, you will be proving those critics of equality wrong. And also, let's face it, you know, normally in our lives we're moaning quite rightly about the gender pay gap, about our daughters being at school in rape culture, about being treat, being treated as objects, you know, all these things that happen to women happen routinely to women in every single profession, really, that I know of. And there's nothing we can do about it. There's nothing like it's hard to fight this system that we live in. But here was a little football club becoming the first in the world to equally resource men and women. And just by going to a match, you could you could be counted at the gate and you would help this fight for gender equality. And and the thing that I think is genius about doing it in football, and I still think this and it still motivates me, is that by doing it in football, football is a microcosm of society, it's a microcosm of the patriarchy we live in, and it has such a grip over men's hearts and minds, right? So we'd be talking to men, and it's men that need to have their minds changed and their hearts in order to change the systems that that we live by. It's men, and football's a way of reaching them.

SPEAKER_00: 11:40

Very powerful. And I love, yes, I love the fact it is a microcosm. It does represent, when you look at it, it does represent what's going on elsewhere in society. So you were you were an outsider coming in, so you you hadn't got this love of the game, you found this love of the game through watching the women play. Yeah. How did that help you being an outsider?

SPEAKER_01: 12:00

Well, I should say it was a journey. So initially, I actually wasn't on the board. So for the first couple of years there, um, I was a volunteer. I w I had various titles. I was a volunteer press officer at one point, and you know, uh I was uh special projects manager or something like this, just just to give me some authority really for the kind of work I was doing. And increasingly I was, you know, it was taking up most of my time. But I felt it was very important, so I was I was very motivated to do it and I enjoyed it. So initially I I was quite humble. I was humble, I was humble about it. I was quite fearful, I was worried about invading other people's space. I knew I didn't know much about football. I knew these were men who loved football, and I had to be quite careful about going into this new culture and you know, learning how to use its ways, but also staying myself because I was very aware that my experience of football was a very useful insight into this new market of unwelcome women and how they might feel coming into the game. So I, you know, I uh first of all, I was, you know, I was trying to find, I was asking a lot of questions. I was talking to the players, I was talking to uh volunteers, directors, staff about their experiences in football. And I was monitoring my own feelings and thoughts around what was happening as I went to matches, as I went to away games, and as I especially as I talked to players who were very, very important in terms of my motivation. And then as I became more and more involved, and uh you know, it really led on the Equality FC campaign, I uh I learned to value my outsider status as a very useful key to the disruption of football that we were basically doing by not, it wasn't just about pay, it really wasn't. It was it was about our women always played on the same pitch as the men. You know, our women had equal, if not more, marketing behind them because we had to think very, very carefully about this market and how to reach them using new angles, not your typical football angles, because they'd just be ignored by the people that we wanted to reach. We needed to use art, literature, uh, humour, uh, quirks, um, ways of targeting women who didn't like football, you know, and and men who really wanted their daughters to have an equal world. So, I mean, when we first, when we first uh marketed a quality FC, if you like, it was with a video where we had one of our many owners, uh, the wonderful Dave Lamb, who's actually the voice of Come Dine With Me, who lives locally. I mean, it's brilliant the amount of people that helped, you know, and that are really there to push this movement forward. Um, he was asking people to Camera how there were all these amazing young girls playing football on our pitch in our pathway, from our pathway, you know, the under the under-13s or 14s, I think it was. And uh they were playing really hard, they're sweating, they're kicking the ball, they're shouting. And he says to Camera, how do you tell your daughter she's worth less than your son? You know, how how how do you do that? These girls are giving their all. What are you gonna, as a dad, as a parent, what are you gonna say to them when you say no, they're actually worth 10 times less? So, and they'll never make it in football. There's no career for them here. How do you explain that? Not only not only generally in football, but if you own this football club and we have 2,500 owners, how do you explain to your daughter or your mum or your sister or your wife that we're gonna pay our men 10 times more than our women at this football club that I own? Yeah, you it's not, you can't explain it. Not properly, not really. Not if you're a parent that cares equally about your son and your daughter. So it's about thinking differently about the new market, isn't it? About, you know, bringing in, as I did, Prosecco on tap, uh, changing the match day environment. I always I take oat milk in my tea. If I'm at one of the many coffee shops that we have, I'll have an oat cappuccino, you know, and yet at the football club I couldn't get one. Why? A lot of women that want to come, it's such a small change will want, you know, different milk. And then a lot of men will want it too, you know, once they know it's available. It doesn't have to just be pie and mash, you know. So we'd have lots of vegan options and I'd bring in, I'd do things that weren't let me give you an example. So that just as the juxtapositioning of myself with football was unusual, so is the fact that we've got a stat, a seven foot-high statue of 18th century bisexual female pirates at the ground. You know, why have we got that? It's because it it's funny, right? The the juxtapositioning is funny in itself, but it tells you something about our football club. It has to be funny but serious at the same time. So it's unusual, but why? Because they had to dress as boys in order to be pirates, these women. They had to pretend that they were boys and they they weren't just normal pirates, by the way, Anne Bonnie and Mary Reid. They commandeered ships uh in the golden age of piracy around Jamaica and they uh got loads of treasure. I by the way, I'm not condoning piracy here or not saying that they should be role models, but what I'm saying is women in male bastions are something that we support more generally at Lewis FC. And so we've got this amazing statue that people can look up and think, oh, great, you know, that's interesting. Maybe that's something I can relate to, even though I don't know about football yet.

SPEAKER_00: 17:45

I love the whole take on the aspiration and actually how can you as a parent treat, you wouldn't treat your son and daughter unequally. So why would you do that to football players as well and your beloved football? Great take on it. So I'd love to hear more about the challenges and resistances that you faced, Karen, because I know there must have been many, and I certainly in your book you highlight just a few of them. So um please share with us, you know, it's rarely smooth, change rarely goes smoothly. So, what kind of resistances did you encounter and how did you navigate them? Oh gosh.

SPEAKER_01: 18:21

Well, I I told you um the main critical line to Equality FC was that we didn't get the crowd. So it was very important to me to prove that women's football could be just as popular as men, and we did uh achieve more or less equal gait figures for the men and women within two seasons, which was fabulous, you know, with a lot of marketing, all the bars around equality, um, international headlines, you know, more owners, more sponsors, match day revenues went up, thus proving that equality really is, you know, a rising tide that lifts all boats, because of course the men benefited too from the extra resources coming into the club. So that one of one of the ways I navigated it was to work really hard. And I think a lot of women will relate to that. You have to you have to work extra hard and uh really put everything that you can into it if you want to make a difference in a male bastion, especially if it's to do with with gender equality. So other ways were allyship. So having men, male allies, who really meant it and would show up for me and with me every day. Because without that, you know, my voice on the board wouldn't have been heard uh or wouldn't have been given equal value because it was obviously I I say obviously, yeah, it's not obvious, but in a football club, what you find is that the voices that know so much about football are the ones that are heard more often and given more time. So someone like me that doesn't purport to know anything about football, but is talking about our impact and our fan engagement. I just didn't, I was always the last one, you know, on the agenda. And it it there was tumbleweed sometimes when I when I would speak about the kind of things that I was doing, like I had meeting with the Fawcett Society or I'm making us an action plan on diversity and inclusion. And they just want to know how much we're gonna pay for the next striker, whether the toilets are working properly, because Joe Bloggs has said, you know, he went to the loop. And it's so it's really hard when you're doing something different to get the the time and space to that you need for it on the inside when you're trying to create change. Externally, it might seem brilliant, like there's all these new people coming in and they're they're really for what you're doing. But internally is where it's really difficult, and you have to keep reminding yourself that uh it's gonna be difficult because this is radical change. This is football, the most male bastion in the world, and you want more women's toilets than men's at the ground. You know, and you and you have to, and we've got them, by the way. So I mean, it's uh yeah, I suppose I navigated it by having ways to reframe my imposter syndrome, setting up my sisterships network so that I I wasn't as alienated as I I felt. Um the sistership net the sisterships network was basically my formalization of these women's groups that I was going to talk to, who, you know, basically were groups that empowered girls and or women in some way. So I bec I made a network of them and became pals with them, and we were mutually beneficial to each other. So that included even Sussex Police, you know, because they had an amazing he for she scheme. Uh so and and the fire service in Sussex that was trying to get more female cadets into their um into their uh you know in into their industry, and uh also charities like domestic abuse charities like Rise or the Brighton Women's Centre or or the Girls Network is another was another great sistership, or Active Sussex trying to get more women and girls into sports, you know. So I had this whole network, Women in Art, the great one. I had a whole brilliant network of people that I could call on uh and you know, have a virtual coffee with or bring to matches because match days were always, you know, I was often taking people round, showing them round, talking to them. We were learning to chant together. We, you know, we honestly it was it was such a laugh, but also very serious because it was a really good way to navigate, well, both imposter imposterness. I hesitate to call it syndrome because I really was an imposter, so it wasn't imagined. And um also, yeah, give myself power and validation in that space.

SPEAKER_00: 22:30

I really hear the power of your network and not only how important that was in terms of getting the numbers up and getting people coming, but that how supportive that was for you as well, and also how humour helped. Taking things with a pinch of salt and making light also helped as well.

SPEAKER_01: 22:46

Yeah, yeah. Well, but I think one of the big things about football is I learned one of the things I learned when I was really involved, like at the Citadels of Football on the board, right, was that it is a sanctuary for some men. And I I don't want to take that away from men. I want them to enjoy themselves. I I don't want to be invading their space or taking away from them. I always want us to rise together or separately, as long as both men and women rise. And I think by having that sort of respect for it and understanding of what was going on, it it wasn't something I had to fight, you know. It was something I but I what I needed to do was bring in the empowerment of women into the space, but understand that women's football culture was different to men's football culture, wasn't emerging, emerging into something that I could see was quite different and that there was there could be spaces for both.

SPEAKER_00: 23:50

How did you create that sense of because you were bringing two, it was the yin and yang, really, wasn't it? You were bringing together.

SPEAKER_01: 23:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 23:57

But how did how did you do that and maintain the equilibrium with because I can imagine there will be some people would feel their noses were pushed out of joint. A hundred percent. A hundred percent.

SPEAKER_01: 24:07

I mean, it's I this isn't a wrapped-up story. So we started with equality, uh, we needed to move to equity because actually there was an equivalency to be drawn at the time between our men's non-league team and our women's what was third tier, but we moved into the championship. That's the second tier of English women's football. I mean, that's professional football, and they needed more within that context to operate. So we needed to move to equity and bring everybody with us, and we just we couldn't. It was really difficult to get everybody on the same page with that. Oh, that's not equality. But what we had to teach and still and are still debating is that equality is not treating everybody the same. It's treating everybody the same within their context. So some people need more in order to have the same opportunity, right? And and this is a this is a big lesson that we were taking everybody along with us. Um, and then what I actually think now is that we actually need to branch our women's team off because it's really hard to make equality work. So we we then go from equality to equity to emancipation. And it's it's something that Mary Beard said in her book Women and Power that you can't easily um introduce women into a system that's already coded male. And I think we did it for a while and we achieved wonders. Um, and there's and it still works to some extent. But I think in the future, like we'd you know, we need to move along um and branch the women's team off because women it we're getting pulled back by the men now. So what once gave us wings, like 10 times more playing budget, is now a ball and chain, and the women's team are being held back because women's football has moved forward so much and it's worked so well, if you like. So yeah, I I think it's um we're all on we're on a massive journey.

SPEAKER_00: 26:06

Fascinating, fascinating and incredible to hear the evolution, but also the impact of the women's success is based upon upon the fact that they were treated equal in the first place.

SPEAKER_01: 26:18

Yes, and that I mean it's very important. That's that gave us the start and the leg up. But then, you know, partly because of our work at Lewis FC and and mainly probably because of the lionesses, women's football has moved forward incredibly in the last few years. And therefore it becomes much more expensive and much more professional. And the kind of license in order to comply with the FA licensing requirements means that you know it's much easier if you're a massive big club in the Premier League to just put some money over the table to your women's team or allow them to play on the same pitch as the men, something Lewis has always done, um, which we can't do at our level. So we need to give the women more, and that's difficult to um, you know, to take for some male fans.

SPEAKER_00: 27:02

So is that a challenge you're currently navigating as a club still?

SPEAKER_01: 27:05

I'd say so. Yeah. Oh, you know, we are a lot of people talk about equality and change and leadership and how you do these things, how you change culture. We are a very practical example. And I I'm not gonna, you know, use rose-tinted glasses here. This is how hard it actually is at the coalface. So yeah, we're we're still on a journey. We've done a mate, we've we've we have made history and have made history for a while. I'd like us to make more history, you know, by moving towards emancipation.

SPEAKER_00: 27:35

I'm sure you will. I'm sure you will, Karen. So I'm gonna move on because you mentioned imposter, and I'm with you. I don't like calling anything imposter syndrome because it's not an illness, it's a phenomena, it's it's a a thought pattern that has an impact on us. And you talk about in your book about having imposter thinking and imposter feelings, and I know lots of listeners who are tuning in will relate to this. So, how did you reframe that in order that it actually is able to serve you?

SPEAKER_01: 28:04

Well, I I mean I think that imposter syndrome is a real phenomenon where people feel, you know, panicky, even though they're just as good as anyone else, they feel they're not worthy to be in that space and they uh and therefore that they get very anxious and they have a terrible time of it. They can't ask for more pay, they can't, you know, very, very difficult. I don't think I had imposter syndrome as such. I just knew that I was an imposter in this environment and that I was therefore treated differently, and that I had a lot of hurdles to overcome um on the board and you know, even with women in football, like female players, female coaches, uh, because I just didn't know what they knew. So there was a lot of um, you know, bants on the board about, you know, oh, when Arsenal did this, or you know, when we did that, and they knew that this, you know, we're in Sussex and they just knew everybody on the Sussex football circuit, and I knew nobody, you know. And uh I I think one way I came to terms with it was by acknowledging the fact that my environment, my context made me an imposter, right? That's one thing. But then to use it to my advantage, of course, because I could see things with fresh eyes that that they didn't know. So, for example, when one of my you know, unwelcome women, as I called them, my new women said to me, I I really don't know the rules of the game. Is there anything you can do to help, like a class or something? So I suggested on the board that we start uh an evening called The Offside Rule and all that jazz, where these new women, new fans to the game, and some of them were men who had been turned off traditional football by toxic masculinity in some way, these new fans of the game that were coming to Lewis could actually ask any question without judgment. So, why is she kicking the ball from the corner now? Or what what is a formation, you know. And uh so everyone on the board, so everyone in that board meeting, apart from me, was a man at that point, volunteered to come and explain. They said, Oh, that's a great idea. I'll come and explain it. So we had an amazing discussion about what mansplaining was on our football club board. You know, for example, and uh I don't know any, many football club boards that would have been talking about mansplaining. I talked about, you know, him to opting and all these things that I knew from my background, but they'd never had all. So then they they kind of backed down. And I said, we need a female player or a coach to explain this because of the power dynamics, you know, and for the women to really hear what's going on and not feel judged or put down or diminished in any way by the fact that they don't know. So so we did that. Amazing results, you know, these we we we discussed tactics, we and we had these really special evenings where players would tell us everything. You know, people could ask about their menstrual cycles, you know, how did they co, you know, when did they eat carbs? When did, you know, and it was really, really super interesting. And people would say that that they'd see the game on Sunday with fresh eyes, you know, because I had these insights and this background. And also what again, coming back to the difference between men and women's football culture, a lot of our new fans on the women's side wanted to know the players. They wanted their stories, they wanted relationships with them, they wanted access to them. So this was a another brilliant way of um catering to that and ensuring that they became stickier customers and would come back, you know, to the matches. So it all kind of works.

SPEAKER_00: 31:35

And uh yeah, so that's you know, that's just one example of how my imposter fantastic example, but also how you made good of it as well. It's a fantastic example, and I love the whole thing about mansplaining and and and you know, those male directors probably stepped up with the goodness of their heart to do to do something. But yeah, absolutely, they were they weren't cognizant of the fact that I'm not sure.

SPEAKER_01: 32:01

And and again, Mary, I think this is really important when we're talking about women in male-dominated environments. I would never demonize these men. These are my these are friends, really. They've well they became sort of friends, not all of them, but they are brilliant. They give up so much time to make this thing work. And they are amazing men who I admire and respect, but they don't know what they don't know, right? And and they that that we we're all socially conditioned to into gender roles, right? So that there's a that you probably read it, there's a bit in my book where I talk about making the tea for everyone at my first and missing the first 10 minutes of the meeting, and they're realising what I've done and thinking, hang on, this is as it's it's as much my stuff as theirs. It's not no blame, you know.

SPEAKER_00: 32:54

There was a real parallel in that moment when I read that bit in your book because a lot of the women I work with uh or when all my programs, the a particular programme I'm thinking of, where in one organisation, women always took the minutes at the meeting, which is kind of the equivalent of making the tea, and therefore missed the chance to contribute to the meeting because they were too busy taking the meet minutes. And actually, part of what that program did for those participants was actually to be able to set that boundary and say, no, actually, I want to contribute to this meeting, let someone else take the minutes this time and change the culture of the organization.

SPEAKER_01: 33:28

Well, see, what I talk about is the wallpaper that's around us, that's there all the time, but we can't see it. So it's things like that. You know, no one's thought to say, hang on, these women are taking the minutes and missing the meeting and having to use their brain in a different way. This isn't fair, but no one notices until someone from the outside steps in and thinks, hang on a second, what's going on here?

SPEAKER_00: 33:52

You know, so it's yeah. We're all hardwired, that's the thing. And I think it's about how do we keep rewiring ourselves because it is that's the great thing, you know. Neuroscience has proved that the brain is very plastic and can be remoulded and rewired. And so it's about how can we uh keep rewiring ourselves away from the traditional biases.

SPEAKER_01: 34:11

Well, thank goodness for that, because we need to do it every single day when we're in situations like this. And I I'm a firm believer in like Gandhi, like saying, be the change. So if we can change our own rewiring, maybe we can restructure these systems that need changing.

SPEAKER_00: 34:27

I'm just, you know, it's like how we get to that tipping point moment as well, though, because it it is happening, but it feels like it happens. We go two footsteps forward, one step back, is how it feels for me. And the same with what's happening with women in senior leaders' roles in in the corporate world as well. It's kind of change has happened, there are far more women around. They've noticed that a lot of the corporate um non-exec board women, though, are the same women. That's what they've noticed. So there might be more women on the board, but it's the same women going from one non-exec position to another. And so it's like, how do we keep increasing the diversity?

SPEAKER_01: 34:59

So something is wrong.

SPEAKER_00: 35:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 35:01

Something is very, very wrong. Yeah. And it needs radical change.

SPEAKER_00: 35:05

Yes, it and it needs men and women to come together to sort it. I don't think one gender can do it on their own. It has to be both genders together.

SPEAKER_01: 35:13

100% not. So this thing about sisters are doing it for themselves, which was the song that we danced to in a suffragette flashback. But it's not true, like it sisters need brothers to do it for them because brothers are in charge in these male-dominated areas. So it's sisters can only do it for themselves if we emancipate ourselves from the male-dominated profession and start up something on our on our own.

SPEAKER_00: 35:38

Completely free of the system, but then still serving in the context of the system, that's what's hard. So even if you are emancipated, you're still part of that system ultimately. It's very difficult to be very set completely separate from it. I just want to also go back to, you know, so you you shared about how you managed the imposter feelings, but how did your counselling background help you with difficult boardroom moments?

SPEAKER_01: 36:01

So I see that that's a really interesting question. So I I have had therapy, I haven't got I'm not in therapy now, but I've had therapy for years, like since since the age of 19 to about, I don't know, uh early 20s. I was in therapy of one kind or another. And then later on as well, because I trained to be a counsellor, and I was in counselling groups and different, you know, settings and very used to it. And then I ran a counselling service within the music industry and got to know how to sort of navigate counselling within an organization. And yeah, so I've I've had a lot of therapy, and it's hard to separate myself from the person I would have been without the therapy. But I believe it's taught me to trust myself, to be a to be happy with self-disclosure to some extent, to establish boundaries, to be quite open. I I you know it's part of trusting myself, and to know when it's too much and I need to try another tactic or take a break. So I think I need to sort of give you some examples. So, for example, not only have I had a lot of therapy in the past, I was also fully in my menopause whilst on the board, right? So I went through my menopause on the board. I'm now post-menopausal, I suppose. And uh I was angry and I had a rage inside me, and I wasn't prepared to put up with as much as I think I'd put up with as a as a younger woman. And so when things got too much on the board, I invented a visualization technique which I called the town, the town of Fuckery. And literally, when I couldn't handle some of these comments or people or the priorities that were being given anymore, I would send people to to Fuckery. So I would um I know it it probably sounds terrible, but in in my book, I hope I make it sound funny. And say someone was being taking up all the time on the board with the minutiae of men's football, I would make them the town crier of Fuckery, I'd send them there for a kind of stint. Uh, then someone wouldn't turn up for a really important vote at a at a board meeting, and I'd I'd make them, you know, I'd make them the MP for fuckery in my head. And I would really go into it. I'd I'd detail, you know, what they wore, where they lived in fuckery, what their position was. And it would really help me because it made it, it sort of diminished the power of the situation uh and gave me a perspective on it that was funny so that I didn't get so wound up in myself. And and and and you know, that comes from my famous, my my favorite A.B. Winehouse song, you know, what kind of fuckery is this? Because sometimes you really do just have to say, fuck it. Because I and that's a good, that's good because in terms of your anger and your emotions, it gets it out there, so it's not turned inward, right? And I just feel it's quite a healthy way to deal with things. Uh so yeah, so that's so that's probably one way. I had a gratitude journal as well, of course. I had a gratitude journal and used to sort of turn it around so that I could be grateful in terms of what I how I was learning not to be, uh, you know, all these great examples. And also, let's be honest. I mean, I also I talk in the book about, you know, having the confidence of a middle-aged white man that believes he knows more than the manager about how the football team should operate. So they're shouting from the sidelines at the ref, or they're shouting about what the what the manager should do. Uh, that kind of confidence, I wanted to emulate that. So I would I would appreciate it in terms of what it was teaching me to be. You know, I mean, wow, the kind of privilege, you know, uh the the unearned privilege that goes with that. Love it, right? Um let's take a leave out of their book and the next time I'm speaking, I'll speak like that.

SPEAKER_00: 39:59

Amazing, incredible, incredible. I love that, I love that. So various different strategies that helped you. Really good to hear about those. So let's move on and think a bit more about football as a whole. Because you know, the Lioness of of NAR won the second Euro title, um, which is incredible, and they've really put football, women's football, in the forefront and given all sorts of young girls something to aspire to, which is fantastic. How do you feel about the state of women's football and equality generally? Because from my perspective, I think what you're doing at Lewis is incredible, but it does feel like it's still snail's pace progress.

SPEAKER_01: 40:40

Well, it is. I mean, the thing is, like what you said earlier, women's football, uh by the way, I was there in Basel watching the Lionesses win. It was amazing. I just love the culture because it's so everyone's your friend. It's like being at a big festival, and it is not like going to watch men, like in an international competition where you might be scared that there'll be violence or something. This is like, ah, it's just there's just this amazing atmosphere where every you could talk to everyone, you're in a hundred WhatsApp groups of where to meet up, everyone's your friend, everyone. I think with women's football, because it goes against stereotypes, it's so much more inclusive, and people are so much more willing to include each other. It's really different. And and and that's an important reflection on on the future of women's football.

SPEAKER_00: 41:24

I think that certainly is. I hadn't appreciated about that element of it that actually just felt so much safer at a women's football match.

SPEAKER_01: 41:31

Yeah, I mean, you don't like it's quite it's quite funny, but even our so we have vets teams that are over 35 teams at Lewis, and the men's vets come and support the women, and they have invented charm to support them that aren't too abusive because they know that there'll be loads of children there. This is so brilliant. It really is men supporting women as well. But um, to get back to your question in the future, uh, it's not all rosy because sometimes progress really is an illusion. And although we've done this amazing thing at Lewis, uh we're a small dot, aren't we? And uh yes, we've we've commanded international attention. And when Xero sponsored us actually in in 2022 or 2021, they commissioned this research and found that Lewis FC Women were the second highest affinity-aware team after the Lionesses. So we've had a massive impact on on women's football and football more generally, I hope. But uh what has happened is as the market for women's football has become more apparent and it's become more popular, these bigger teams, uh big big men's teams, have um woken up to the market potential and they have allowed their women to play on the same pitch, given them more resources, and they're the the WSL 1, which is the top league of women's football, has replicated the Premier League. And the WSL two is beginning to replicate the second highest tier of men's football. Because and and that the problem there is that women, women's football will just follow the trajectory of men's and not do something different, and that they won't get the the they have amazing crowds, but we can't sustain it because the money is dependent on the men's team. So if, as happens with Manchester United, frequently uh the men's team need a new facility to change in because theirs is being updated, the women will be shafted out of their facility, it'll be given to the men, and they'll always have to take second best. If, like happened recently at many clubs, let's let's take um Barnsley, uh the men aren't doing so well and need extra money, they'll just stop the women's team because uh therefore the women's team isn't doesn't have the potential to make its own money on its own terms.

SPEAKER_00: 43:48

And this is the problem. And that's the key, isn't it? It's the money the women to bring in the money themselves, which is what you did at Lewis.

SPEAKER_01: 43:55

Which is what we did at Lewis because we're a smaller club, and and we because we're innovative and creative and found a way of doing it, which which was centered a brand new market, which other clubs aren't necessarily looking at.

SPEAKER_00: 44:09

But there's something there that other clubs can learn from what you did as well, because there's the ad the innovation or the agility.

SPEAKER_01: 44:16

And they and they are learning from it, but you know, it's they're learning from it, but more so they're just copying what they do on the men's side and they're they're trying for crossover fans. So men that already support the men's team will support the women's side of the team. Now that means giving up your whole weekend because it's a Saturday and a Sunday. So how sustainable is that for most people? I I don't know, it's it's just not looking at what we've done at Lewis, the kind of marketing we've done with our posters, the kind of extra curricula, extra things away from football that we've done to bring people in. I don't see that being replicated anywhere. Uh, so I so I don't have high hopes. The lionesses may be doing amazing things, and the FA may be giving money to WSL 1 and WSL2, and at grassroots, girls may be being encouraged to play football more, which is brilliant. But in the middle, where the pathway is, we're all suffering. So clubs in the middle, there'll be no feeder into those lionesses anymore if we keep doing what we're doing, and it will implode.

SPEAKER_00: 45:16

Well, that's sad to hear, actually. Yeah. I've got a I've got a final question. What advice would you give to women or their allies who want to step into spaces where they don't feel welcome or not or not even don't feel welcome, but aren't welcome, but know they can make a difference?

SPEAKER_01: 45:33

I think it's very difficult. And I I feel sorry for those people already, even if they may not have started doing it. But I think based on my experience, build your networks, build your allies. If it's on a board, make sure you're phoning people before the board meeting or having a coffee with them to let them know what you're gonna say and what you want them to respond, like things like that, and also use humor because it's gonna be triggering. You don't have power within that system. It is going to be triggering. Find ways mentally and emotionally to deal with that. Maybe get therapy at the same time, maybe get a mentor, maybe get a coach. But it really ways that will bolster you against what is basically a whole system uh of people that don't know what they have and the power that they have and therefore don't treat you any differently. What keeps you going, Karen? Me. What keeps me going is is anger and wanting justice for the players. Because, you know, the female players that I've spoken to and that I know quite well, some of them still, the obstacles that they've had to overcome just to do what they want to do. Uh and when I know more and more about the history of women's football and what what men have tried to suppress, I I get very angry. And that anger is is an incredible, incredible energetic force uh that I can use to try and you know change uh negative to positive. And also my love of people. You know, I love men and women, and I I I just want us to be able to live together harmoniously, and I know that it's men that we we need to speak to or garner, uh get behind us in order to make in order to make that happen better. Thank you so much. And if people want to connect with you, how can they connect with you? They can follow me on LinkedIn or Instagram. Those are my two, you know, my two main uh places.

SPEAKER_00: 47:32

Okay, and and and those details will be in our our show notes at the bottom of this podcast.

SPEAKER_01: 47:37

But the the the best thing they could do is read my book because it will be so that's the next question.

SPEAKER_00: 47:43

That's my next question. Where? So they can that your book is available on Amazon and in all bookshops.

SPEAKER_01: 47:47

Well, not all bookshops, Amazon, Waterstones, and all good bookshops.

SPEAKER_00: 47:53

Great. And it is a great read. I can highly recommend it. So uh I'm gonna pass it on to my partner who is a massive QPR fan. I think he's a bit of a masochist, actually. But anyway, there we go. Thank you so much for being here. Pleasure. Karen's story shows what shared leadership for gender equity looks like in practice. And because today is International Men's Day, I've released a short bonus reflection on why we need men in this work with us. It's just after this episode. If you're committed to gender equity and inclusive leadership, then you absolutely need to hear it. Because it builds directly on Karen's message by exploring why women cannot and should not drive systemic change without men and what we're getting wrong when we leave them out of the conversation. It's a short episode, but it packs a punch. Do go and give it a listen. Thank you so much for listening to the G Leads Collective podcast. If this episode resonated with you, follow the show or share it with a friend and leave a quick review below. Or leave us a comment. Change happens through conversation, so let's keep this one going. Listen out for the next episode and join me as we keep lifting the lid on the stories that matter. Take care and keep leading with heart.