IN CONVERSATION AT THE NATIONAL LIBRARY
The Matilda Effect with Fiona Crawford & Grace Gill
6:00pm—7:00pm Wednesday 30 August 2023
National Library of Australia
Tickets: Free
Join Fiona Crawford as she discusses her latest book The Matilda Effect with former Matildas soccer star Grace Gill.
Entry is free to this event but bookings are essential.
This event is presented in association with the Grit & Gold: Tales from a Sporting Nation exhibition.
The Matilda Effect is the exciting, inspiring, sometimes infuriating and always colourful story of the Australian women's football (soccer) team, the Matildas, and their ultimately successful struggle, alongside other women from around the world, to compete in World Cup football. From the 1980s, when women had to pay to participate in the pilot Women's World Cup, to 2019, when the principle of equal pay for women players was finally accepted amid surging interest in their game, the voices of key figures emerge. A book at once about and not about sport, and with a through line of human rights and gender equality history, The Matilda Effect takes the reader out of the stands and onto the pitch, into the team's hotels, buses, boardrooms and social media universe, where positive change has been wrestled into being.
About Fiona Crawford
Fiona Crawford is a writer, editor and researcher whose work spans social and environmental issues, the arts and football and has appeared in The Sydney Morning Herald, The Big Issue and The Conversation among others. She is an adjunct lecturer at the Queensland University of Technology's Centre for Justice and co-authored a book, Never Say Die: The Hundred-Year Overnight Success of Australian Women's Football.
About Grace Gill
Grace Gill is an accomplished Australian soccer player and commentator. She has played for Canberra United in the Australian W-League, for Slovácko in the Czech Women's First League, and has represented Australia as part of the Matildas national team. Gill is currently a football commentator and analyst at Network 10, and will be part of Channel 7's FIFA Women's World Cup 2023 commentary team.