Cliona Foley: Empty outrage is useless at the coalface of women's sport

The 20x20 movement deserves kudos for innovatively increasing the visibility of female athletes, the respect and admiration for them, and the awareness of the disadvantages they often face

Tennis player Grainne O’Neill, badminton’s Sara Boyle, Dublin camogie player Laura Twomey, Dublin footballer Leah Caffrey, Karate international Caradh O’Donovan, and athlete Nadia Power, at Parnell Park, in Dublin, at the launch of the Show Your Skills Challenge in support of 20x20 back in February. Can the work of 20x20 carry on in 2021? Picture: Seb Daly/Sportsfile

Right now it’s difficult to hit the reset button for a New Year that looks like opening just as chaotically as the one just departing… and we’re not just talking Covid restrictions.

A professor of psychology wrote an editorial yesterday headlined: ‘The GAA is institutionally misogynistic’. She declared unequivocally that the GAA “actively undermines women’s and girls’ participation in Gaelic games.” She mentioned the “carry-on over the women’s football final” (it was a semi-final actually) and threw in references to “male privilege” and the “sin of omission”.