OPINION:
I'm going to have to be honest with you, I didn't even see the All Blacks' social media post on International Women's Day because I do not follow their accounts. As a fan of the women's game, I instead ate up the tributes on the Black Ferns page, celebrations of the women that inspire them to be the best they can be. So the comedown to these warm fuzzies waited until this morning, the day after International Women's Day, when I awoke to the notifications of this misstep.
It was very "thanks to the ladies in the kitchen" of them. Saying the quiet part aloud, that women in this game are valued namely because of their service to men. Playing the offscreen characters in the All Blacks' movie, women progress the plot without being seen or heard. That's before we even get into the faces chosen to represent this gratitude.
I still remember the press conference where Steve Hansen clumsily named domestic violence as "not a gender thing" despite all statistics in Aotearoa pointing to the contrary. So the choice of Sevu Reece, as one of the hero images in the All Blacks' IWD social post, is painful to all of us who have experienced intimate partner violence. If New Zealand Rugby truly wishes to support Reece's rehabilitation they should do better by him too, rather than opening up these wounds by using him as the face of women's issues.
What disappoints me further is that they have plenty of examples of more authentic allyship to draw from. Ardie Savea is a regular on the sidelines of women's club matches in Wellington and was a former coach of the St Mary's College girls rugby team. Akira and Rieko Ioane's mum, former-Black Fern Sandra Ioane (nee Wihongi), surely played some influence in her sons' development as rugby players. This could have been a chance to highlight the All Blacks' excitement to support the Black Ferns' Rugby World Cup campaign here on home soil later this year. Or who knows, perhaps you could have handed over your platform for the day for a Black Ferns' takeover.