What a great week for women's sport.
The Black Ferns annihilated Samoa at Eden Park, the Waikato-Bay of Plenty Magic made it to the transtasman preliminary finals, Lydia Ko finished a respectable fourth in the latest LPGA event, Maria Sharapova won her second French Open title, and Andy Murray has surrounded himself with another strong female influence (other than his mother) in the form of player-turned-coach Amelie Mauresmo.
Most people looking at this line-up of achievements by females in sport would suggest this is evidence the glass ceiling no longer exists in the world of sport.
Let's not get too excited. Discrimination still occurs; it is just under the guise of risk management and duty of care.
A TV3 news story this week highlighted that girls' development in sport can still be stifled by their raging hormones and ridiculous rules.
Twelve-year-olds Alayna and Vianna and 13-year-old Diaz have been playing rugby league since they were 6.
An amended rule by the NZRL stating that ''males [boys] and females [girls] may not participate in mixed gender rugby league once international rules commence'' may put an end to that.
The NZRL Medical Council suggests the physical and developmental changes in males and females of this age-bracket, combined with the potential increase in impact forces that a player has to absorb when the offside distance increases from 5m to 10m, places female participants at a significant risk of serious and long-term injury.
Rugby league is ranked the second-hardest collision sport in the world, so the NZRL believes it has a duty of care to take all practicable steps to ensure the safety of all people who participate in the sport.
Unfortunately for girls such as Alayna, Vianna and Diaz, this could mean a hiatus from rugby league for the rest of the season and potentially for life.
The girls are left with very few choices.
They either play rugby league in the open grade with girls who may be much heavier than them, or they watch from the sidelines and learn stereotypical female roles in sport as supporters and spectators while their male team-mates get to play.
Where is rugby league's duty of care when it comes to offering these girls opportunities to play their sport in an environment that is safe and enjoyable?
The ''tween-age'' years tend to be the most problematic for girls playing in contact sports because it is when their status as ''girls'' can no longer be ignored and signifies an end to their time playing as pseudo-boys.
As the television images of these girls training portrayed, the girls match their male team-mates for physical size and skill but the rush of female hormones that tends to occur for girls at this age suggests they are at a higher risk of injury due to joint laxity.
To me, resorting to the medical argument indicates we haven't progressed very far at all when it comes to women's liberation.
Similar arguments have acted as roadblocks throughout the history of women's sport.
Even though the media suggests an injury epidemic for female athletes is about to break out, it hasn't.
Yes, research has suggested that girls are at a higher risk for specific types of injuries (such as ACL knee injuries) compared with boys, but such injuries are relatively rare and girls have a lower overall rate of injury.
Further, women tend to have higher rates of surgery for the same injuries than men but this may indicate a willingness to acknowledge they are injured in the first place rather than playing through pain and discomfort to reinforce masculinity.
A study by King, Hume, Milburn and Gianotti in 2009 on women's rugby league injury claims and costs in New Zealand concluded that when compared with other studies in rugby league injuries, it appears females incur substantially fewer injuries (5.7%) than males (94.3%) and recommended injury prevention programmes for women's rugby league should focus on the 25-29 age group, to address ways of preventing concussion and lower limb injuries.
What this suggests is that participating in sport itself is the most obvious risk factor for injury.
You play sport, you risk injury - irrespective of your gender.
Stop using the injury risk card as an easy out and get creative.
Spend resources identifying how girls such as Alayna, Vianna and Diaz can continue to play sport.
This could be as easy as modifying the rules and regulations to allow them to continue playing in the under 60kg division with boys, ensuring they wear protective gear to decrease the risks associated with impact, and developing coaching and safety courses to ensure proper technique and knowledge are passed on to all players irrespective of their gender.
As the coach of the Ponsonby team stated: ''Let the girls play, let them have fun and be kids, let them get out there and enjoy the game''.
