File photo of NRLW teams in 2024. Photo: PHOTOSPORT
A survey has shown NRLW players receive twice as much online abuse as their male counterparts in the NRL and two in three do not report incidents.
The survey, conducted by the Rugby League Players Association, claims 8 percent of NRLW players have received targeted abuse and 4 percent have experienced racism.
However, the survey showed 67 percent of players chose not to report the incidents and one-third believed they would not be supported if they spoke out.
The figures show that of those who have experienced abuse, all had received that abuse online.
One-quarter said they had experienced abuse from fans.
Another quarter said they experienced abuse from the general public, and the same amount cited abuse from the media.
The figures back up research released this year by Deakin University in Geelong, which examined online harm experienced by women in Australian sport.
The research showed 81 per cent of athletes had experienced personal insults and 62 percent had endured hate speech.
Thirty-nine percent experienced sexual harassment.
The RLPA's survey is contained in The Players' Pulse, an annual snapshot of player attitudes and work conditions.
The survey found that in general, NRLW players had a less favourable experience of the workplace than men in the NRL.
It showed NRLW players gave their clubs a D mark for culture via a scaling system of A (the highest) to F (the lowest).
The rating means between 50 and 65 per cent of players gave the club a ranking of six or more out of 10 (on a scale from 0-10).
The women gave their head coaches, medical staff, assistant coaches and CEO an average score of a C, while the men gave their high-performance staff an average rating of a B.
The top-performing club in the NRL was South Sydney, which scored Bs and As across a range of criteria.
The criteria included coaching, support, workplace environment, training facilities, family support facilities, cultural safety, workload and balance, match-day facilities and travel.
The best-performing club in the NRLW was Parramatta, which scored As and Bs, apart from a D for psychological safety.
The RLPA said it planned to engage with leaders at all the clubs to review the results of workplace satisfaction.
The meetings would provide an opportunity to look deeper at the reason behind the players' sentiments.
A stark difference between the men's and women's games is the part-time nature of the NRLW, which operates across a much shorter season than the NRL and was causing financial strain, according to the RLPA.
Ninety-two per cent of the female players said they worked during the off-season, which dropped to 83 per cent in the active season.
The player's Collective Bargaining Agreement has established protected hours from 8am to 4pm to give women time for external commitments.
However, the RLPA said "frequent violations" of the protected hours were forcing players to prioritise NRLW without compensation.
The RLPA said that was leading to "financial strain and increased mental and physical stress".
"Effectively, this unpaid encroachment on the time that a player would otherwise be earning income from is a form of wage theft," the RLPA survey said.
"It's incredibly common in part-time professional sports and particularly women's sports and is an issue that must be addressed."
The survey found 35 per cent of NRLW players were relying on casual work, an increase of 8 percentage points since 2021.
-ABC