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00:00:01
Robot voiceover: 100 in 24 – 11

Mike: Kirby Fenwick. Hello, how are you?

00:00:12
Kirby: I’m doing okay. How are you?

00:00:13
Mike: I’m okay. I’m just, I’m just trying to get lunch. Do you mind if I eat for a little while?

00:00:18
Kirby: go for it. You know it’s 2:00pm.

00:00:20
Mike: Have you? What did you have had lunch? What did you have?

00:00:24
Kirby: Um I had some homemade pasties actually.

00:00:27
Mike: Homemade.

00:00:28
Kirby: Yeah.

00:00:31
Mike: Sorry, one second.

00:00:36
Mike: What was in them? What did you put in them?

00:00:38
Kirby: Um I had made some of this Ottolenghi like vegetarian Ragu with like mushrooms and everything. Um So I had that with some leftover pasta and I put like some potatoes and peas and corn in there and they’re really good.

00:00:56
Mike: That sounds delicious.

00:01:00
Mike: Um Yeah, delicious. What did, what did you, what did you call the mixture?

00:01:05
Kirby: I’m probably pronouncing it incorrectly, but it’s like Ragu, which is like normally like a meat dish but um

00:01:14
Kirby: there’s also a link has this recipe in flavor one of his recipe books, which is like a non meat version with like mushrooms and carrots and lentils. Really yummy,

00:01:25
Mike: delicious. Um. What’s happening for you, Kirby?

00:01:31
Kirby: God, what’s happening for me? I’m working today on a bunch of freelance stuff, so I did an interview this morning with an Indigenous woman who is coaching Aussie rules football and so I’m just working on the transcript of that interview.

00:01:49
Mike: Fantastic. This is for your podcast?

00:01:53
Kirby: This is for siren sport, which is a women in sport collective that I’m a co founder of. So this will actually be a written article. Not audio.

00:02:03
Mike: Okay. Right. Right. So you normally, that’s normally how you work, you’ll record it and then transcribe it and then get the quotes from there?

00:02:12
Kirby: Yeah. Because I find um a ‘m really bad at taking notes, but I find if I have the recorder set up, I can be much more engaged in the conversation and much more of an active listener because I’m not worried about thinking about what they’re saying. I’m listening to them and I’m being a much more like active participating in the conversation. So I find I get better interviews that way. So yeah, that’s what works for me.

00:02:39
Mike: And you’re doing some more study?

00:02:42
Kirby: Yeah. Going back to do honour, which is both exciting and nerve rocky. But I’m doing a really what I hope will be a really exciting and interesting project. Women in sport project. Yes. It’s going to be really exciting. Really looking forward to it.

00:02:59
Mike: Okay, great. And so what was the, what brought on the, the desire to go back?

00:03:06
Kirby: Ah look, I have, I’ve probably been flirting with the idea of doing like a PhD that kind of thing for a while. I have a couple of friends who have done so and have been um, quite encouraging of that and I was kind of toying with that idea and I actually finally finished my arts degree last year. I started it back in 2013. Finally finished that last year. Um, and yeah, I, I actually hadn’t considered on it because I wasn’t really aware of how the process works. Um And then I got an email from my uni at the start of the year and they said hey your G. P. A. Is high enough, are you interested? And I was like yeah. Um So within the space of like a couple of weeks um I had a couple of chats, two friends who were done on us and um then was like yeah let’s do it.

00:03:56
Mike: Yeah fantastic. I know a few people who have gone through that process and everyone talks about the grind.

00:04:02
Mike: It’s all about the grind. It’s very difficult. But you get this really unique experience.

00:04:08
Kirby: Yeah exactly and like I’m doing it part time so I’ll do it across two years. Um So hopefully that will relieve a little bit of the kind of stress of that situation. And also I’m working, I’m going to be working on a project that is about a topic that I’m really interested in and I’m really passionate about and I think that’s going to make a big difference. It’s not something that I’m going to struggle to like research and do the work on because it’s something that I’m into.

00:04:36
Mike: What’s the what’s the project?

00:04:41
Kirby: it’s around women in sports. Not athletes but still women working in that space. So it’s going to be fun. It’s going to be a little bit of a taking a really broad look historically, which is something I’m really passionate about the history of women’s sport is something I’m really passionate about. So looking from historical angle, but also looking like a more contemporary angle as well. And also trying to have a little bit of a look into the future too. So I don’t know how I’m going to fit all that into 18,000 words that we’ll have a go. You can do it.

00:05:15
Mike: I want to ask you about more about women in sport in a sec. But talk me through the part time journey over those seven, eight years do you undergraduate, how did that come about? And what’s the story there?

00:05:30
Kirby: Yeah. Look, um, I sort of, you know, finished high school and went straight into work like, um, for lots of different reasons. And then um, yeah, like 2013 I was sort of like, yeah, I need to, you know, I graduated like in 2000 and three, I’m revealing lots of secrets here. Um graduated in 2000 and three. But yeah, by 2000 and 13 it was like, okay, I want to do something different. Like I want to do some study like, you know, 11 of my options and so I rolled in online studies so I could still, you know, work and not sort of have my life dictated by a a timetable. And yeah, I think I’m probably at that point wasn’t really sure what I wanted to do. Like what I was really interested in.

00:06:13
Kirby: I had started doing some journalism units and then at some point I think the degree kind of

00:06:20
Kirby: drifted over to like comms and pr like very briefly um and then and then came back and um into literature and history which are two obviously things and I’m really interested in. So I mean I guess it took seven years because life got in the way and I went and did another degree in professional writing and editing. I moved overseas. I you know I was working I had you know family stuff going on and yeah that’s just why it took me so long but I think um it kind of worked out really well because I ended up getting exactly the degree that I should have gotten and I’m now like on the path that feels really good.

00:07:01
Mike: Everyone’s journey is their own their own you know like everyone gets to carve it out, there’s no there’s no one set path and I think it’s cool that you took your time and also obviously stuck with it and you you figured it out but I think that’s fantastic.

00:07:18
Kirby: Yeah I’m pretty proud of myself when I could have just thrown it away. You know I think it’s it’s worked out really well and I’m pretty happy.

00:07:27
Mike: in my experience it’s those experiences about figuring it out that help inform what what the end result is. That was my experience anyway, time to figure it out, and uni was great for me because I got to figure it out. It sounds like you did a lot of figuring out in that time too…

00:07:50
Kirby: Yeah, absolutely, and you know, you changed so much, like from 2000 and 13 to 2021 like I’m a very different person just because I have got older and I have different experiences and you know, my perspective on things have shifted and of course that influences what you want to do with your life. So um I’m, yeah, I mean, the time thing for me doesn’t matter, I’m kind of proud that I took seven years and I think for me long term it will be the right it will have in the right course for me.

00:08:22
Mike: Okay, so let’s talk about women in sport, what is driving your passion?

00:08:28
Kirby: That’s a big question.

00:08:29
Mike: Where did it come from?

00:08:30
Kirby: I think um look, I’ve probably been um I was raised to be quite strong willed and independent and all the rest of that. I think sometimes my parents regret some of those things, I was definitely raised like that. Um and so feminism has always been a part of my life. It probably has been in the last few years when that has become a bigger part of my life and then the came along in, you know, 2017, we had the first season of that and um I think my relationship with sport prior to the Eifel w was like, yeah, I had grown up in regional Victoria, you know, spent a lot of time at the local footy club, you know, sport was around, watch tennis with my nan growing up in summer, like all the time, the Australian open every year, so sport was there, but it wasn’t, I don’t think as big a part of my life until the Afl w kicked off in 2017, and here is the sport that I had grown up with, that I felt are comfortable in to a certain extent, and all of a sudden there were people that looked like me, although of course much younger and fitter playing this game and that kind of really like opened a door to me into a world that I now feel it is my place in the world. And then of course through the Eifel wi was, you know, I read books like play on the hidden history of women’s Aussie rules football by Brunet long kitchen rob hess, which I recommended everyone, which gave me such an understanding of the history of women’s football, Aussie rules football in Australia. And then I just sort of have leapt from there to lots of incredible stories in the history of women’s sport that people just don’t know because, you know, women’s sport, even today, barely cracks double digits in terms of media coverage, so there’s just, there’s a lot there. It’s such a beautiful and rich history and what drives me is telling those stories and getting to talk to women in that space, whether they our players or coaches or administrators or whether they played 30 or 40 years ago or whatever. It’s such a joy because talking to them about their sport. Um, you know, it’s no, I get a bit like emotional about it, but like they feel I enjoy talking about it and that that comes to you as well. You get that as well. And it’s, yeah, it’s, it’s lots of reasons, but I’m clearly very into it.

00:11:07
Mike: It’s so great when you find something that you want to contribute to and be a part of absolutely, we need, women athletes Sure. But we also need people documenting those athletes as well. Yeah, absolutely. So I take my hat off to you for for being one of those people and contributing in that way.

00:11:35
Kirby: Thank you. It’s, look, I mean, it is like, it’s the kind of work where you are like half the time you’re like, infuriated because there’s like so many like structural barriers and so many like, you know, conversations that you have with people and stories that you hear that just like make your blood boil hysterically. And but then also you get to talk to see sort of these incredibly amazing humans who are doing like incredibly amazing things and yeah, I mean that never gets old, that is always fun.