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Whenever women move into male-dominated fields, whether it be politics, media, the resources sector – you name it – they are regularly reminded of the importance of making it on "merit".
Wherever quotas are proposed to introduce gender balance, the "M-word" will invariably arrive within seconds.
There's a double fiction at play here: First, that men have always gained their successes on merit, and second, that merit in women will be recognised and rewarded the same way as it is in genuinely talented men.
And if you need these concepts demonstrated, look no further than the 2023 FIFA Women's World Cup; several weeks of sustained and glorious high performance by a fleet of underpaid women, from whom our rapt gaze was periodically distracted only by a series of less gifted dudes setting their own silly arses on fire.
Harsh, I know.
But the women of the World Cup displayed nothing but merit. Extraordinary feats of skill. Flawless sportsmanship. Good behaviour on and off the pitch. They generated millions of new eyeballs for the beautiful game. All for about a quarter of the pot available to the men in Qatar last year.
And yet, they were overshadowed again and again by second-rate blokes.
Donald Trump, a celebrated golf cheat, bellowing at Megan Rapinoe for the double offence of missing a penalty and being a lesbian.
Seven's David Basheer who burbled — as Matildas midfielder Katrina Gorry completed a deft tackle – "certainly motherhood has not blunted her competitive instincts, that's for sure".
(That was enough for your correspondent to turn to the Optus Sport broadcast, which offered up a talented and knowledgeable panel of female commentators more than capable of talking for 10 minutes about football without tripping over their own genitalia).
'Enjoy yourselves'
Then there was the heir to the British throne, avowed champion of the Commonwealth, Prince William. He is also the president of the Football Association, so is on record as having at least a glancing interest in the game.
Despite the fact that the World Cup semifinals not only featured the Lionesses (his home team) but also the Matildas (a team with which he enjoys certain as-yet-unrepealed constitutional associations), the future King made it known he wouldn't be attending. (British PM Rishi Sunak also was otherwise engaged, though no one seems seriously to suggest that – were the men's team to make a World Cup final – both PM and Prince wouldn't have boarded a jet faster than Boris Johnson boarding a jeroboam of Cristal.)
Palace sources hazily indicated that Prince William was concerned about carbon emissions.
Instead, he recorded a video message with his young daughter Charlotte, saying how sorry he was he couldn't attend the Lionesses' final, while encouraging them to "go out there tomorrow and really enjoy yourselves".
"Enjoy yourselves." Yes, because that's what the women's game is still viewed as in so many quarters – a lovely opportunity for the ladies to keep fit and enjoy themselves. The average Women's Super League player in the UK – according to a BBC calculation – gets paid about 47,000 pounds a year. In the Premier League, however, an average player will make more than that per week. PER WEEK.
Money tells the story
Let's digress for a moment to assess the media economics of this World Cup.
As my colleague John Lyons wrote last week, the television rights for this World Cup "tell their own story":
"According to The Australian Financial Review, Optus paid $13 million for access to all 64 World Cup matches. Optus sold the Matildas matches to Seven Media for an estimated $5 million. Seven and Optus have paid peanuts and received gold.
"Contrast that with payments for AFL rights. Last year, the AFL did a new seven-year deal with Foxtel and Seven for $4.5 billion — or $643 million per year. Given there are 24 regular home-and-away rounds each year, this means the AFL was paid on average $26 million per weekend, or five times more than Seven paid for all Matildas games."
"On any reading, this is absurd and unfair. But in 2023, it's still men who make these sorts of corporate and network decisions."
Yes, it is. And I wonder if any of these sports broadcast experts are taking any time at all to wonder how it is that they so wildly misread the audience for this event.
Presumably, they've been operating under the old orthodoxy that women's sport is boring, or worth less than the men's game.
It's only last year, after all, that Sam Kerr surpassed Tim Cahill's goalscoring record for Australia and was told by another former Socceroo, Robbie Slater, that comparisons between the two greats was "disrespectful to Cahill."
"Don't get me wrong. Sam Kerr is a fantastic player and I'm delighted that she has now scored 54 times for Australia….yes, she has scored more goals for the Matildas than any other player in history," he wrote at the time.
"But Tim Cahill was a Socceroo, not a Matilda. His 50 goals for the Socceroos is a record that shouldn't be overshadowed by Kerr's achievements."
Comparisons between the Socceroos and the Matildas don't pan out that well for the men's team, which has qualified for the World Cup six times and come, in turn, 14th, 16th, 21st, 30th, 30th and 11th.
The Matildas have qualified eight times, and finished 12th, 11th, 13th, 6th, 8th, 7th, 9th and fourth.
'You have the power to change'
Moving back to our 2023 Women's World Cup field of disappointing blokes.
FIFA president Gianni Infantino (That is correct. In a powerful demonstration that nominative determinism lives on, the man's name basically translates to "Man Baby") chose the eve of the World Cup final to explain to female players that it was their responsibility to achieve equal treatment.
"And I say to all the women, and you know I have four daughters, so I have a few at home, I say to all the women that you have the power to change," he declared.
"Pick the right battles. Pick the right fights. You have the power to change. You have the power to convince us men what we have to do and what we don't have to do. You do it. Just do it. With men, with FIFA, you will find open doors. Just push the doors. They are open."
As Marina Hyde – the British press's most gifted bullshit detector, may she never retire – wryly replied:
"What can you say? Other than: Sorry, but I believe they're trying to play quite an important football match. Any chance YOU could get the door? After all, it is your actual job.
"All in all, it's hard not to feel that England approach the biggest game of their lives in what some may judge to be a familiar position: getting let down by a selection of useless men.
Nevertheless, the women played on. And Spain won the final. Pretty sensational result for a squad of which a dozen members had stayed home on account of irreconcilable differences with coach Jorge Vilda, who was booed every time he made an appearance and from whom players visibly shrank even when celebrating.
Spain's Queen Letizia was in attendance, with her daughter the Infanta Sofia. King Felipe was not, owing to unidentified pressing duties elsewhere.
Is this the same King Felipe who dropped everything to attend the Spanish men's team's OPENING GAME in Qatar last year?
Why yes, it is.
And is Qatar the country where a female Mexican World Cup official was allegedly sexually assaulted and beaten in her hotel room by a colleague last year, and when she reported the matter to Qatari police was threatened with a whipping and jail for engaging in extra-marital sex?
(Extra-marital sex is a crime in Qatar, as opposed to rape and domestic violence, which isn't. The World Cup official in question, Paola Schietekat, managed to escape the country but not before her lawyer advised her that the simplest way to avoid prosecution would be to marry her assailant)
Yes, that's the very same country. Totally normal and fine that the King of Spain couldn't get there fast enough to watch his boys in the minor rounds. And probably just an unfortunate coincidence that he was unavailable to travel to a democratic country (where women are allowed to own property, and travel without the consent of a male guardian) to watch the women's national team win the World Cup.
To be fair, history won't probably recall the King of Spain's snub.
Because another chap was waiting in the wings to make it all about him.
The infamous kiss
Luis Rubiales, Spain's head of football, was captured in the stands nearby his Queen, reacting to the victory in real time. He punches the air, then with his right hand grabs his penis through his pants.
Such a cool and okay response to a big moment for your all-female team of world champions.
Imagine the female coach of a men's football team grabbing her ladyparts as the whistle blows! Obviously this is going to involve significant imaginative powers, given that no woman has ever been the head coach of a men's World Cup team, or a men's AFL team for that matter. Women coaching men's teams is, it seems, yet to be an okay idea. But men coaching women's teams? It's par for the course.
Of the 32 teams starting in the Women's World Cup this year, 20 were trained by head coaches who are, err, in an anatomical position to replicate the victory gesture of Luis Rubiales.
Later, at the presentation ceremony, of course, the world watched as Rubiales placed both hands on the back of midfielder Jenni Hermoso's head and pulled her in for a forcible kiss.
Women watching the broadcast recoiled. For several weeks, we'd watched powerful women be great at their jobs on TV.
And now we were watching this glorious sportswoman reduced to an object, a body to be grabbed and snogged against her will. By her boss. In front of a giant global audience.
It's not just the kiss
As is so often the case, it then became Hermoso's obligation to respond to a man's misjudgement.
First, she said on social media that she "didn't like it".
Then, under pressure, she issued a statement:
"There's no need to overanalyse a gesture of friendship and gratitude; we've won a World Cup, and we won't stray from what's important."
Over the weekend, however, she issued a new statement, condemning the attempts by the Spanish soccer federation to bully her into exonerating Rubiales.
"I do not have to support the person who has committed this action against my will, without respecting me, at a historic moment for me and for women's sports in this country," she wrote. "Under no circumstances can it be my responsibility to bear the consequences of conveying something I do not believe in, which is why I have refused the pressures received."
And this is the point. It's not just the kiss. This is what women everywhere who are subjected to workplace harassment find so exhausting. It's not just being kissed or touched or leered at or whatever. It's that you then have to deal with the truckloads of bullshit that come after.
If you don't report it, you feel guilty for not standing up for yourself, or for failing to protect other women. If you do, you run the risk of being slimed as a raging man-hater and troublemaker, which absolutely is happening to Hermoso, encouraged by the man who kissed her. (A defiant Rubiales has blamed his situation on "false feminism, one of the scourges of this country". Hmm. If so, it's one of the less-effective scourges on record)
A moment of triumph marred
All this woman has done is be good at her job. All she has done is display merit. All she wants to do right now, presumably, is dance around with her colleagues and pour cava over her head, while basking in the love and pride of her country.
But no: Now her moment of triumph will forever be marred, not just by her boss disrespecting her in front of a global audience, but by that same boss's decision that his personal status is more important than the achievement of his team.
If merit is so important, then why won't the future King of England fly to a Commonwealth country to witness it? Why won't football writers acknowledge it? Why don't vast, wealthy football behemoths pay for it? Why don't male media executives think viewers will watch it?
How meritorious, exactly, do you have to be as a woman in order to render yourself invulnerable to the marauding incompetence of men who are paid better than you are?
Can you believe it? Can you believe that true merit counts for so little?
Well, if you're a woman working in a male-dominated field who's always worked hard and assumed that the system would be fair to you and then become conscious that you have male colleagues who ask for 10 times as much while being one-tenth as good… yeah. You'll believe it. It won't be a stretch at all.