Yes, I am fully owning this is off-brand for the usual Missing Perspectives content you read across our website and social. But when someone has a bone to pick, sometimes it just needs to be written.
ICYMI, Dee Salmin has become quite the icon in the media industry. In the unlikely event she’s not on your radar already, Dee co-hosts Triple J’s The Hook Up with Pip Rasmussen – a show about everything love, sex and relationships (pls go and listen stat).
Beyond her work in radio and media, Dee is also known for her unique style and approach to up-cycling. At this years’ Brownlows (read: the Oscars of the AFL), Dee worked with artist Poppy Templeton to create a stain glass corset – and wore an up-cycled skirt based off a dress that she wore at her Year 12 formal that she bought off Etsy for $20. To the NGV Gala last year, Dee wore Babbarra silk ‘Mud Ripples – Kunkurra‘ by the artist Elizabeth Gandabuma.
When asked to describe her style by The Sydney Morning Herald, she said, “It’s a confused combo of beach, slutty grandma, BCF and eshay”.
“It changes depending on my mood, but I’m always wearing something that’s vintage or thrifted; I haven’t bought any clothes that aren’t second-hand in 15 years.”
Seriously, could we love this woman even more….
So, why am I writing this, slash why does me being a Collingwood fan got to do with this at all?
Outside of her media work and contributions to the fashion world (seriously – that corset tho) – Dee is the partner of Collingwood captain Darcy Moore.
Let’s circle back to July this year, when Dee joined the ABC podcast Ladies, We Need To Talk…Back. On the episode, she happened to discuss her current living arrangement with Darcy. “I don’t live with my partner at the moment and we have such different, independent, busy lives,” she said. “But I wonder how much you can actually upkeep that when you do end up living together. So much of it is hetero-dynamic learnt behaviours that you might fall into.”
Women just get her point, right? We know all too well what Dee’s referring to – the emotional load, and gender stereotypes that often fall on many women when moving in with a man. Making the beds, laundry, cooking, etc. Dee’s not the only woman to pioneer a living arrangement that works for her relationship – in the nineties, actress Helena Bonham Carter and her former husband film director Tim Burton famously lived in separate houses and led immensely productive lives. But it’s still not the norm.
Well, it turns out a lot of Collingwood fans didn’t understand. What I witnessed play out on Collingwood forums and comment sections in Facebook groups and Instagram pages was just outright sexism and misogyny.
There were comments about Dee being a ‘feminist witch’ (which she has now put in her Insta bio, all credit to her), ‘woke,’ basically framing her as Yoko Ono breaking up the Beatles and blaming Collingwood’s performance in a few rounds on Dee’s progressive views. And many other comments that I’m not going to bother giving airtime here. This kind of commentary seemed to continue, through to the Brownlows a few weeks back.
Not understanding another woman’s decision-making is one thing. Shaming her character online is another. Seeing this kind of commentary on Collingwood forums shocked me, reminding me just how far we still have to go, both inside the Collingwood club and across AFL more broadly.
If an intelligent, progressive and outspoken woman is that threatening to some factions of fans – then what does that say about the current state of play? If some of these men are comfortable writing these comments using their own Instagram accounts, then how do they treat women in private spaces and behind closed doors?
Is it because Dee doesn’t fit the mould of whatever these fans see as a ‘traditional’ partner of an AFL player? What is that mould even meant to look like? And why are fans continuing to be uncomfortable with partners of male athletes being independent, career driven, and holding progressive views with a public platform?
In an article for The Age, Bridget Hustwaite noted the brutal assumptions she faced when she started dating her partner, who happened to be an AFL player – do yourself a favour and go read her article.
She writes about how Catharine Lumby, a Professor of Media and Communications at the University of Sydney and a former NRL gender adviser, noted the assumptions around WAGs – an archaic term imported from the UK media to refer to the “wives and girlfriends” of professional athletes – are “completely sexist”.
Rather than accessories to the men they date, women like Dee and Bridget have vibrant, full lives of their own.
Dee’s unique blend of feminine style and views on sex and relationships are a breath of fresh air for Collingwood. She’s what this team, which has historically grappled with a few scandals (one word: Eddie Maguire), sorely needs.