Cheryl Roberts is no stranger to the South African sporting scene. She’s been involved in SA sport for 40 years, and a fierce advocate for women’s issues and voices for just as long – a true African woman warrior..

“Sport and society are one; inequalities in society will also be present in sport,” she says. “Is it any wonder that women in sport – and especially black women in sport – are treated differently to their male counterparts, facing prejudice and dscrimination?” 

Roberts knows this firsthand: born into apartheid South Africa, she was long denied opportunities to play sport. But this never swayed her love as she found sports facilities and sports home in anti-apartheid sport. Roberts defied apartheid sport norms by developing sport at grassroots, coaching, speaking out about injustices, racism, sexism and discrimination in sport. All of this was consolidated in her writing and publishing. All of it done independently, with no commercial support or funding. 

“I’ve played sports, coached, was a sports official/administrator – and all this was happening when I was still a young woman, studying at university.”

Her activism arose from growing up oppressed, seeing injustices and  inequalities around her, they shaped her to have a very clear and sharp mind and a heart filled with compassion. In combining her love for sports and her activism, she describes herself to be an author of gender and sport and an intersectional thinker and writer. 

She strongly rejects those believing that women in sport should only focus on branding and advancing themselves. She encourages women to challenge patriarchal control of sport and its sole support for men. “It would be amazing for women in sport to get a gender and sports network that challenges and disrupts men’s control of sport.”

For years, she’s wanted to pursue her big idea: a continental publication of women in sport: African Soil Sportswoman. But she never seemed to find the time.

Then the COVID-19 pandemic struck, and Roberts got bored during lockdown (somehow – even while running her blog and promoting women in sport online and doing a million other things), she started to put her ideas down. 

She did her own writing, compiled the content and photographs and used her savings to pay the designer and prides herself in having used the recollection of all the events she had attended. 

And just like that, it was done, and African Soil Sportswoman was published in July 2020. 

Women In Sport: Voices Worth Hearing, Champions Worth Celebrating

The pivotal focus of African Soil Sportswoman  is, as the name implies, on Africa’s sportswomen – and beyond that, all women in sport. 

“The women in sport and sportswomen want it known they are tired of being silent and quiet, tired of getting the crumbs in sport,” Roberts says. “We’re saying, ‘Look here, the sportswomen and women in sport not only deserve but also love having their share of sports media. And we’re going to make sure they get it.”

She describes it to be for and about Africa’s sportswomen who always get the little space in sports media and to show that sport is not only about men and they do not own it.  

“I opted to give a taste of sport from the African continent and I actually got to feature several sportswomen, women in sport and various sports. Moreso, this publication is published by an African woman, residing in Africa.” 

African Soil Sportswoman is about representation, visibility and presentation. It shows women who are part of the global sports paradigm. It stems from the emerging debate that women are fatigued from the overly presentation of men’s sport by commercial media which ignores and sidelines women in sport.

Ideally, Roberts would like her readers to be more informed about Africa’s sportswomen and women in sport. To know more about their achievements and their struggles. To admire, support and respect them.

Facing the COVID-19 pandemic and its uncertainties have actually made Cheryl more hopeful for good health, and given her even more drive to challenge social inequalities and injustices.

She wants to write and publish more digital publications and e-books – and continue to be independent, speaking out about the issues that move her 

“It’s about centering women in sport instead of supporting men controlling sports media,” Roberts notes. “It’s about writing and publishing whom we choose to write about, feature and publicise.”