Australian Olympic icon Cate Campbell says the sacking of disgraced radio host Marty Sheargold on Wednesday should set a new benchmark for Australian media in regards to women's sport.
Sheargold suddenly exited Triple M on Wednesday evening, about 10 hours after Wide World of Sports sought comment from the station about a bizarre rant made during Monday's prime time program.
Sheargold lambasted the Matildas following two losses at the SheBelieves Cup, and asked his fellow host "got any men's sport?" in a segment labelled "horrendous" and "utterly disgusting" by listeners.
It has since been revealed he also made comments on Monday that, "endometriosis… it's made up", to which his fellow hosts laughed.
The incident was brought to light by Hockeyroos player Rosie Malone, who posted an audio clip to her TikTok account on Tuesday which was widely distributed on other social media platforms.
Campbell, speaking to Nine's Today on Thursday, lamented the fact it was a woman who had to call Sheargold out for his actions.
"Women have been fighting for generations to be seen as equals in sport," Campbell said.
Cate Campbell reacts to the Marty Sheargold scandal. Nine
"Can I just say that Australia had our most successful Olympic Games in Paris 2024… We won 18 gold medals, 13 of them were won by women. Let me just say that again.
"It is a huge proportion of Australia's global sporting success that comes off the back of women. These women are underpaid. They're underrepresented, they're undervalued, they're misrepresented in the media all the time, and yet they are the ones who are often doing the heavy lifting on the world stage.
"We deserve better. We need more recognition. I feel really, really strongly that these comments are unacceptable.
"And my question here is where are the men? There were two other men in that studio while Marty was making those comments… However, it took a woman, it took Rosie Malone, an Olympian in her own right, to call these comments out.
"Why is it women who are calling out the poor behaviour of men and not men stepping up? We don't want to be in this trope. We don't want to be the people who are saying, 'oh, you can't take a joke, stop it. That's not acceptable'.
"That turns people like Marty Sheargold into a martyr for men everywhere, because they're saying women are putting him down.
"We need the men to stand up, to speak out against this, to hold these people accountable.
"This isn't acceptable. This is an acceptable to be talking about female athletes this way. And women more broadly."
Fellow Aussie Olympic icon Leisel Jones – who also works for Triple M – broke down in tears during his show on Wednesday when speaking about the saga.
Campbell hopes the Sheargold incident can reset the attitudes of Australian media.
"Now know that it is completely unacceptable. This has been a real watershed moment in Australian media," she said.
"The severing of a contract over blatant misogyny, and that is absolutely what it is. Don't cover it with comedy. Comedy has been used to put down women to boy up misogyny for millennia.
"It is gaslighting to women everywhere, and we have had enough.
"And finally, we have had a media organisation take a stand and say, this is not OK. This is not OK. You are demeaning women. You are demeaning women's sports.
"One of our most loved sporting teams in this country, they deserve better. Women deserve better. And female athletes all over Australia deserve better. And thankfully, today we are waking up in a world which hopefully will learn from this and we will be treated better in the future."
The Matildas take on Colombia in their third SheBelieves Cup game on Thursday.