Dr Philip Broster's PhD topic did not start in a seminar room. "The idea actually started in a conversation. I was talking informally with a woman who had recently begun refereeing rugby, and hearing her describe her experiences, challenges, and small victories, the shape of a PhD started to form."
On 9 September, Philip joined thousands of University of Cape Town (UCT) scholars to officially mark the culmination of another UCT degree. His PhD explores the experiences of women referees officiating in elite men's rugby, bringing together his long-standing interest in gender equity, leadership and organisational transformation in sport.
"It [research] also sits naturally in a longer pattern in my research [as] I've spent most of my academic life looking at power imbalances - from race in South African schools for honours to the only black team in a predominantly white touch rugby league for my master's. Women refereeing elite men's rugby was the next place that questions needed asking," Philip said.
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"World Rugby introduced governance reforms, including a formal target of 40% female representation on committees, signalling real intent. My research suggests these are still largely top-down measures. The referees I interviewed didn't describe institutional recruitment drives opening doors for them; almost all of them got there through personal drive and mentorship from other women, not because the system reached out and found them. So, the growth of the women's game has created more visibility and more opportunity, certainly, but the referees themselves are still doing most of the work of getting through the door."
Philip, a lecturer in the School of Management Studies, has a family history steeped in UCT. His father, uncles and aunts, and both brothers walked the corridors. He teaches professional communication and research methods across undergraduate and postgraduate programmes. His research sits at the intersection of gender, organisational change, and sport.
Room to breathe
When asked about institutional barriers that may be less visible than overt bias/discrimination with women's experiences in officiating games, he said: "They're arguably the harder ones to fix precisely because they don't look obviously like discrimination or sexism. Things like opaque progression criteria, standards for advancement that shift or aren't clearly defined, and a kind of structural tokenism, where a woman's appointment is used as evidence of transformation without any accompanying change in support or pathway. These don't announce themselves the way overt sexual harassment or sexist comments do. They just quietly make the climb harder."
"Doing a PhD and becoming a father in the same stretch of life doesn't leave much room to breathe. But I was lucky. My co-parent, my colleagues, the school, and my supervisor all showed up for me."
He added: "Resilience shouldn't be the strategy. Right now, most of what these women achieved, they achieved by finding their own way in and then holding a huge amount of pressure privately once they arrived. Rugby's real opportunity is to stop relying on that extraordinary individual persistence and start building the structures, mentorship, transparent progression, proactive recruitment that make the next generation's path less about grit and more about a system that wants them and works for them."
One testimonial that stayed with him was a referee reflecting on why her presence on the field matters beyond the game itself. She said: "I know that I might represent a lot of things for a lot of girls that are watching rugby and what opportunities there may be for them. I want young girls to know they can smash it too." Philip said: "It's the line the whole thesis title comes from, and it captures exactly why this research matters to me."
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Support structures
Completing his doctorate coincided with a major new chapter in his personal life: becoming a first-time father. The experience, Philip said, "was exhausting". "Doing a PhD and becoming a father in the same stretch of life doesn't leave much room to breathe. But I was lucky. My co-parent, my colleagues, the school, and my supervisor all showed up for me, and that support was what got me through. It was hard, but it never felt like I was carrying it alone.
"My mother passed away before I finished, and there were long stretches of this process where I kept going by imagining her in the audience, watching me graduate. I wish more than anything she could have been there to see me in the red gown."
He concluded: "I have dedicated my thesis to my beloved child, Elaine - Lainey. Remember, Lainey: "Your life is your life. Know it while you have it. You are marvellous. The gods wait to delight in you (Charles Bukowski, "The Laughing Heart")."
