Having taken over one of the toughest jobs in Australian sport, Rugby Australia CEO Raelene Castle wants less judgement on her appearance and more focus on the work she's producing.
Diagnosed with Alopecia Areata -- an autoimmune disease that causes hair to fall out -- at a young age, the rugby boss has spent years dealing with the disease and wants the rugby community to be more aware of her condition.
"It's got nothing to do with stress and I don't have cancer," Castle told espnW. "My brother suffers from it as well - he has not a single hair on his entire body; no eyelashes, no eyebrows at the moment.
"For me, I go through cycles where my hair falls out but then grows back again. So while I'm in a period of my hair falling out, I have to wear a hat or a bandanna, or whatever you want to call it. I'm not channelling Peter Fitzsimmons."
The first female boss of an Australian football code, Castle has spent years working in the male dominated industry -- most recently working as the CEO of NRL side Canterbury-Bankstown Bulldogs -- and she acknowledges women are judged differently in high profile roles, especially on social media.
"It's part of the business when you go into a high profile job like I have, that's the reality of what you're going to face," she said.
"I think as a female you do get judged differently for what you wear and your appearance. People can be really cruel. At the end of the day I understand the issue, but people judging you for your appearance, saying 'what are you, a pirate or a Muslim' and those sorts of comments when they are uneducated to the issue that I face, is just one of those things."
Taking over her role in January this year, Castle immediately faced social media backlash, but says that criticism won't impact how she runs the governing body.
"I have four or five very trusted advisers -- both inside rugby or the business, and external to that -- and they're the people I listen to," she said. "So if they say to me 'you got that wrong', or 'you missed that one', or 'you should have dealt with this in that way' - those are the people that I really take my steer from.
"You just can't run a business off the back of what you read on social media. You have to have a read of it to get a sense or the mood of what the rugby public may be thinking, so that you understand what their perception or concerns are for your sport, but you can't run strategy off social media, because you'll be all over the place."
Castle told espnW she hoped talking about her autoimmune condition would help other women in the business world who suffer similar conditions.
"When I talked about it originally, I was concerned about three things: one, I didn't want people to think I had cancer. Secondly, it's not stress related -- sure I could be healthier and do more exercise, but fundamentally that doesn't make any difference -- it's just an autoimmune issue that my body has. Thirdly, I want to share my experiences with some young females in the business environment who are struggling with Alopecia," she said.
"I've had 40, 50, 60 women reach out to me and thank me for sharing my story, they've told me how it's really helped them to think about how they might deal with it and how they can be honest about it -- it's been a really positive thing for me to do, to share my story and to help some other young women."
