"Football?" "But you're a girl." "Yeah. No shit, Sherlock!"

"Wow! Sports journalism. That's a different job for a girl."

"Have you always been into sports?"

"Did you used to play football?"

"How did you get into that?"

All questions I am used to being asked on a regular basis. And nearly four years ago when I committed to this as a career, it used to bother me.  Deep down, it may still do.  But I know longer feel the need to react or come out with a barbed comment.

There's a few reasons for that, the main one is I feel a lot more secure about my capabilities as a sports journalist.  But more importantly as a female sports journalist.

Now, I'm not attempting to be self-effacing when I say this. But I, Natasha Henry am not the best journalist in the world.  No, seriously, I'm not. 

I still feel I'm pretty new to all this and with every period of time that passes I aim to get better and improve my skills.  As anyone should, whatever career they're in.  The way I see it, the day you stop learning is the day you might as well give it all up.  Why should the field of journalism be any different?

Thankfully, I'm not the only one.  Female or sports journalist!

Contrary to popular belief, there are quite a bloody lot of us.  Some would call us a coven, personally I would describe us a more mature sorority.  One that would rather be on the field, than waving pom-poms on the side-line.  And more importantly, one that drinks really good wine and likes really nice food.

And do you know what, we're good.  We're damn good.  We know our stuff, we graft hard and most importantly we have the courage to fight the negativity that - far too often - floats our way.  I know about our capabilities, but I wasn't sure if others did.

I was curious about this, which was why I created the survey earlier this year, to see what others thoughts were, regarding us women that write about sport.

Some of the answers surprised me, and some didn't.  But it's always good to see what people think about something you care strongly about.

So, I'll be posting the article later today and feel free to comment, share or ignore.  It's up to you.

Hopefully it will remind you that the gender of the writer doesn't matter, it's only the words that do.

To be continued...