Promoting Gender Equity in Sports

The History of Gender Inequity

History

Gender equity has always been an issue in sports.

Title IX addressed this issue by creating equal opportunities for women in sports.

Women still face scrutiny and stereotyping because of social norms, which define women as being fragile, less capable, and passive.

Sports have always been seen as a masculinized entity; therefore, women are perceived as intruding on male boundaries.

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While sports are indisputably a positive source of strength and self-development for girls, they can accomplish this only if the environment in which female athletes throw their javelins, kick their soccer balls, and swim their fast and furious laps is an environment that respects girls and takes them seriously as athletes.

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Leslie Heywood

Statistics

Before Title IX, women were 2% of the college students participating in sports

From 1987 to 1999, the number of girls aged 6 and over playing basketball increased 15% to 12.67 million.

From 1987 to 1999, the number of girls aged 6 and over playing soccer increased by 20% to 7.3 million

Structural Barriers

Resources

Opportunities

Media

Structural Barriers

Men have substantially more employment opportunities than women in college sports. Women are 16.9% of the Athletic Directors, 44% of the head coaches of women's teams, 2% of the head coaches of men's teams.

Except during periods of major sporting festivals, 40% of all sports participants are women. Only 4% of sports media coverage highlights women's sports.

Men's college athletics receive more money than women's in scholarships, recruiting, head coach salaries, and operating expenses.

Timeline of Important Events

Article published in German Journal of Physical Education argues that violent movements could loosen the uterus and cause it to fall out or make a women sterile.

1966-67

Key Events

1898

Bobbi Gibb becomes first women to run the Boston Marathon, doing so unofficially. Katherine Switzer runs the marathon officially the following year although unwelcome by officials.

Ideology

Strong women challenge the ideology that influences the norms, legal definitions, and opportunity structures that frame people's lives, relationships, and identities.

Those who are privileged by this gender ideology describe strong women as abnormal and they put down certain women sports.

-Coakley

Quote

Team Names

School mascots and the gendered naming of sporting teams belittle, diminish, de-athleticize and reinforce negative gender stereotypes.

Team Names

Linguistic and symbolic markers become sexist when they privilege one sex over the other.

There is a dichotomy of power when men's teams and logos emphasize physical skill and traits such as courage, boldness, self-confidence, aggression and the logos and names for women's teams suggest that women are playful and cuddly.

The University of Central Arkansas men's team is the Bears and their women's team is the Sugar Bears.

Imagery

The use of the term 'girl' or 'gal' can be sexist, and presume immaturity and irresponsibility of women.

The term 'lady' has several meanings that demean female athletes, and evokes a standard of elegance, a characteristic that is decideun-athletic.

Imagery

Harassment in Sports

There is a culture of harassing women in sports.

Male coaches have been reported to harass their female athletes.

Underage female athletes are often taken advantage of by their coaches.

Harassment

Harassment

Women are often sexualized in sports and objectified.

For example, female athletes in football have been required to wear bikinis during competitions.

Harassment

• As women participate in sports, they attract multiple types of attention. Female athletes may be looked at as sex objects whether they want to be seen that way or not.
• Female athletes are often judged more by their appearance than their athletic success, and tremendous pressure is put on athletes to look hyper-feminine and sexy.

Sexualizing Female Athletes

• When enough people trivialize women’s sports by dismissing competent female athletes or defining them primarily as sex objects, it is difficult to consistently generate appreciation and celebration of women’s sport and athletes as athletes.

Sexualizing Female Athletes

• Historically, women’s participation in sport has been trivialized and marginalized by a sexist culture and women who participated in it were often ostracized. Indeed, prior to the mid-1970s sporting activities for women were broadly absent (Gutmann 1991).
• It took legislation, the advocacy of women’s groups, and the subversive actions of female athletes to chart a path of accepted and institutionalized play for women.

Lawsuits

• Consider the Olympic and World Cup winning U.S. Women’s Soccer team. In 2016, five players on the women’s team filed a federal complaint, accusing U.S. Soccer of wage discrimination based on the fact that they earned as little as 40 percent of what players on the men’s national team earned even though they have won three World Cup championships compared to zero championships for the men.
• The case, submitted to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (the federal agency that enforces civil rights laws against workplace discrimination), is the latest legal front in the attempt to equalize treatment for female athletes.

Protests

Gender Equity Management

in Sport Organizations

Title

Ely and Meyerson outlined a typology of current approaches to gender

equity research and practice that they call “frames”

Three of the dominant frames they critiqued included:

• “fix the women,”
• “value the feminine,”
• “create equal opportunity”

Building on the Typology

Title

Typology does much more than allow us to observe and comment on the variety of ways that gender equity has been conceptualized. It also serves as a platform upon which an alternative frame of gender equity can be developed in sport management.

Phases:

• Critique
• Informal Practices
• Symbols of Success
• The Public Face of the Organization
• Narrative Revision
• Experimentation

Extending the Fourth Frame

Title

The fourth frame, and its potential for understanding and promoting gender-related diversity in sport management, undoubtedly offers avenues for progression in the field. The frame as conceptualized by other researchers can, however, be extended by acknowledging and addressing some limitations.

• Acknowledging Intersectionality
• Deconstructing the Equity-Effectiveness Discourse

Accepting the Challenge in Sport Management

By addressing these important facets, we feel the application of the theoretical framework will

begin to crystallize and provide avenues by which it might be applied.

• Education
• Practice
• Research

• Women of many social backgrounds play multiple sports.
• An upcoming sport is UFC MMA. Women who grew up rich or poor can make it by training in a home gym.

Social

• Any person who turns on the television to watch a female sporting event can see that there are women playing from many diverse cultural groups.
• If you're a woman of color or not, there is opportunities in any sport most notably basketball and MMA.

Cultural

Prototypes

!. Reject chauvinist and racist attitudes

2. Help women gain power.

3. Listen and reflect

4. Pay the same salary for equal work.

5. Provide anti-bias training

Education & Training

Conclusion

Advocacy

Reducing inequality strengthens economies and builds stable, resilient societies that give all individuals – including boys and men – the opportunity to fulfill their potential.

Supporting girls’ pathway from education to employment requires more than learning opportunities. It requires keeping girls safe from all forms of violence, in and out of school

Gender equality is not only a fundamental human right, but a necessary foundation for a peaceful, prosperous and sustainable world.

Representation and Monitoring

Representation & Monitoring

Globally, women have fewer opportunities for economic participation than men, less access to basic and higher education, greater health and safety risks, and less political representation.

Guaranteeing the rights of women and giving them opportunities to reach their full potential is critical not only for attaining gender equality, but also for meeting a wide range of international development goals. Empowered women and girls contribute to the health and productivity of their families, communities, and countries, creating a ripple effect that benefits everyone.

Effects of Gender Equality

1. Where there’s more gender equality, there’s more peace.

2. Advancing gender equality will add billions to the economy.

3. Gender diversity in leadership roles boosts business performance.

4. Sharing household work leads to happier relationships.

5. Gender equality makes children’s lives better.

Effects

Benefits

Benefits

Gender equality helps prevent violence against women and girls and makes our communities safer and healthier. It is a human right and it is good for the economy.

• condoning violence against women
• men’s control of decision-making and limits to women’s independence
• rigid gender roles and stereotypes
• male relationships that emphasize aggression and disrespect towards women

The best way to prevent violence against women is to promote gender equality.

References

Conclusion

• An Introduction to Sociology of Sport and Physical Activity by Joyce Ogunrinde and Billy Hawkins (2019)
• https://www.feminist.org/sports/titleIXfactsheet.asp
• https://en.unesco.org/themes/gender-equality-sports-media
• https://www.peacecorps.gov/educators/resources/global-issues-gender-equality-and-womens-empowerment/#:~:text=Gender%20equality%20is%20a%20human,power%20for%20women%20and%20men.&text=Empowered%20women%20and%20girls%20contribute,ripple%20effect%20that%20benefits%20everyone.