SPECIAL POPULATIONS
WOMEN IN SPORT SPECIAL
EOUAL OPPORTUNITIES?
Around 80 per cent of the UK's women do not meet the government's targets for physical activity, while only 7 per cent of all sports media coverage is devoted to women's sport. Something needs to change
TOM WALKER,MANAGING EDITOR, SPORTS MANAGEMENT MAGAZINE T
Dr. Johanna Adriaanse, senior lecturer in Sport Management at the University of Technology, Sydney in Australia
here remain stark differences between men’s sport and women’s sport. At the elite level, women’s sport gains much less sponsorship and media coverage,
while prize money is also lower. At the grassroots level, participation by women is significantly lower than by men. Gender inequality can also be found
Anita White, founder of the Anita White Foundation at University of Chichester
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within the corridors of power – a look at the many international sports federations reveals that, on average, only 15 per cent of board members are women. The International Olympic Committee, the torch bearer for all sport, has an executive board of 15 members – only four of them are women. Even worse is FIFA, the governing body for the world’s most popular team sport, football. It has an executive committee of 24 people, but only one female (Burundi's Lydia Nsekera). “While some barriers for women’s participation and leadership in sport vary from country to country – such as those relating to a lack of facilities, for example – there are also barriers that are global and can be found in most nations,” says Johanna Adriaanse, senior lecturer at the University of Technology Sydney, Australia and a leading academic on women in sport and gender equality. “One of these universal barriers is gender stereotyping – the perception that sport is only for men. This stems from history. Not so long ago, sport was pretty much entirely played by men, organised by men and watched by men. The influence of this can still be seen
in the attitudes towards women’s sport. To change these cultural and traditional patterns takes a lot of time and effort – you won’t be able to change those overnight.”
GRASSROOTS The stereotype that sport is a masculine activity can lead to women’s sport being treated as an afterthought. This attitude can have a devastating effect on participation, particularly among young girls, if their initial experiences of sport are negative. There is evidence to show that young girls are being put off sport due to a poor standard of school sport. According to the Women’s Sport and Fitness Foundation’s (WSFF) Changing the Game for Girls report, 51 per cent of girls in the UK have been deterred from physical activity by their experiences of school sport and physical education. For Adriaanse, getting sport right at
grassroots is crucial. “In more developed nations, a key way to encourage participation is providing good physical education at schools – that is where you lay the foundations for sport to become part of people’s lives,” she says. “This is particularly important with young girls, as they are less likely to take part and get involved in unstructured sports outside school – such as skateboarding or games of football in the park among friends.” It is not just the overall standard of PE that is letting down girls – it's the lack of choice offered to girls. WSFF’s figures show that 46 per cent of inactive girls said
sportsmanagement.co.uk issue 3 2014 © Cybertrek 2014
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