Gender equality is one of the most important issues facing sports, and while there are some positive signs – for example, the Women’s World Cup soccer final had a higher average viewership than the men’s – there is still much work to be done. In order to achieve gender equality in sports, we need to address both structural and socio-cultural barriers.
Structural barriers include equal pay, balanced representation in sports governance, and access to financial support for female athletes. Socio-cultural barriers include gendered expectations of men and women, as well as traditional beliefs about masculinity. These beliefs are a barrier to women’s participation in sport, as they lead to family and community pressure to prioritise domestic “duties” over sporting ambitions (31).
Another challenge is the disproportionately low representation of women within national Olympic governing bodies (NGBs). Despite being more active participants than men, women hold only 33% of NGB general manager positions. Furthermore, only 14% of NGBs have a mixed male and female leadership team. This imbalance is partly explained by conservative religiosity and older social structures, where resistance to rapid gender change has been framed as an affront to cultural identity (51).
In order to address the issues of access and treatment discrimination against women in sports, we must promote and implement gender-inclusive policies at both the local and global level. This includes creating a mechanism for reporting incidents of discrimination and harassment in sports groups that is user-friendly, secure, and anonymous, as coming forward to expose unfair practices can be intimidating.