Grander and sport – equality and equity
Introduction
In Ancient Olympics, competitive sports were masculine affairs. While males compete to show their prowess, women were prohibited to even watch competitions, much less compete.
And I see, quite simply, even in this day and age of supposed equality and meritocracy, sport still remains a male domain, especially on the community level. Even with improved opportunities and treatment, there is still an invisible barrier between sport and the everyday woman. In the next section, this essay shall explore some of the reasons for this situation.
Statements
“The inclusion of women at the Olympic Games would be impractical, uninteresting, unaesthetic, and incorrect.”
(Pierre de Coubertin, 1912)
“It will be an embarrassment for London 2012 if there isn’t an equal number of events for men and women at the Games.”
(Tessa Jowell, 2009)
“The London 2012 Olympics represent a major boost for gender equality.”
(Jacques Rogge, 2012)
“There are still substantial differences in terms of opportunities and in terms of the structural characteristics of the competition.”
(Donnelly and Donnelly, 2013, p. 24)
The statements above indicate the complexities of gender and gender relations in sports. While many women have increased opportunities in comparison to their historical counterparts, gender and gen-der-related forms of exclusion and discrimination remain important topics in the sociology of sport. It is important to explain why most sports around the world have been defined as men’s activities, why half the world’s population generally was excluded or discouraged from participating in many sports through history, and why there have been dramatic increases in women’s participation in recent years. To explain these things we must understand the relationship between sports and widespread beliefs about masculinity, femininity, homosexuality, heterosexuality, and other aspects of sexuality in culture, society and sports.
Rudolpho Gonzalez, 2012
Dominant gender ideology and sports
Ideas and beliefs about gender are a crucial part of the foundation on which sports are organized, promoted and played. Sports are sites for reaffirming beliefs about male–female differenceand valorizing masculine characteristics. At the same time, women’s sports are often marginalized because they are not seen as ‘real’ or as good as men’s sports, and female athletes sometimes are marginalized or seen as deviant because they violate femininity norms. Sports are also sites for challenging and revising gender ideology, a fact that makes gender interesting to study when trying to understand sports in society.
Sports participation among girls and women is increasing in the UK and other societies but it will not continue to increase automatically. Without continued efforts to achieve gender equity, there is a tendency in most cultures to give priority to men’s sports and male athletes. This is because sports worlds are usually organized to be:
– male dominated so that the characteristics of men are used as standards for judging qualifications
– male identified so that the orientations and actions of men are used as standards for defining what is right and normal
– male centred so that men and men’s lives are the expected focus of attention in sports programmes, stories, legends and media coverage.
In male-identified social worlds, the values and experiences of men are assumed to be the standards for everyone. Despite the progress made by women in other spheres of life, lingering beliefs about female frailty and male power and aggression still shape the organization and culture of sports today (Pappano and McDonagh, 2008). Therefore, women in positions of authority are ‘out of place’ and arouse suspicion about how they obtained their power and how they might use it. If women attempt to reduce suspicions by ‘fitting in’ or acting like men, they may be seen as phony or manipulative, and therefore undeserving of their position. This makes it easy to discredit women leaders in Dominant gender ideology and sports227sports – people can say that they obtained their positions by unfairly gaining the favour of men, or by being shrewd ‘stealth feminists’, or closeted lesbians who do not like men and want to undermine traditional sport cultures. This seriously hinders the careers of women in coaching and administration
Pfister, G.2009
Girls and women as invaders in sports
When girls and women play certain sports, they are seen to be invaders of male turf. This is why they have been excluded from some sports while at the same time they have been encouraged to play sports that emphasize grace, beauty and co-ordination. Throughout most of the twentieth century, this exclusion was rationalized by experts and educators, who told women that if they played strenuous sports, they would damage their uteruses and breasts, and experience problems endangering their abilities to give birth and nurture their children. Many people believed these myths because they were consistent with dominant gender ideology and the ideas that females were naturally weak and therefore vulnerable to injuries and over-exhaustion in sports.
Emily A. Roper (Ed.), ,2013
Progress towards gender equity in sports participation
The most dramatic change in sports since the middle of the twentieth century has been the increased participation among girls and women. This has occurred mostly in wealthy post-industrial nations, but there have been increases in many developing nations as well. Five interrelated factors account for this progress towards gender equity:
1- government legislation and policies mandating equal rights
2- the global women’s rights movement
3- new opportunities
4- the health and fitness movement
5- increased media coverage of women in sports
European commission sport , 2014
Conclusion
It is important to distinguish between equality and equity. Equality denotes ‘sameness’, for example that boys and girls do the same sports in schools, and that sports equipment is the same for male and female athletes.
Equity is a business term that refers to fairness and impartiality. For example, an equitable physical education curriculum does not necessarily mean that boys and girls do the same sports, but that girls and boys have the same opportunities to choose which sports they do and the values and aspirations of boys and girls are both considered. Equity would also mean that men and women are given appropriate equipment, rather than the same equipment (which is unlikely
to be appropriate to both sexes in many sports). Discussions and research on gender relations and sports usually focus on two interrelated issues. One is ideology and power, and the other is equity and fairness.Ideology and power issues revolve around topics such as:
• the production and reproduction of gender ideology in connection with sports
• the ways in which prevailing gender ideology constrains people’s lives and subverts the achievement of gender equity
• the cultural and structural changes required to achieve gender equity and democratic access to participation in sports.