Promoting Gender Equality in Sports

While sports participation has increased significantly since Title IX’s enactment, there is still an underlying issue of gender discrimination. In fact, women from marginalized sections of society see far less opportunities to participate in sports. This is a result of gender stereotypes and perceptions and lack of access to facilities and equipment, among other factors.

Gender equality is crucial in all fields, including sports. Women’s sport needs the same attention as men’s to prevent the stigma against female athletes and improve gender attitudes. This can be done by advocating for equal pay, creating social media platforms for women’s sport and supporting programs that train journalists to cover all events.

UNESCO is currently working to develop and implement measures for the prevention of discrimination and violence in sports. These will include establishing transparent and anonymous abuse reporting systems; training sports educators, coaches and other professionals on the principles of inclusion, gender equality and respect for diversity; and setting up judicial infrastructure to facilitate investigations and hold perpetrators accountable.

Another way to promote gender equality in sports is by encouraging people to support women’s sport by attending their games and watching them on TV. This can also help change societal perceptions of sports. For example, if more people watch women’s sports, they will stop thinking of men as superior athletes and realize that men and women are equally good at different sports.

Research shows a direct relationship between sports participation and support for gender equality in sport. This is consistent with the findings that the #MeToo and #SeAcabo movements have raised awareness of gender discrimination in sports. A study analyzing data from the Special Eurobarometer 525 used Fuzzy-Hybrid TOPSIS to create a synthetic indicator of Europeans’ Attitudes Toward Gender Equality in Sport (ATGEQS) and Latent Profile Analysis to cluster respondents based on their attitudes. Results show that political ideology has a significant influence on attitudes, with left-wing citizens showing more support for ATGEQS than right-wing citizens. This is in line with previous studies, which suggest that conservative religiosity and older socio-political structures have been key drivers of resistance to progressive gender equality initiatives (104).