Sports in Society:

Issues and Controversies

Chapter 8
Gender and Sports:
Does Equity Require Ideological Changes?
 Participation and Equity Issues

Participation by girls & women has increased

dramatically since the early 1980s because:
 New opportunities
 Government equal rights legislation
 Global women’s rights movement
 Health & fitness movement
 Increased media coverage of women’s sports
Title IX is a US law stating that

No person in the United States shall, on the

basis of sex, be excluded from participation
in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected
to discrimination under any educational
program or activity receiving federal
financial assistance.
 Legal Definitions:
Title IX in the US

Title IX requires compliance

with one of these three tests:
 The proportionality test
A 5 percentage point deviation has been okay
 The history of progress test
Judged by actions & progress over past 3 years
 The accommodation of interest test
Programs & teams meet the interests and abilities
of the under represented sex
 Title IX in the US has

 Supported dramatic changes in the sport participation

opportunities available to girls & women since 1972
 Evoked continuous resistance since it became law
 Demonstrated that laws and law enforcement do not
exist in a social and cultural vacuum
 Demonstrated that when laws challenge the ideas and
lifestyles of people with power, the legitimacy and
enforcement of those laws will be questioned
 Figure 8. 1

Media coverage
has changed
how some
people think
about women in
sports.
 Reasons For Caution
When Predicting Future Participation

1. Budget cutbacks and the privatization of

sport programs
2. Resistance to government regulations
3. Backlash among those who resent strong
women
4. Under representation of women in decision-
making positions in sport programs
(continued)
 Reasons For Caution
When Predicting Future Participation

5. Continued emphasis on “cosmetic fitness”

6. Trivialization of women’s sports
7. Homophobia and the threat of being labeled
“lesbian”
 Gender and Fairness Issues
in Sports
 Inequities in participation opportunities
Often grounded in dominant definitions of
masculinity and femininity in a culture
May be related to religious beliefs
 Establishing legal definitions of equity is a
challenge
 Support for athletes covers many issues
 Women are underrepresented in coaching and
administration jobs in sports
Fig. 8.2 Number of Summer Olympic Events open to women and men.
*Includes 12 mixed events in 2000
 Title IX Categories of
Support for Athletes:

 Access to facilities  Travel and per diem

 Quality of facilities expenses
 Academic tutoring
 Availability of
 Number of coaches
scholarships
 Salaries for all staff and
 Program operating
administrators
expenses
 Medical training
 Recruiting budgets services and facilities
 Scheduling of games &  Publicity for players,
practice times teams, and events
 Coaching and Administration:
Reasons for Underrepresentation

1. Women have fewer established connections and

networks in elite programs
2. Subjective evaluative criteria used by search
committees
3. Support systems & professional development
opportunities for women have been scarce
(continued)
Coaching and Administration:
Reasons for Underrepresentation

4. Many women do not see spaces for them in

corporate cultures of sport programs
5. Sport organizations are seldom sensitive to
family responsibilities among coaches and
administrators
6. Women may anticipate sexual harassment and
more demanding standards than those used to
judge men
 Access to
Informal and Alternative Sports

Gender inequities also exist in player controlled

sports:
 Girls and women may face greater access challenges than
are faced by boys and men
 Boys and men often control access to these sports, and
they control access on their terms
 Title IX does not apply to these sports
Question: Do the XGames reflect or perpetuate inequities
related to access in these sports?
 Strategies to Promote
Gender Equity

1. Confront discrimination and be an advocate

for women coaches and administrators
2. Be an advocate of fair and open employment
practices
3. Keep data on gender equity
4. Learn and educate others about the history of
discrimination in sports and how to identify
discrimination
(continued)
 Strategies to Promote
Gender Equity

5. Inform media of unfair and discriminatory

policies
6. Package women’s sports as revenue
producers
7. Recruit women athletes into coaching
8. Use women’s hiring networks
9. Create a supportive climate for women in
your organization
Figure 8.4 The Two-Gender Classification System
 Girls and Women
As Agents of Change

Sport participation can empower women but

 This does not occur automatically

 Personal empowerment is not necessarily
associated with an awareness of the need for
gender transformation in society as a whole
 Elite athletes seldom are active agents of change
when it comes to gender ideology
Why Elite Athletes Seldom Challenge
Traditional Gender Ideology

1. Women athletes often fear being tagged as

ungrateful, “man-haters,” or “lesbians”
2. Corporation-driven “celebrity-feminism”
focuses on individualism and consumption, not
everyday struggles related to gender
3. “Empowerment discourses” in sports often are
tied to fitness and heterosexual attractiveness
4. Women athletes have little control or political
voice in sports or society at large
 Boys and Men
As Agents of Change

Gender equity also is a men’s issue:

 Equity involves creating options for men to
play sports that are not based exclusively
on a power and performance model
 Equity emphasizes relationships based on
cooperation rather than conquest and
domination
 Facing Football:
A Challenge for Equity Strategies

High profile football teams

 Involve more players and more resources than
any other sport team
 Often promote a culture in which there is
resistance to the organizational changes needed to
achieve gender equity
 Often are supported by boosters who do not want
gender equity to interfere with how they have
always done things
 Changes in Gender Ideology:
A Prerequisite for Gender Equity

Gender ideology is crucial because:

 Gender is a fundamental organizing
principle of social life
 Gender ideology influences how we
 Think of ourselves
 How we define and relate to others
 How we present ourselves to others
 How we think about and plan for our future
 Gender Ideology

Gender ideology in the U.S. is based on a

two-category classification system that
 Assumes two mutually exclusive categories:
heterosexual male and heterosexual female
 Encourages these categories to be perceived in terms
of difference, and as “opposites”
 Leaves no space for those who do not fit into either
of the two categories
 Involves inequities when it comes to power and
access to power
 Facts about Gender Ideology

It is defined in ways that

Give some men more access to power while
restricting the range of behavior among all
men
Marginalize gays and lesbians by categorizing
them as being out of normative bounds
Lead women to be more apt to push gender
boundaries while men are more apt to police
gender boundaries for themselves and women
 Gender Ideology in Sports

 Gender is not fixed in nature, so people often

use sports to maintain dominant definitions
 Sports often are sites for celebrating
traditional ideas about masculinity
 Sport images and language often glorify a
heroic manhood based on being a warrior
 When sports celebrate masculinity, female
athletes often are defined as invaders
 Gender Ideology in Sports:
Girls and Women As Invaders

 Girls and women in sports often threaten the

preservation of traditional ideas about gender
 Through history, myths have been used to
discourage participation by girls and women
 Encouragement varies by sport, and whether
the sport emphasizes grace or power
 Being a “tomboy” is okay as long as
traditional “femininity cues” are presented
 Women Bodybuilders:
Expanding Definitions of Femininity?

 Competitive bodybuilding for women did not exist

before the 1970s
 There is a clear tension between muscularity and
ideas about femininity in women’s bodybuilding
 Women bodybuilders may be perceived as deviant
in terms of gender definitions
 Women bodybuilders challenge traditional
definitions of gender, despite commercial images
that highlight heterosexual attractiveness
 Women bodybuilders use femininity insignias to
avoid being marginalized as they push boundaries
Figure 8.5 Gender ideology is changing but it continues to
create constraints on sport participation for some people.
 Gender Ideology and Double
Standards in Sports

What would happen if:

 Mia Hamm beat up a man or a couple of women in a
bar fight?
 A high profile woman athlete bragged about having
numerous sex partners?
 A WNBA player had tattoos expressing strength and
dominance on her arms?
 The captain of the national women’s soccer team was
photographed with near naked men ogling and
hanging on her?
 The Challenge of
Being Gay or Lesbian in Sports

 Popular discourse erases the existence of gay men

and lesbians in sports
 Gay men and lesbians do not have the freedom that
heterosexuals have in expressing their sexuality
 Being “out” in sports creates challenges
 Women risk losing social acceptance
 Men risk physical safety and losing social acceptance
 Most people in sports support a “Don’t ask, don’t
tell” policy about homosexuality
 Strategies for Changing
Ideology and Culture

There is a need for

 Alternative definitions of masculinity
 Critically question violent & destructive behavior
 Alternative definitions of femininity
 Becoming “like men” is not the goal
 Changing the ways we do sports
 Focus on lifetime participation, supportive vocabularies,
gender equity, and bringing boys and girls and men and
women together to share sport experiences