Anti-Misogyny in Sport
Sport has been too slow to change, too slow to face up to the realities of the misogyny women face.
No-one should be excluded from the joy, fulfilment and lifelong benefits of sport. Women and girls deserve equal opportunity to enjoy the benefits of sport, which is why our charity it determined too tackle sexism in sport at every level. This includes challenging explicit cases of discrimination and harassment as well as addressing the underlying barriers to equality.
- Gender stereotyping is alive and kicking. Girls as young as 5 years old feel they don’t belong in sport. Only 30% of parents believe playing sport is very important for their daughter, compared with 41% of parents for their sons.
- There’s a mental health crisis in teenage girls. Anxiety is spiralling upwards, along with self-harm and eating disorders. By the time they reach puberty, 1.3 million girls who once loved sport are disengaging.
- Women in midlife are suffering from the cumulative impact of decades of limiting gender stereotyping. A third of women aged 41-60 are not meeting the Chief Medical Officer’s guidelines of 150 minutes of physical activity per week. 84% of inactive women at this life stage want to be more active.
- Women in wiser life are twice as likely as men to suffer a fracture after a fall. By the age of 80 years old, half of women will suffer with osteoporosis.
(NICE)
We also see significant gender gaps when we look at the number of women participating in sport. In fact, the gender gap is bigger than it has ever been since reporting began. In team sport, 7% more men than women play, and there is a shocking 22% gap between girls and boys.
We also see clear gender gaps when we look at the number of women working in sport at every level. Women are a minority in coaching, especially at an elite level. A recent count of leaders in the top 20 sports by participation in England showed that across the roles of CEO, Chair and Performance Director, just 17% were women.
We work to ensure equality of opportunity by focussing on getting more women and girls participating in sport, more women working in sport at every level and by driving commercial investment in and media coverage of women’s sport. We also work to ensure that women and girls who do engage with sport receive equal respect to their male counterparts.
