Objectives

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Objectives
Today students will

• Discuss gender equity issues in sport

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Gender and Sports

• Equity and Beyond

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Issues in Gender Participation and Equity

• Why participation has increased
• Why we should be cautious in predicting further
  increases in participation
• Gender inequalities in sports
• Changes required to achieve gender equity

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Why Participation has Increased

• New opportunities
• Government equal rights legislation
• Global womens rights movement
• Expanding health fitness movement
• Increased media coverage of women's sports

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Discussion Question

• The chapter on gender lists five reasons why
  there have been significant increases in the
  sports participation rates of women in the US.
  Choose the reason you think has been most
  influential and the reason that has been least
  influential in the context of Canada, and explain
  why you made your choices. Have Coakley and
  Donnelly overlooked any reasons?

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Discussion Question

• The next slide presents Coakley and Donnellys 7
  reasons to be cautious when predicting future
  sport participation increases among women. Which
  of these reasons do you think will have the most
  negative affect on participation among girls and
  women in the future? Explain your choice.

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Factors Inhibiting Future Participation Increases

• Budget cutbacks and the privatization of sports
  programs
• Resistance to government policy and legislation
• Backlash among those who resent changes favouring
  strong women
• Under representation of women in coaching and
  power positions
• Continued emphasis on cosmetic fitness
• The trivialization of certain women athletes and
  women's sports
• Homophobia and the threat of being labelled
  lesbian

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Gender Equality and Equity Issues

• Opportunities for participation at levels of
  sport
• Support for athletes
• Jobs for women in coaching and administration

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Objectives
Today students will

• Complete brief quiz
• Hear students briefings
• Continue our discussion of gender equity issues
  in sport

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Gender Relations in National Sport Organizations
The Game Planners Macintosh and Whitson

• Despite all efforts, including the official
  Women in Sport A Sport Canada Policy, women
  have yet to gain entry into the higher echelons
  of sport.
• MW observed that this lack of women was
  perceived as a non-issue by men
• these men gave explanations based on common sense
  ideas and assumptions which ignored the problems
  women face when they try to combine coaching or
  volunteer roles with professional and family
  roles.

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Explaining the Barriers to Change

• Three perspectives
• Individualistic Level
• suggests the onus is on the individual woman
• Organizational level
• suggests the collective behaviour of men in the
  corporate world has made things very difficult
  for women
• Societal level
• suggests sex role socialization based on
  natural biological and psychological
  differences are the cause
• asserts that power relations are based on
  definitions of gender in which men have more
  power over women than women have over them

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Structural Solutions at the Organizational Level
from Kanter cited by MacIntosh Whitson

• Solutions need to address what organizations can
  do rather than blaming the victim
• Solutions should focus on
• opportunity (promotion rates)
• power (mobilizing resources)
• proportion (increasing relative numbers)
• "batch hiring"
• networking among women
• Other suggestions
• provision of accessible day care
• restructuring of work

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Limits of the Organizational Approach

• As certain patterns of male-female relations
  transcend organizations, the organizational
  approach cannot fully address the effects those
  patterns have on the organizational behaviours of
  men and women. Sport in particular has played a
  significant part in honouring traditional roles
  of maleness and reproducing male hegemony.

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Requirements for Change
MacIntosh Whitson advocate a societal
perspective to promote change in Canadas sport
leadership

• Changes require a strategy that addresses the
  tensions and dynamics of contemporary sexual
  politics by recognizing links between
• work-place and familial issues
• structural and individual change
• ideology and practice

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Discussion Question

• In the chapter on gender, it is argued that
  "participation and equity issues" are related to
  but different from "ideological and structural
  issues." What are the main differences between
  the two sets of issues?

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Discussion Question

• As a chairperson of a special committee charged
  with promoting gender equity in your university's
  sport programmes, you must develop a strategy for
  bringing about changes in the future.
• Using information from the text outline the
  strategy proposals you think would be useful and
  explain why you choose this approach.

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The Significance of Ideology

• . . . if a factory is torn down and the
  rationality which produced it is left standing,
  then that rationality will simply produce another
  factory. If a revolution destroys a systemic
  government but the systemic patterns of thought
  that produced that government are left intact,
  then those patterns will repeat themselves in the
  government.
• There's so much talk about the system. And so
  little understanding.
• Robert M. Pirsig

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Discussion Question

• On the one hand, sports can provide women with
  participation opportunities that are personally
  empowering on the other hand, dominant sports
  tend to perpetuate a gender logic that works to
  the disadvantage of women in society.
• Using examples from the text explain how can
  sports do both these things simultaneously. Which
  of these outcomes do you think is most important
  and socially significant in the culture in which
  you live?

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Ideological and Cultural Issues
"Ideology is like B.O.you never smell your own."

• The gender logic of sports
• Coakley and Donnelly write it is difficult for
  men to critically examine sport because they are
  frequently very caught up in it.
• From "gender logic" to ideology sports as a
  celebration of masculinity
• Sports spectacles celebrate a view of the world
  that privileges men and sustains their power to
  organize social life to their interests.

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Coakley and Donnellys Requirements for Change

• A combination of political lobbying, public
  relations, pressure, education and advocacy,
  e.g.
• confront discrimination and be an advocate for
  women coaches and administrators, inform media of
  unfair and discriminatory policies, plus other
  suggestions of Lopiano (1991) on page 234
• An understanding of the origins of inequities and
  the dominant ideologies and definitions of
  masculinity that have shaped sport so they can
  avoid reproducing ideas that privilege men and
  subvert gender equity in sport.

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Discussion Question

• What is the argument used by Coakley and Donnelly
  when they say that there is a need for
  alternative definitions of masculinity and
  femininity?
• How would alternative definitions benefit men and
  women? Give examples from the text and from your
  experience.
• Who would be most likely to resist changes in the
  way gender has traditionally been defined in
  society?

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Discussion Question
Need for ideological and structural changes

• Coakley and Donnelly claim that real gender
  equity depends on ideological and structural
  changes, especially in the way we "do" sports in
  society. What is meant by this claim?
• How can we do sport differently to bring about
  these ideological and structural changes?

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Strategies for Changing
There is a need for

• Alternative definitions of masculinity
• Critically question violent destructive
  behaviours
• Alternative definitions of femininity
• Becoming like men is not the goal
• Changing the ways we talk about do sports
• Lifetime participation, an ethic of care, gender
  equity, and bringing boys and girls and men and
  women together to share sport experiences

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Boys and Men as Agents of Change
Gender equity is not just a womens issue

• Equity involves creating options for men to play
  sports not based exclusively on a power and
  performance model
• Equity emphasizes relationships based on
  cooperation rather than conquest and domination

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Sport and Sexuality
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Figure 8.4 The Two-Gender Classification System
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Gender Logic and Sexuality

• A Two-category Classification System
• Assumes two mutually exclusive categories
  heterosexual male and heterosexual female
• These categories are perceived in terms of
  difference and as opposites
• System leaves no space for those who do not fit
  into either of the two categories
• The two categories are not equal when it comes to
  access to power

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For Discussion

• What are the challenges faced by gay men and
  lesbians in sports described in the chapter? What
  are the various ways of handling these
  challenges, and what might be done to make sport
  more inclusive as an extracurricular activity in
  high schools, universities, and community sport
  programs?

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Homophobia in Sports

• Popular discourse erases the existence of gay men
  and lesbians in sports
• Gay men and lesbians challenge the two-category
  gender classification system
• Being out in sports creates challenges
• Women risk acceptance
• Men risk acceptance and physical safety
• Most people in sports hold a Dont ask, dont
  tell policy concerning homosexuality

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Crossing the Line

• As you watch this video, use a piece of paper or
  your computer note the following
• the various ways of thinking about sport and
  coach-athlete relationships that are revealed by
  the situation examined
• what is most valued about sport participation and
  leadership?
• Pay particular attention to each group involved
  the athletes, the parents, the coaches, and the
  administrators. Also consider how society
  promotes and reinforces these ways of thinking.

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Crossing the Line Discussion

• What sociological explanations can be offered for
  what happened and why it went on for so long?
• Why did the coach involved received little, if
  any, punishment for what he did?
• What individuals or groups of individuals
  contributed to the unfortunate events.

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Student Questions

• What role does gender have on an individuals
  ability to compete in high levels of sport? Is
  gender really important in sports?

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For Next Class

• Prepare for a quiz on Chapter

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Discussion

• There is much disagreement about the extent to
  which homophobia exists in today's sports
  (women's and men's). Have you ever heard
  homophobic fears expressed in connection with any
  of your experiences in sports (as an athlete or
  spectator)? If so, explain how they were
  expressed if not, explain why homophobia has
  been absent in your experiences.

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Coming up Next Race and Sports

• How would you define race? What does it mean to
  you?
• How many races do you think there are? What are
  they? How do you decide which race someone
  belongs to?
• Look around the room or around your community.
  Who do you think is likely to be most similar to
  you, biologically or genetically? Why?

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Discussion Question

• You have just been appointed to a special
  committee charged with studying gender equity in
  Acadia University sports programs. You must
  develop a research design and present it to the
  rest of the committee members. Based on the
  information in the textbook outline the kind of
  data you will collect to assess whether equity
  has been achieved. What do you expect to find at
  Acadia University?

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Discussion Question

• Dominant sport forms in most societies tend to
  reproduce dominant ideas about gender and gender
  relations. Therefore, when people want to defend
  the power and privilege that comes with being a
  man in society, they look to sports, especially
  heavy contact sports, to support the notion that
  men and women are different and that men are in
  some ways superior to women.
• Use the material in the chapter to discuss the
  notion that sports celebrate traditional ideas
  about gender and gender relations. Do you agree
  or disagree with this? Explain your position.

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Ideological and Cultural issues II

• Ideology in action the social construction of
  "sissies" and "tomboys"
• dominant definitions of masculinity do not fit
  with alternative definitions of masculinity or
  most ideas about femininity. Creating problems
  for boys and men who chose not to or are unable
  to be competitive in physically aggressive
  sports.