research questions about gender inequality in sports

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Women in International Elite Athletics: Gender (in)equality and National Participation

Henk erik meier.

1 Institute of Sport and Exercise Sciences, University of Münster, Münster, Germany

Mara Verena Konjer

Jörg krieger.

2 Department of Public Health, Aarhus University, Aarhus, Denmark

Associated Data

The raw data supporting the conclusions of this article will be made available by the authors, without undue reservation.

Gender discrimination has been strongly related to the suppression of women's participation in sport. Accordingly, gender (in)equality has proven to be an important determinant for the participation and the success of countries in international women's elite sport. Hence, differences in gender (in)equalitity, such as women's participation in the labor force, fertility rates, tradition of women suffrage or socio-economic status of women, could be linked to success in international women's elite sports. While major international sport governing bodies have created programs to subsidize the development of women's sports in member countries, gender equality has figured rather low within the International Amateur Athletics Federation (IAAF) (now World Athletics). Therefore, the paper examines the impact of gender (in)equality on country participation in international athletics on the base of a unique dataset on season's bests. The results provide further support that gender inequality matters and is associated with participation in women's elite sports. Whereas, women's participation in athletics has made considerable progress in the past two decades as a side-effect of the IAAF's decentralization strategy, the analyses illustrate the need for better targeted and better resourced development programs for increasing participation of less gender equal countries. Moreover, the analyses indicate the limitations of a pure macro-social approach as there are some rather unexpected dynamic developments, such as, the substantial progress of women's athletics in the Islamic Republic of Iran as a country with strong Muslim religious affiliation. The results from this analysis were used to provide practical implications.

Introduction

Since men's control of women's physical activity has been at the heart of masculine hegemony, sports has been a highly gendered social sphere. For a long time, women were denied the right to engage in physical exercise for reasons of health, that is, the alleged physical “weakness” of women's bodies or detrimental effects on the fertility of women, chastity or threats to the “natural order” of sexes (e.g., Pfister, 1993 ; Meier, 2020 ). Over the last decades, women have made considerable progress with regard to participation in mass sports as well as elite sports. Nevertheless, there is still evidence that sport continues to be gendered. Thus, a persistent finding of macro-social research on international elite sport participation is that the participation and success of women in international elite sports is strongly related to national gender regimes.

International sport governing bodies, such as the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and the international governing body of football (Fédération Internationale de Football Association—FIFA), have tried to promote women's sports and women's sport participation. Such efforts do not necessarily indicate that these organizations have ceased to be institutions of men's hegemony (Fink, 2008 ; Williams, 2014 ). Initiatives to promote women's sport might simply reflect the search for new customers in an increasingly saturated sports entertainment market. Nevertheless, there is evidence that such promotional efforts inspired more women's elite sport participation (e.g., Jacobs, 2014 ).

In contrast, the International Athletics Association Federation (IAAF)—since 2019 known as World Athletics—made little effort to promote women's athletics throughout its history (Krieger, 2021 ). Therefore, the current paper explores the relationship between gender (in)equality and country participation in women's elite athletics. It does so on the base of a unique dataset on season's best in women's athletics covering the period between 2000 and 2019.

Theoretical Background

Gender discrimination in international elite sports has been examined from different theoretical and methodological perspectives. Much of the research has more or less characterized women's access to elite sport as the political outcome of a liberal-feminist discourse centering on equal opportunities, socialization practices and legal or institutional reform (e.g., Scraton et al., 1999 ).

Historical research on women's sport has highlighted how women have been kept out of sport for medical, aesthetic and social rationales (Guttmann, 1991 ; Hargreaves, 1994 ; Schultz, 2018 ). The founder of the modern Olympic Movement, Pierre de Coubertin, thought women's sport was “impractical, uninteresting, ungainly, and, I do not hesitate to add, improper” (Coubertin, 1912 ). Following attempts to restrict women's participation in the early Olympic Games, more women's events were added during the interwar years due to the growing significance of women's sports and the increasing activities of women's sport organizations (Pfister, 1993 ). Put simply, men wanted to maintain control over women's sport so it would not exceed the men's sport in popularity (Krieger and Krech, 2020 ).

After the Second World War, social, economic and legislative changes catalyzed the increased participation of women in elite sport. Between the 1970's and the 1990's, the international women's sport movement gained increasing momentum that culminated in the inaugural World Conference on Women and Sport, held in Brighton in 1994 (Hargreaves, 1999 ). The outcome of the conference was an international treaty to support the development of a gender equal sport and physical activity system (Brighton Declaration on Women Sport, 1994 ). The IOC supported and signed what became known as the “Brighton Declaration.” Thus, since the end of the 19th century, women have gained access to participate in all sporting disciplines at the Olympic Games. The 2018 Winter Olympic Games in Pyeongchang were the first Olympics at which more medal events for women than for men were held (IOC, 2020 ). However, it should be mentioned while women have access to all sporting disciplines in the Olympics, there are still some events which they cannot compete in. In athletics, until 2017 women could only participate in 20 km race walk, but not in the 50 km race walk.

The current study does, however, not focus on the women's sport movement's struggle to gain access to elite sports but examines the (relative) impact of national gender regimes on country participation in international elite sport. The concept of gender regimes tries to grasp gender hierarchy within societies. According to the influential contribution of Connell ( 2002 , p. 53–68), a gender regime can be characterized via four dimensions:

• “Gender division of labor,” that is, the way in which production and consumption are arranged along gender lines;
• “Gender relations of power,” that is, the way in which control, authority, and force are exercised along gender lines;
• “Emotion and human relations,” that is, the way in which attachment and antagonism among people and groups are organized along gender lines; and
• “Gender culture and symbolism,” that is, the way in which gender identities are defined in culture, the language and symbols of gender difference, and the prevailing beliefs and attitudes about gender.

The macro-social research on the impact of national gender regimes on country participation has, however, usually not employed such an encompassing definition of gender regimes but focused on gender equality in the spheres of education, labor market and political process (see below). Most of this research is inspired by the parsimonious economic model developed by Bernard and Busse ( 2004 ). Accordingly, the production of athletic success can be explained by two primary factors, that is, population size and national wealth. Population size defines the national pool of athletic talents, while national wealth provides the economic means to develop these very talents. Most empirical accounts also consider (former) membership in the communist bloc as additional variable, which has served as a proxy either for organizational capacities or for policy priorities in favor of elite sports policies (Bernard and Busse, 2004 ). Macro-social research on women's international elite sports has expanded the basic economic model by adding different proxies for gender inequality. In a groundbreaking paper, Klein ( 2004 ) demonstrated that stronger participation of women in the labor force related to better women's performances in the Summer Olympics and the Women's Football World Cup even when the analyses controlled for income per capita and population size. Klein's ( 2004 ) contribution inspired a vibrant research, which used different indicators of gender inequality but supported his main findings.

With regard to international women's football, Hoffmann et al. ( 2006 ) found that the ratio of average women's earnings to men's earning related significantly to better team performances measured by the scores awarded to national women's soccer teams by FIFA's ranking system. Hence, the lower the gender pay gap, the better national team performances. In an ambitious article, which compared determinants of men's and women's team performances as measured by FIFA scores, Congdon- Hohman and Matheson ( 2013 ) used the ratio of women's to men's secondary enrollment rates as an indicator for gender equality. They found that the influence of economic and demographic factors were similar for men's and women's team performances. In contrast, Muslim religious affiliation correlated with lower women's success but not men's, while communist political systems showed better women's performances but men's performances were worse. The gender equality indicator used seemed to exert a positive impact on women's soccer performance but not on men's. Cho ( 2013 ) also used FIFA scores to examine the question whether football traditions or women empowerment were a driving force for national success in women's soccer. Again women's labor force participation served as proxy for gender equality. Cho ( 2013 ) found that women's empowerment correlated with the success in women's soccer.

Concerning success in the Olympics, Leeds and Leeds ( 2012 ) confirmed Klein's ( 2004 ) finding that higher women's labor force participation related to improved women's performances at the Summer Olympics. Moreover, they found that lower fertility rates and a longer tradition of women's suffrage also correlated with better women's performances. Noland and Stahler ( 2016 ) used several indicators for gender equality in their more recent analyses of women's performances at the Summer Olympics and demonstrated that the socio-economic status of women correlated significantly with better performances. Lowen et al. ( 2016 ) employed the gender inequality value (GIV) as developed by the United Nations as predictor for success in the Summer Olympics. They confirmed that greater gender equality has been consistently and significantly associated with improvements in two measures of Olympic success, that is, athletic participation and medal counts, even when other important predictors were taken into account. Interestingly, they even found that higher gender inequality related to lower number of medals won by both men and women. Finally, the finding that Islamic religion is a negative correlate of sporting success in the Olympics has been related to the fact that Islamic religion does not support women's sport participation (Sfeir, 1985 ; Tcha and Pershin, 2003 ; Trivedi and Zimmer, 2014 ; Noland and Stahler, 2016 ).

These findings can be summarized as follows: There is solid and consistent evidence that macro-social gender inequality relates to women's participation and success in international elite sports. However, the cited macro-social approaches suffer from a number of limitations. With regard to measuring gender (in)equality, the studies exclusively employ macro-social indicators focusing on what has been called “public sphere gender equality,” which refers to women's equality in education, labor market and political process. However, it has been argued that the gender revolution will only be complete when gender equality reaches the private sphere since even in societies with high public sphere gender equality responsibility for household chores is unequally distributed (England, 2010 ; see also: McDonald, 2000a , b ). A second limitation is that most studies fail to consider meso-level factors, “such as sports federations and sports clubs, families, the media, schools and peer groups [which] function as gatekeepers and mediate or moderate the effect of macro-level gender equality” (Lagaert and Roose, 2018 , p. 546). Yet, a recent study by Meier ( 2020 ) on women's soccer in reunified Germany indicated that macro-social gender equality does not translate in a linear manner into more women's sport participation and that policy priorities of sport organizations at different levels (national, regional and local) appeared to be highly consequential for women's sport participation and the popularity of women's sports. Finally, there is a lack of studies examining the impact of the efforts of international sport governing bodies to promote women's elite sports and to inspire women's sport participation. A particular exception is the innovative study conducted by Jacobs ( 2014 ). Jacobs ( 2014 ) evaluated the effects of FIFA programs for promoting women's soccer by using FIFA scores as dependent variable. At the macro level, she found income per capita, women's population size and women's labor force participation to be consistently and positively associated with women's team success. In addition, there was a significant impact of meso-level organizational factors on women's team performances. Dedicated governance staff and training proved to be key correlates of successful women's soccer nations in the short term, while dedicated governance staff and investments in youth developments were strong predictors of success in the long term (Jacobs, 2014 ).

Hence, although the current study follows the path of previous macro-social research on the relationship between gender (in)equality and country participation, it is fully aware of the conceptual and measurement limitations of such an approach. The main innovative contribution of the current study is, therefore, to apply macro-social research approaches to a new subject, that is, country participation in international women's athletics. As will be elaborated now, women have been long marginalized in international athletics.

Gender Discrimination in International Athletics

The IAAF was founded in 1912 to organize men's international athletics, and initially expressed little interest in the women's sport. It was not until French sport official and feminist Alice Milliat through her organisation Fédération Sportive Féminine Internationale (FSFI) began successfully organizing international athletics competitions for women. In response, the IAAF began to consider extending its influence to cover women athletes. Viewing the FSFI as a threat to its singular authority over the sport, the men's federation usurped control from the women's federation through a series of strategic maneuvers. In 1922, the then President of the IAAF, Sigfrid Edström, ordered the all men's IAAF officials to study the possibility of the IAAF governing women's sport. As result of these efforts, two women's FSFI representatives were co-opted, which contributed to the disintegration of the FSFI. Yet, the influence of the former FSFI representatives was intentionally limited (Krieger and Krech, 2020 ). A similar development occurred later in the U.S., when the Association for Intercollegiate Athletics for Women (AIAW) was forced to discontinue its activities in 1982 in favor of the NCAA, which until then had been responsible only for men's sports (Wushanley, 2004 ). When IAAF business resumed after World War II, an all-men's Women's Commission was appointed (IAAF, 1946 ). It took 10 years before Zoya Romanova was elected as the first women to chair (IAAF, 1956 ). Moreover, Romanova's recruitment seems to have been primarily motivated by the Soviet demands for greater representation in IAAF leadership positions (Krieger and Duckworth, 2020 ).

The Women's Commission focused on adding women's events to the athletics programme at the Olympic Games and European Championships. However, progress was rather slow and women's influence in the IAAF's governance structures remained limited. Within the IAAF a centralized power structure and misogynistic culture were deeply intertwined, and characterized the organizational environment within which the Women's Committee operated at least until the early 2000's. For example, in 2002 women still only made up an average of 7.1% of all committee and commission members (outside the Women's Committee) (Bechthold, 2002a , b ).

Therefore, the concerns of women's athletes and its development had a difficult stance within the IAAF. Throughout the 1990's, the Women's Committee under the leadership of German sport administrator Ilse Bechthold continued to seek the expansion of the women's programme of events at international competitions. It also adopted the explicit goal that, by the turn of the century, the IAAF should recognize an equal number of events for women as for men (IAAF Women's Committee, 1995 ). In response, the IAAF Congress agreed to a plan in 1995 which would see women's pole vault and hammer throw debut at the 1999 World Championships in Athletics (IAAF, 1995 ). Adding steeplechase races for women to IAAF events proved even more cumbersome and did not materialize until the 2005 World Athletics Championships (IAAF Women's Committee, 2002 ). However, it was only in 2017 that the women's competition programme reached the same number of events as the men (Krech, 2019 ).

Regarding development work for women's athletics, the Women's Committee proposed a Strategy for the Development of Athletics for Women in 1991, which focused on detailing “the situation of women's athletics in the world” and proposing specific strategies to encourage women's involvement in all roles in the sport (IAAF Women's Committee, 1991 ). Such development work was to be undertaken in both “advanced” and “less advanced” athletics nations, although the strategies would differ by context (Ibid.). These goals were primarily pursued through the staging of seminars and workshops around the world. These events failed to have a sustainable impact so the Women's Committee proposed the establishment of an IAAF Year of Women in Athletics, which would involve a range of promotional activities around the world (Ibid.). This was agreed in 1995 and the Year of Women's Athletics eventually took actually place in 1998. However, the Women's Committee was denied its own budget for developing women's athletics, while its proposals were ignored in the activities of the IAAF's Regional Development Centres (RDCs), located around the world. The Women's Committee also failed to make the establishment of a women's committee in each member federation a common standard. Therefore, the historical account described lends to the reality that women tend to be underrepresented in the national federations (Anthonj et al., 2013 ).

More recently, the IAAF has become increasingly aware about the federation's gender inequalities and has addressed the issue of gender in its latest governance reform process to ensure that more women are represented at all levels in the sport's governance. This was primarily done through a change in the IAAF constitution to reach better gender balance on the IAAF Council, the IAAF's executive body. Several milestones were introduced that lead to 50% gender distribution in the IAAF Council and amongst the IAAF vice-presidents by 2027 (World Athletics, 2016 ). In 2019, the IAAF introduced a Gender Leadership Taskforce to intensify the development of specific programmes to educate potential candidates for executive roles from national federations. Significantly, the governance reform only focused on the level of representation, with issues of women's overall participation in athletics, technical aspects and global development of women's athletics still overseen by the IAAF Women's Commission.

Despite those latest changes on the governance level, it seems fair to conclude that for most of IAAF's existence, women's athletics was not an organizational top priority. The Women's Committee figured particularly low on the organizational hierarchy and its policy initiatives regularly encountered pushback from within the IAAF structure. The ignorance for the issues of women's athletics stands in stark contrast to IAAF's general efforts to diffuse athletics worldwide (Krieger, 2019 ). In 1976, the organization created an IAAF Development Aid Programme in order to promote the spread of athletics in particular in developing countries (Connor and McEwen, 2011 ). Beginning in 1985, the IAAF further established Regional Development Centers (RDCs) in developing countries. The first RDC was located in India, others followed. Moreover, the IAAF founded the International Athletics Foundation, which aims to develop and spread scientific knowledge about coaching and training, to financially help building sporting facilities and also to encourage their member states to organize competitions (World Athletics, 2012 ). As in other international sport governing bodies, these development policies also served the goals of the leadership of IAAF to secure votes from the benefitting countries (Krieger, 2021 ).

The IAAF has also increasingly pursued a decentralization strategy reflecting concerns about the commercial future of athletics. Hence, the IAAF's marketing plan of 2006 strongly suggested to better develop the African market because European markets saw decreasing audience figures and lacked star athletes (International Association of Athletics Federations, 2006b ). Former IAAF president Lamine Diack promoted an Athletics World Plan in 2003, which empowered the Area Associations (International Association of Athletics Federations, 2009 ). Therefore, in 2008 the IAAF changed its rules for sanctioning competitions (International Association of Athletics Federations, 2008 ). Previously, the IAAF Council had the exclusive right to determine whether member federations could stage IAAF events (International Association of Athletics Federations, 2006a ). From 2009 on, the authority was given to the six Area Associations. As a result, all six Area Associations held events in the second highest competition category, called World Challenge, in 2010 for the first time. In addition, the IAAF lowered the performance requirements for athletes to appear in the season's best list. In short, the IAAF decentralized its competition programs to increase visibility for more member federations, enhance its marketing opportunities and promote the development of athletics.

In summary, previous research has shown that the development of women's athletics has faced multiple challenges, which included opposition from men's officials in international athletics to highly unequal national gender regimes. As a result, the promotion of women's athletics was difficult. Therefore, the current study addresses two key questions:

• How does macro-social gender inequality relate to country participation in international women's athletics?
• How did the IAAF's decentralization strategy affect the participation in international women's athletics?

Research Design

Data sources.

Research presented here analyzes data on season's bests in international athletics in the period from 2001 to 2019. The performance data analyzed here have been exclusively retrieved from the official website of World Athletics (formerly IAAF website). World Athletics is collecting the results of every performance at an officially licensed events and makes them publicly available. At the end of each year, these results are combined into season's bests lists with only the best result of an athlete in a discipline in a respective year. World Athletics allows for non-commerical use of the data as long as the data source is mentioned. Moreover, it should be mentioned the season's bests data are here only analyzed in anonymized from, that is, without considering the identity of the individual athlete. World Athletics has defined minimum performances to enter the season's best list (i.e., 11.00 s in the men's 100 m run), so that the list entries are limited. We decided to exclude the combined events (heptathlon and decathlon) from our datasets since only few countries in the world are participating here due to technical and infrastructural reasons.

Analyzing season's bests comes with a number of methodological advantages. First, in comparison to analyzing Olympic medal shares, data on season's bests are by definition available on an annual base and not only in 4-year intervals. Second, season's bests might also more accurately reflect the proficiency level of athletes and elite sport systems, as Olympic performances are heavily day dependent with athletes employing different tactics (Lames, 2002 ). Third, the analysis of season's bests avoids modeling problems resulting from the two-stage character of Olympic competitions (Johnson and Ali, 2004 ).

Dependent Variables

The account presented here analyzes four different indicators for country participation in women's international athletics. First, we calculated the share of women's athletes in the total number of athletes of a country c in a certain discipline j and a certain year t (PARITY c, j, t ). PARITY ranges from “0” in cases where only men's athletes participated in a discipline to “1” in cases where only women athletes participated. This serves as an indicator for the development of women's participation with respect to men's participation. In addition, two count variables were conducted for measuring the visibility of member federations in women's athletics, that is, the number of women elite athletes per 100,000 inhabitants appearing in the season's best lists in a certain discipline j for a country c in a certain year t and the number of women's events per 100,000 inhabitants in a certain discipline j a country c has been hosting in a certain year t. The latter is drawn from the season's best lists' additional information about the venues where the respective result has been achieved. Only events licensed by World Athletics, that is, events fulfilling minimum infrastructure and participation standards appear in the season's best lists. Both variables appeared to be extremely strongly overdispersed, with more than 80 percent of the observations equaling zero. The research team decided to convert them into categorical variables with three categories, having countries with zero athletes or events in category 1, countries with up to 0.1 athletes (ATHLETES c, j, t ) or events (HOSTINGS c, j, t ) per 100,000 inhabitants in category 2 and all with more than 0.1 in category 3. Finally, the number of athletic disciplines in which a particular country c participated in a certain year t was counted (DISCIPLINES c, t ). This dependent variable serves as an indicator for a countries visibility in athletics in general.

Independent Variables

As discussed above, previous scholarship has used quite different indicators for gender (in)equality in the public sphere. After intense discussion, the women's political empowerment index (WPEI) as developed by the V-Dem Institute was chosen as indicator because it seems to allow for more precise measurement and covers the Global South better than other indices. The V-dem Institute offers free access to datasets with democratic indicators for 202 countries over a period from 1789 to 2020 (Coppedge et al., 2021 ). The WPEI, as one of these indicators, considers three dimensions of empowerment, that is, women's civil liberties, civil society participation and political participation and originally ranges between “0” (no political empowerment) and “1” (full political empowerment) (Sundström et al., 2017 ). For the analyses presented here, a categorical variable with five categories (from “1 = very low WPEI” to “5 = very high WPEI”) was created. Hence, with regard to the research questions, WPEI represents the first key independent variable. The second key independent variable is a set of year dummies for the period from 2001 to 2019 in order to estimate a potential effect of World Athletics' strategy change (YEAR). The year dummies do not only allow to estimate the effects of the decentralization strategy of World Athletics but also to account for general trends.

As religion seems to play an important role for women's sporting participation and women's success (Sfeir, 1985 ; Trivedi and Zimmer, 2014 ; Noland and Stahler, 2016 ), a categorical variable for RELIGION was created based on a country's majority religion. Data on the religious affiliation of a country's population was retrieved from the Pew Research Center website (Pew Research Center, 2015 ). Since the IAAF developed its decentralization strategy in particular to promote the diffusion of athletics in Africa, the second control variable categorizes World Athletics' distinct Area Associations (ASSOCIATION). Moreover, the existence of a national elite sport tradition was considered by measuring the age of the first acknowledged National Olympic Committee (NOC) (NOCAGE). Since the literature on the specialization of national elite sport systems assumed that countries with lower resource endowments are more prone to make strategic choices, the analyses control for the strength of the national economy (GDP PER CAP) and country size (POPULATION) by including two categorical variables. POPULATION and GDP PER CAP were retrieved from the World Development Indicator (WDI) database as provided by the World Bank (World Bank, 2020 ). In order to account for differences among athletic disciplines, they were combined into groups (DISCIPLINE GROUP) ( Table 1 ).

Dependent and independent variables for all regression models.

Analytic Strategy

The research questions are first addressed with some descriptive analyses of the key indicators. For conducting multivariate analyses, two different data sets were created:

The so-called “Participation dataset” contains 79,580 observations for each of the 20 disciplines for 210 countries in a certain year. It entails the dependent variables PARITY, ATHLETES, and HOSTINGS as well as the independent and control variables. Since PARITY appeared to be nearly normally distributed, ordinary least square (OLS) regressions were employed.

For ATHLETES and HOSTINGS we employed ordered logistic regressions. In all models we includes country dummies 1 to account for the fixed effects-panel shape of the data and year dummies to map developments over the years.

The “Discipline dataset” is country based and contains 3,857 observations on country level with the dependent variable DISCIPLINES. The analyses employ tobit panel regressions for censored data since the number of disciplines for women is limited to 20. Only fixed effects models were calculated by including country dummies. Again, including year dummies serves to account for the longitudinal character of the data. The dataset includes all independent and control variables, except for DISCIPLINE GROUP.

Descriptive Findings

With regard to the relationship between gender (in)equality and country participation in international women's sport, Figure 1 demonstrates that in countries with more political empowerment of women, the share of women's athletes, the number of women's athletes, as well as the number of women's disciplines in which a country makes visible appearances tend to be higher. Moreover, countries with more macro-social gender equality seem to host more women's events ( Figure 1 ).

Gender (in)equality and participation in women's athletics. The figure displays violin graphs for different dependent variables and five categories of the women's political empowerment index (WPEI); 1 = low empowerment; 5 = high empowerment.

A simple mapping of country participation patterns, which is measured by number of athletic disciplines in which women's athletes make an appearance in seasons' bests, illustrates that women's athletics has made substantial progress between 2000 and 2019. The number of “white spots” (lowest quantile = 0 disciplines) for women's athletics on the world map has substantially decreased and a number of countries has expanded its visibility in women's athletics. This is particularly evident in the third figure, which shows the differences between 2001 and 2009. The highest growth were recorded in South America and in the Islamic Republic Iran ( Figure 2 ).

Country participation in women's athletics in 2001 and 2019 and difference between 2001 and 2019. (A,B) Displayed are the 5 quantiles of the number of women's athletics disciplines in which athletes from a particular country participate from white = 0 disciplines to black = 20 disciplines. (C) Displayed is the difference in absolute numbers of disciplines from white = −5 to 0 disciplines to black = more than 15 disciplines.

A more detailed look at the top-ten increases in terms of disciplines confirms these surprising insights. A number of South American countries heavily increased their visibility in women's athletics. The same applies to the Islamic Republic Iran. Moreover, a number of European countries also appear on the list with the highest increases in terms of visible participation in disciplines ( Table 2 ).

Top-ten countries with regard to participation increases.

Displayed is the number of women's athletics disciplines in which athletes from a particular country participate .

Figure 3 suggests that the progress of women's athletics between 2001 and 2019 is related to IAAF's decentralization strategy. Hence, after the implementation of the decentralization strategy substantial increases materialized in the average share of women's athletes, the average number of women's athletes, the average number of hosted events as well as the average number of disciplines in which countries make appearances. However, as the depiction of medians makes evident, the majority of countries have neither women athletes nor events in women athletics ( Figure 3 ).

Development of participation in women's athletes between 2001 and 2019. The figure displays trends for different dependent variables.

Multivariate Analyses

Separate multivariate analyses are conducted for the distinct dependent variables. Since PARITY ranges between 0 and 1 and is nearly normally distributed, OLS regressions were calculated. We included country dummies to account for fixed effects and year dummies to account for time-dependent developments and effects of IAAF's decentralization strategy in 2008. Two different models are presented: Model 1a represents the basic model, whereas in model 1b interactions between YEAR and WPEI were included ( Table 3 ). Both models appear to fit the data quite well with an adjusted R 2 of 0.365 or 0.367, respectively, but still leave a fairly high proportion of unexplained variance. In addition, the coefficients appear to be very stable in both models.

OLS regression models for parity.

Dependent variable is PARITY; Method is ordinary least squares regression with country dummies to account for the fixed effects-character of the data. Coefficients for country dummies are not reported .

First of all, the results do not confirm the descriptive findings as clearly as we expected: IAAF's decentralization strategy in 2008 did not significantly increase the share of women's athletes for all nations substantially since there no significant coefficients for the YEAR dummies after 2008. A higher WPEI correlates only slightly with higher share of women's athletes. PARITY is substantially higher in Christian countries than in countries with other dominant religious affilitations (RELIGIONS). Europe, compared to the other Associations, has the highest women's athlete share (ASSOCIATION), indicated by the highly significant, negative coefficients for all other associations. Interestingly, a higher share of women's athletes is found in countries with small or low middle populations (POPULATION), with a higher GDP per capita and in those with longer sporting traditions (NOCAGE) (Model 1a). The interaction coefficients in model 1b indicate that the STRATEGY CHANGE has served to increase women's athlete share in particular among countries in the middle WPEI categories. There are also discipline specific differences: Sprint, middle distance running and throwing seem to be the most equal discipline groups, especially compared to walking, which is the reference category.

For analyzing ATHLETES, which is a categorical variable, ordered logistic regressions were employed. Again, a basic (model 2a) and an interaction model (model 2b) were calculated. Model 2a does again not show a significant effect of IAAF's decentralization strategy (YEAR). WPEI and RELIGION have no significant impact on ATHLETES while countries with low middle population (POPULATION) and middle incomes (GDP PER CAPITA) seem to be more likely to have women's athletes appearing in the season's bests. Additionally, there are no significant differences among the Associations (ASSOCIATION). The interaction model provides a more nuanced view: IAAF's decentralization strategy served primarily to increase the likelihood of countries with a higher WPEI to make a visible appearance in women's international athletics over the entire period under scrutiny ( Table 4 ). Including the interaction terms slightly served to increase the model fit, indicated by the decreased AIC. In order to check for rubustness, we calculated the basic model again for each of the different categories of WPEI (see Appendix , Table A6). The results in general confirm the original findings and offer even more insights: Again we see that higher WPEI countries increased their number of women athletes after 2008. Additionally, we find countries with low WPEI (WPEI = 2) also appear to have increased their participation after the decentralization strategy was implemented. There is a significant effect for Muslim countries. In general, the wide variation in AICs suggests that the macro-social models employed fail to account for adequately for country specific features beyond WPEI.

Ordered logistic regression models for Athletes.

Dependent variable is ATHLETES; Method is ordered logistic regression with country dummies to account for the fixed effects-character of the data. Coefficients for country dummies are not reported.

In order to examine whether women's or men's elite sport participation benefitted more from World Athletics' strategy change, we tested how PARITY has developed with respect to the number of women's athletes (ATHLETES). Therefore, we employed an OLS regression with PARITY as dependent variable and an interaction of ATHLETES and YEAR as independent variable ( Table 5 ). To account for country specific differences, country dummies were included. Negative coefficients for the interactions would indicate that men's elite sport participation benefitted more from the strategy change, since the absolute number of women's athletes, as shown, has been generally increasing.

Influence of the interaction between Athletics and Year on Parity.

Dependent variable is PARITY; Method is Ordinary least squares regression (OLS) with country dummies to account for the fixed effects-character of the data. Coefficients for country dummies are not reported.

d Reference category is “No women's athletes × YEAR.” Only significant interaction coefficients are reported. For all coefficients see Appendix .

** p < 0.01,

* p < 0.05 ,

† p < 0.1 .

Actually, the results indicate that an increasing number of women's athletes per 100,000 inhabitants is negatively associated with the development of PARITY. There is a substantial and significant drop from 2008 to 2009 with respect to the number of women's athletes. Accordingly, it can be inferred that men's participation in elite athletics has developed better after the IAAF implemented its decentralization strategy. The model fits the data very well, indicated by an adjusted R 2 of 0.793.

In order to analyze HOSTING, which represents also a categorical variable, again ordered logistic regressions were employed. As for ATHLETES, Model 3a does not show a significant effect of IAAF's decentralization strategy (YEAR). We see more events in countries with very high WPEI (WPEI), with big populations (POPULATION) and high income (GDP PER CAPITA). The interacted model (model 3b) is hard to interpret: the number of events seems to have increased in all WPEI categories and independently of the IAAF decentralization strategy since we see highly significant and positive odds ratios also before 2008 ( Table 6 ). The robustness checks (see Appendix , Table A7) again confirm our general models. Additionally, we see that the number of events especially increased in countries with high and very high WPEI already before 2008. The models also provide stronger evidence that in particular countries with low WPEI seem to have increased the hosting of women's events after the decentralization strategy was implemented. Again, the variation in AICs suggest, however, that pure macro-social models do not grasp the developments very well.

Ordered logistic regression models for Hosting.

Dependent variable is HOSTINGS; Method is ordered logistic regression with country dummies to account for the fixed effects-character of the data. Coefficients for country dummies are not reported.

Finally, the number of disciplines in which a country is present in the season's bests (DISCIPLINES) is analyzed as proxy for the development of a national women's elite sport system. Since the dataset has panel character with a censored dependent variable, tobit regressions were conducted. Fixed effects models, which provide more consistent estimators, were calculated (Models 4a and 4b) by including country dummies. Again, a basic model and an interaction model were estimated. Both models have a very a high model fit, in particular model 4b, which predicts 82% of the data correctly (multiple R 2 ).

First of all, all model 4a shows highly significant and positive coefficients from 2009 onwards. Accordingly, IAAF's decentralization strategy is related to an increase of the disciplines in which women's athletes of a particular country appear in the season's bests. Additionally, DISCIPLINES is significantly higher for countries with higher WPEI's. The number of DISCIPLINES per country is higher in Europe, non-Islamic and non-Buddhist countries as well as countries with larger populations and a longer sport tradition. Interestingly, GDP PER CAPITA seems to exert a negative effect. In the interacted fixed effect model (Model 4b), the mostly insignificant interaction coefficients show that developments over time were not related to WPEI ( Table 7 ).

Tobit regression models for Disciplines.

Dependent variable is DISCIPLINES; Method is tobit regressions with country dummies to account for the fixed effects-character of the data due to the truncated dependent variable. Coefficients for country dummies are not reported.

The results of our study will be first discussed in the lights of the guiding research questions, that is, (1) the relevance of macro-social gender inequality for country participation in international women's athletics, and (2) the impact of IAAF's decentralization strategy on participation in international women's athletics.

With regard to the first question, the study, which relied on a larger sample of countries and more fine-grained data, primarily confirmed previous findings. It was demonstrated once more that macro-social gender equality matters for women's sport. Higher women's empowerment in the public sphere relates to higher participation of countries in international women's athletics. It became also at least slightly evident that countries with Muslim religious affiliation appear to be in general less supportive of women's participation in international elite sports. However, there are notable exceptions, such as, the Islamic Republic of Iran (see below). Interestingly, population seems to play a less important role than in men's sports, while country participation in women's international athletics increased with higher GDP per capita.

Concerning the second questions, the study demonstrated that women's athletics made substantial progress over the last two decades, which is in some aspects related to the IAAF's decentralization strategy. The number of disciplines in which countries participate substantially expanded over the period examined. Also the number of athletes and hostings generally increased. It is most interesting that the progress of women's athletics is not related to a deliberate developmental policy of the IAAF (now World Athletics) with regard to women's athletics. The progress appears to be the outcome of a more general decentralization strategy, which involved the lowering of performance requirements for season's bests and of technical standards for hosting. The decentralization strategy allowed more countries to make visible appearances in women's athletics and served to increase women's share among national elite athletes. However, the findings also indicate that although the decentralization strategy served to increase the participation of countries in women's elite athletics, men's athletics appear to have benefitted even more.

Hence, it can be concluded that the study demonstrates the limits of such rather gender unspecific development strategies. The analyses showed that the decentralization strategy mainly promoted the development of women's athletics in countries characterized by higher levels of women's empowerment. These countries include, among others, Costa Rica, where the share of women's athletes increased after the implementation of the IAAF's decentralization stratey, the United States, which experienced a remarkable growth in women's athletes appearing in the season's bests and in hosted events, and Croatia, where the number of athletic disciplines in which women's athletes appeared in the season's bests increased. By implication, the differential impact of the decentralization strategy is likely to increase the gaps in the development of women's athletics between less and more gender equal countries. It seems reasonable to assume that the decentralization strategy allowed more gender equal countries to increase their visibility in women's international athletics because of stronger grassroots of women's athletics in these countries. Accordingly, the current study suggests that a more deliberate developmental and better resourced strategy is needed to promote women's athletics in countries characterized by lower women's empowerment. If such efforts are not made, the progress of women's athletics in these countries will depend on whether women's empowerment increases and automatically translates into better opportunities for women's elite sports. Hence, if World Athletics aims to deliberately promote women's athletics in less gender equal countries, it should create better targeted women's developmental programs. The IAAF Women's Commission made similar recommendation in the period between 1990 and 2007 but received significant pushback from leading IAAF bodies. However, it should be realized that encouraging investments in women's elite sports might not the most reasonable strategy for promoting women's sport and physical activity in such countries as it is highly questionable whether such top-down approaches result in “trickle down” effects benefitting women's participation in sport or physical activity in general (Connor and McEwen, 2011 ).

Limitations

First of all, it should be realized that the current study does not allow for strong causal claims as it represents only a retrospective data analysis. In addition, the current study shares the limitations of other macro-social accounts, which usually neglect meso-level factors. It is important to realize that the analyses hinted at the existence of country specific responses to IAAF's decentralization strategy. However, a macro-social approach provides little means to dissect these responses. The relevance of meso-level factors has been indicated by the substantial progress of women's athletics in the Islamic Republic of Iran. This progress in a country with strong Muslim religious affiliation seems to reflect the efforts of the Iranian government to exploit sport in pursuit of a broad range of domestic and international policy objectives (in general: Dousti et al., 2013 ; for women's sport: Sadeghi et al., 2018 ). Hence, the progress of women's elite sport depends on priorities of national sport policies. Moreover, the relevance of path dependencies and diffusion patterns is indicated by the fact that countries with a longer sport tradition seem to show a higher participation in women's international athletics. It might be speculated that, even though the first sport men's officials heavily discriminated against women, an earlier establishment of a national sport movement served also to bring earlier up the question of women's participation or women's sport. Hence, besides national gender regimes and sport policies, sport specific trajectories seem to be relevant.

Accordingly, future analyses should try to conduct more sophisticated proxies for meso-level factors in order to improve academic understanding of the development of women's sport and to provide better guidance to sport administrators at international and national level.

Data Availability Statement

Author contributions.

HM and MK contributed to the conception and design of the empirical study. MK organized the database and performed the statistical analyses. HM and JK wrote the theory section and the discussion section. All authors wrote sections of the manuscript.

Conflict of Interest

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Publisher's Note

All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article, or claim that may be made by its manufacturer, is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.

1 Coefficients for the 210 country dummies will not be reported.

Supplementary Material

The Supplementary Material for this article can be found online at: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fspor.2021.709640/full#supplementary-material

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New study reveals gender bias in sport research. It’s yet another hurdle to progress in women’s sport

Research Fellow & Psychologist, Mental Health in Elite Sports, The University of Melbourne

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Disclosure statement

Courtney Walton receives funding through a McKenzie Postdoctoral Research Fellowship at the University of Melbourne. He advises a number of elite sports codes and organisations nationally.

Caroline Gao receives salary support from the Department of Health, State Government of Victoria for unrelated projects. She is an investigator on projects funded by NHMRC, NIH, HCF and MRFF. She is affiliated with Orygen and Monash University.

Simon Rice receives funding from the NHMRC, MRFF and The University of Melbourne. He advises a number of elite sports codes and organisations internationally.

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Throughout history, sports have been guilty of prioritising certain groups at the exclusion of others. There has been a pervasive idea that being an athlete requires the demonstration of traditionally masculine traits. Any individual not doing so was, and often still is, susceptible to being harassed, sidelined, or ostracised.

Indeed, femininity has historically been considered nonathletic. Research finds some athletes describe a perception that being a “woman” and an “athlete” are almost opposing identities .

For these reasons and more, women’s sport has been held back in ways that men’s sport has not. While progress is certainly now being made, our new research , published this week, finds large gender gaps persist in sports research.

We found sport psychology research studies – which inform the strategies athletes use to reach peak performance – have predominantly used male participants.

For example, across the sport psychology research we looked at between 2010 and 2020, 62% of the participants were men and boys. Further, around 22% of the sport psychology studies we examined had samples with only male participants. In contrast, this number was just 7% for women and girls.

Women may experience sport and exercise differently from men. As in other areas of medicine, an evidence base that’s predominately informed by men’s experiences and bodies will lead to insufficient, ineffective outcomes and recommendations for women.

Some progress has been made

Progress in women’s sport is evident, and continues every year. Gender gaps across recreational and professional sport are slowly narrowing.

Girls’ involvement in sport continues to grow, with the number participating in high school sports in the United States increasing by 262% between 1973 and 2018 . In Australia, participation in sport among women and girls between 2015-2019 grew at a faster rate than among men and boys .

Improved opportunity and exposure has also occurred in professional settings, and public interest has increased significantly. For example, the 2020 Women’s Cricket World Cup saw attendance records tumble, with the final played at the MCG in front of 86,174 fans .

Many sports now enter a complex new era of professionalisation, as we’re seeing in AFLW .

Despite positive trends, critical issues remain.

Read more: The Tokyo Olympics are billed as the first gender equal Games, but women still lack opportunities in sport

Gender bias in research

Any growth in women’s sport must be supported by the underlying evidence base that informs it.

As mental health researchers in the field of elite sport, we aim to make real-world impacts through rigorous applied research. Our team has previously explored gendered mental health experiences among elite athletes, finding women report more significant symptoms of mental ill-health and more frequent negative events like discrimination or financial hardship .

Research like this is critical for informing the services and systems which support peak performance. But the research has to represent its target, or else progress will be limited.

It’s now well understood that the field of medical and scientific research is rife with examples of the ways in which unequal participation by gender has caused negative health effects. With men’s experiences and bodies considered the norm , inaccurate understanding of causes, tools, and treatments have been frequent.

Medical and scientific research in sport is not exempt.

Our findings

As sports become increasingly competitive and pressurised, sport psychology is critical to supporting athletes within these high-stress environments.

Following concerns about gender bias in scientific research, we wanted to understand whether the field of sport and exercise psychology was appropriately representative.

We recorded the gender of study participants across research published in key sport and exercise psychology journals in 2010, 2015 and 2020, to estimate gender balance over the last decade. This included studies on topics such as: physical and mental health, personality and motivation, coaching and athlete development, leadership, and mental skills.

Across more than 600 studies and nearly 260,000 participants, there were significant levels of gender imbalance.

This imbalance varied, depending on the area being investigated. While sport psychology research focuses on performance and athletes, exercise psychology is more focused on areas of health and participation. Our findings showed that the likelihood of including male rather than female participants in sport psychology studies was almost four times as high as for exercise psychology.

We also identified that those studies which specifically explored themes relating to performance (such as coaching, mental skills, or decision-making) all featured samples with fewer women and girls, as compared to those focused on topics like health, well-being, or activism.

What our findings mean

Our findings, along with those of others , hint at a number of worrying conclusions.

Women and girls in sport are likely to be instructed in strategies and approaches informed by research that does not sufficiently represent them.

Among many factors, topics like coaching methods, injury management, and performance psychology are critical to sports performance. For some or all of these, women athletes’ experiences may differ from those of men.

Changes to policy have made a significant difference to gender equity in sport. But researchers and funding bodies must follow suit, ensuring we develop the understanding and methods to properly represent all groups we seek to serve. Only then can women’s sport truly flourish.

• Sport science
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• Gender bias in academia
• Exercise psychology
• Gender bias in medicine
• Gender bias in sports

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• Published: 26 September 2023

Sport–gender stereotypes and their impact on impression evaluations

• Zhiyuan Liu   ORCID: orcid.org/0009-0004-1026-4437 1 , 2 ,
• Menglu Shentu 1 , 2 ,
• Yuhan Xue 1 , 2 ,
• Yike Yin 1 , 2 ,
• Zhihao Wang 1 , 2 ,
• Liangchen Tang 1 , 2 ,
• Yu Zhang 1 , 2 &
• Weiqi Zheng 1 , 2  

Humanities and Social Sciences Communications volume  10 , Article number:  614 ( 2023 ) Cite this article

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Sports have traditionally had gendered connotations in society and culture, resulting in solidified gender stereotypes that influence impression evaluations. China has a special gender social culture; however, how sport–gender stereotypes (SGS) influence the gender evaluation of people in China in the Global South is still unknown. This study obtained gender-typed sports and attribute adjectives and proved the existence of SGS through a pilot study (392 college students, n 1  = 207, n 2  = 185) and then used two studies to explore the influence of both explicit and implicit SGS on evaluations and compared the differences between these stereotypes and general gender stereotypes. Study 1 (395 college students, n 1a  = 192, n 1b  = 203) examined the explicit level using a questionnaire experiment. The results of two experiments showed that (1) stereotype-consistent targets were more masculine or feminine in correspondence with their gender, while stereotype-inconsistent targets had higher anti-gender traits; and (2) the inclusion of stereotype-consistent sports activities led targets to be evaluated as more masculine, while stereotype-inconsistent sport activities showed gender evaluation reversal, especially for women. Study 2 (103 college students, n 2a  = 61, n 2b  = 42) measured the implicit attitudes using the Implicit Association Test. The results of two experiments showed that (1) implicit evaluations of stereotype-consistent targets were associated faster than stereotype-inconsistent targets and (2) the inclusion of gender-typed sports weakened implicit gender evaluations. In conclusion, this is the first quantitative study to explore the unique effect of SGS on individual evaluations and how they differ from general gender stereotypes in the Chinese context. These findings could provide valuable insights for research and the application of sports social science and physical education.

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Introduction.

People frequently differentiate among genders and form notions about the typical traits and behaviors of members of each gender. The differences between males and females are, to some extent, captured in these gender stereotypes (Ellemers, 2018 ). This is common in the field of sports. The sport–gender stereotypes of “sports divided into masculine and feminine sports” are prevalent around the world. For example, football and basketball are commonly seen as embodying masculinity, while dance and gymnastics are feminized (Chalabaev et al., 2013 ; Colley et al., 2005 ). Similarly, in ancient China, men were required to practice archery and riding, which lasted until the Qing dynasty.

China has a special gender and sports social culture. With China’s increasing contact with the world and as a representative of the Global South, the impact of sport–gender stereotypes on impression evaluations and how stereotypes work will be the primary focus. In recent years, several studies conducted in China have begun to focus on gender stereotypes embedded in such distinctively Chinese cultural themes as food, names, and power distance (e.g., Zuo et al., 2021 ; Yan and Wu, 2021 ). While most of the Chinese researchers’ explorations of sport–gender stereotypes are based on a sociological perspective, proposing theoretical explanations for their emergence and development, quantitative studies have mostly stayed at arguing for their existence, and psychological studies of their potential effects are even rarer. Meanwhile, in the recent period, sports have become a major symbol of masculinities (Connell, 2005 ). It is increasingly important to clarify the relationship between sport and gender traits in the Chinese cultural context. This study will examine the existence and influence of such stereotypes by quantitatively measuring and collecting the attitudes of college students growing up in various parts of China, both at the explicit and implicit levels, and will also explore the gender connotations of sports in comparison to general gender stereotypes.

Literature review

Gender as a social structure.

Gender is socially constructed. Gender is a collection of social relations and practices integrating reproductive distinctions between bodies into social processes (Connell, 2009 ). Social institutions, such as families, schools, and peer groups, play a key role in the formation of gender roles. They reinforce boys’ and girls’ conformity to socially normative behaviors so that most children internalize these rules and develop character traits corresponding to socially accepted “gender roles” (Carrigan et al., 1985 ; Pickles, 2021 ). Children in turn pass on this set of norms to the next generation, making gender roles increasingly stable. Gender roles narrowly view “deviations from expectations” as “failure”, which does not reflect real-life situations (Carrigan et al., 1985 ). Some situations contradict definitions of gender roles, such as the girl who likes to play basketball or the boy who likes to dance, where gender roles do not seem to provide us with good insights. Over time, people have been categorized from the perspective of social gender roles and established rather rigid gender stereotypes (Lemm et al., 2005 ).

Gender stereotypes are common social beliefs about social groups’ personality traits and behavioral characteristics (Boiché et al., 2014 ) that emphasize that men and women are different (Eagly and Steffen, 1984 ). Both explicit and implicit gender stereotypes exist (Steffens and Jelenec, 2011 ). Explicit is a descriptive definition meaning direct and can be measured directly, while implicit means indirect and is the effect of early experiences on behavior (Greenwald and Lai, 2020 ). The Implicit Association Test (IAT) is currently regarded as the most reliable measure of an individual’s implicit perceptions (Kurdi et al., 2020 ). Whether explicit or implicit, gender stereotypes influence people’s attitudes and behaviors (Plaza et al., 2017 ). Dominance theory suggests that certain cues, such as gender, have a greater influence than others on people’s perceptions of a target (Sidanius et al., 2018 ). Therefore, people will use gender as an important criterion when making judgments. Participants rated the teaching behavior of teachers with male names in online courses significantly higher than that of teachers with female names (MacNell et al., 2015 ). Implicit gender stereotypes motivate employers to hire more men (Reuben et al., 2014 ), even in scientific fields where women are already scarce (Régner et al., 2019 ). Although there are no significant differences in brain structure and cognitive performance between men and women (e.g., Eliot et al., 2021 ; Joel et al., 2015 ), gender bias caused by gender stereotypes is still prevalent globally.

Of the more than 500,000 IATs completed in 34 countries across five continents, approximately 70% associated science with men rather than women, with Chinese Taipei, Hong Kong SAR, New Zealand, and Tunisia, having the higher-than-average implicit gender stereotypes (Nosek et al., 2009 ). There is a clear gender pattern in the workplace in Australia, where the majority of managers are male and service workers are female; And women’s labor participation rates are significantly lower than those of men in much of South Asia, Latin America, and some Arab countries (Pickles, 2021 ). These individual countries are all part of the Global South. The term “Global South” refers to the regions of Latin America, Asia, Africa, and Oceania (Dados and Connell, 2012 ). It is one of the products of imperialism and colonialism that once dominated the globe and is opposed to the “Global North” (Connell, 2009 , 2020 ). While it is true that perspectives from the Global North have played a creative role and maintained hegemony in understanding gender (Banerjee and Connell, 2018 ), there is now a particular need for an international approach to understanding gender more fully in the context of “globalization” (Connell, 2005 , 2020 ; Pickles, 2021 ).

Gender stereotypes and their impact in China

China is the largest country in the Global South. Its unique gendered cultural context provides a new perspective to understand gender stereotypes from the viewpoint of the Global South. China is ranked low on the Gender Gap Index (107/146) globally and has fallen for 13 consecutive years (World Economic Forum, 2023 ). Influenced by Confucianism, China’s articulation of gender differences for men and women is different from those of the West, focusing more on the social attributes of men and women, such as “male superiority and female inferiority”, and “men outside the home, women inside” (Li, 2013 ; Yang et al., 2023 ). Social role theory explains this division that corresponds to gender roles by suggesting that gender stereotypes lead to a strict prescription of what males and females are supposed to be (Eagly, 1987 ). Impression evaluation and formation are used synonymously (Osgood et al., 1957 ), so gender stereotype formation is inextricably linked to impression evaluation, i.e., cognitive judgments such as the goodness and badness of a specific impression. Such cognitive process leads to perceptual evaluation biases in evaluators (Derous et al., 2015 ), forming emotionally predisposed impression evaluations of both genders, causing them to show considerable resistance effects to individuals who violate expectations (Eagly and Wood, 2012 ). People resist counterstereotypical individuals on both cognitive and behavioral levels and then make negative evaluations of them to sustain gender stereotypes (e.g., Bosak et al., 2018 ; Bosak et al., 2018 ; Eagly et al., 2020 ; Liu and Zuo, 2006 ).

People’s responses based on the limited information provided by gender stereotypes can have a substantial effect on others’ impression evaluations (Palumbo et al., 2017 ; Song et al., 2017 ). At the explicit level, men are perceived to be more competent, and women are perceived to be warmer (Zuo et al., 2021 ); feminized male and female faces are perceived to be more attractive, warm, and competent than masculine faces (Wen et al., 2022 ). Implicit gender stereotypes also show considerable gender inequalities. Yan and Wu ( 2021 ) found that subordinates perceive male leaders as more masculine, whereas there is no difference between masculine and feminine evaluations of female leaders. Only implicitly do people perceive food stereotype-inconsistent targets as warmer than stereotype-consistent targets (Zuo et al., 2021 ). Xu ( 2003 ) found that both males and females implicitly view males as superior to females. Evidently, gender stereotypes affect both the users and the targets of the stereotypes (Hilton and von Hippel, 1996 ; Ellemers, 2018 ).

Sport–gender stereotypes and impression evaluations

Sport is a domain where gender differences are created, institutionalized, and established in the apparatuses of regulation (Woodward, 2009 ). Generally, sports are viewed as a male-dominated domain (Messner, 2011 ). Women in patriarchal societies are controlled by men’s power, and individuals of both genders are nested into their respective gender identities, i.e., hegemonic and submissive (Ren, 2020 ; Rowe, 1998 ). This notion is exemplified in the realm of sports, i.e., sports are portrayed as powerful, implying the male-centered nature of sports (e.g., Zhuang, 2021 ; Solmon, 2014 ; Pringle, 2005 ) and the masculinity in the situational specificity issues (Connell, 2005 ); whereas women, who are expected to be tender and submissive, suffer from awkward situations and stigmatization when participating in sports (e.g., Burrow, 2018 ). As men and women gradually conform to their respective social norms and exhibit and even internalize behaviors that “fit” their gender, they tend to categorize sports based on imbalances of men to women participating (Matteo, 1988 ). Then, sports have been categorized into masculine and feminine sports. Sports that demonstrate strength and power, such as football and basketball, are seen as expressions of masculinity, while esthetic sports, such as dance, are feminized (Chalabaev et al., 2013 ; Colley et al., 2005 ).

The majority of previous research on sport–gender stereotypes has been undertaken explicitly, revealing gender inequalities in participants’ perceptions of gender-typed sports. Stereotypes affect American males more than females (Hardin and Greer, 2009 ), and Swedish males regard masculine sports as more masculine (Koivula, 1995 ). A longitudinal follow-up study by Boiché et al. ( 2014 ) found that sport–gender stereotypes are stronger in boys, whereas girls’ stereotypes increase with age.

There has also been implicit research on sport–gender stereotypes from the viewpoint of the target gender. In Switzerland, men who accept traditional masculinity to a larger extent are more hostile toward males who depart from the standards, particularly feminized men (Iacoviello et al., 2021 ). Plaza et al. ( 2017 ) found that sport is gendered both implicitly and explicitly, which can influence individual participation. Moreover, women tend to evaluate neutral sports less harshly than men, indicating that women are more tolerant when evaluating individuals engaged in sports.

Sport–gender stereotypes are indeed more well-studied in the Global North. China, as the largest country in the Global South, has a long and unique history of developing sport–gender stereotypes. Chinese culture describes masculinity in terms of “hardness-softness” and “Wenwu”, i.e., cultural cultivation and martial valor. The ideal Chinese masculinity is thought to have “hardness-softness” or “Wenwu”, rather than merely “hardness” or “wu” (Fang, 2008 ; Louie, 2002 ). In other words, Chinese masculinity and femininity are not dichotomous (Zhang et al., 2011 ). Chinese male and female college students hold similar consciousness on sports, in practice, however, males have a more positive attitude toward exercise and are much more physically active than females (Jia et al., 2006 ; Zhao and Liu, 2023 ). Then, are sports still “dichotomous” in China as a representation of masculinity, and how do sport–gender stereotypes affect the two genders differently?

Quantitative research on sport–gender stereotypes in China is limited and focuses on college students. Zhang et al. ( 2010 ) found that when the gender of the evaluated targets differed, the participants’ attributions varied, indicating that the evaluated targets’ gender interacted with the sport–gender stereotypes. Based on this, Liu ( 2012 ) found that college students tended to associate strength-based sports with male names and technical sports with female names and that males had slightly more implicit sport–gender stereotypes than females. In conclusion, few studies in China have measured sport–gender stereotypes at both explicit and implicit levels, and have not comprehensively considered the similarities and differences between the evaluators and the evaluated subjects, which need to be further explored.

The present studies

As stated above, most studies discussing gender stereotypes are centered in the Global North (e.g., Connell, 2020 ; Hardin and Greer, 2009 ; Gülgöz et al., 2018 ; Wallien et al., 2010 ), but in the Global South, especially in China, where sports are often more linked to masculinism based on political—cultural background (Wellard, 2016 ; Eagly et al., 2020 ; Zhuang, 2021 ; Yang et al., 2023 ), the topic of gender is also very much up for discussion. We can further theorize gender power relations of masculinities by studying gender in specific contexts (e.g., sports, name, etc.) and light on center questions about gender powers (Connell, 2005 ). This pilot study, therefore, examined the sport–gender stereotypes of college students with fixed identities and stable cultural shaping in China.

The topic of the influence of gender stereotypes on impression evaluation has attracted much attention in both sociology and psychology, but there are differences in the research methods used across disciplines. This study intended to explore the subject deeply at both implicit and explicit levels in an attempt to reveal the influence of sport–gender stereotypes on impression evaluation using a quantitative approach.

Furthermore, previous studies have mostly verified the existence of both implicit and explicit levels, i.e., the automatic activation of gender stereotypes in association with sports (Nosek et al., 2007 ). In addition, social role theory, the maintenance of gender stereotype model, and dominance theory treat the impact of gender as a crucial clue about social categorization, gender features, and individual assessments. This study investigated the effect of sport–gender stereotypes on impression evaluation. Previous studies have shown that sport–gender stereotypes are sufficient to influence the ratio and number of men and women who participate in sports (Dufur and Linford, 2010 ; Chalabaev et al., 2013 ). Most studies have discussed how to define or classify gender-typed sports (e.g., Hardin and Greer, 2009 ), and few have considered how sport–gender stereotypes influence men’s or women’s sports choices and how athletes of different genders are evaluated. Hence, when discussing sport–gender stereotypes, this study took the gender of the target and participant into consideration and measured the gender differences in impression evaluation to further elucidate gender stereotypes and provide valuable insights for future intervention studies. We make the following hypotheses.

H1: Sport–gender stereotype can impact impression evaluation at both explicit and implicit levels, with stereotype-consistent males and stereotype-inconsistent females perceived as more masculine, and vice versa.

H2: The third-order interaction among participant gender, target gender, and stereotype (in)consistency is significant. Participants of different genders have different evaluation attitudes toward the stereotyped targets.

Finally, based on the sports domain, this study examined stereotypes because sports can influence social cognition, personality traits, etc. (e.g., Nosek et al., 2007 ). Previous studies on gender stereotype subfields, such as careers and names (e.g., MacNell et al., 2015 ; Yan and Wu, 2021 ), have not been compared with general gender stereotypes. To more accurately portray how gender-typed sports work in impression evaluation, this study examined Hypothesis 3.

H3: Sport–gender stereotypes and general gender stereotypes have different influences on impression evaluation at both implicit and explicit levels.

Pilot study: Identification of experimental materials

The purpose of the pilot study was to examine the sport–gender stereotypes held by college students in the Chinese context. The materials needed for Studies 1 and 2, including gender-typed sports and attribute adjectives, will also be obtained.

Participants

In the gender-typed sports evaluation phase, 207 college students were recruited (118 females, M age  = 19.36 years, SD = 1.66).

In the attribute adjective evaluation phase, 185 college students were recruited (103 females, M age  = 19.18 years, SD = 1.46). All of the participants were right-handed, had normal or corrected vision, and completed an informed consent form before the experiment began.

Experimental procedure

(1) Gender-typed sports nomination: A total of 41 sports were reviewed following a search of world-class sports and related literature.

(2) Gender-typed sports evaluation: The participants were asked to rate each of the initially screened sports items on a 10-point Likert scale. The masculine names “Yu Minghui” and “Fan Kunhong” and the feminine names “Du Huimin” and “Wang Yuexuan” were selected as typical male and female names from a study by Zuo et al. ( 2021 ) on gender-oriented names. The scenario presented to participants was as follows: “Yu Minghui/Du Huimin/Fan Kunhong/Wang Yuexuan (21 years old, college student) is choosing among a wide range of sports. If you are him or her, please rate the sport on a scale of −5 to +5 according to how suitable it is for you. A negative number is unsuitable, a positive number is suitable, and the higher the absolute value is, the greater the degree of suitability. Please avoid selecting ‘0’.”

The four sports with the highest scores were taken as masculine sports, and the four sports with the lowest scores were taken as feminine sports. The four masculine sports were football (4.26 ± 0.08), basketball (3.04 ± 0.09), wrestling (2.02 ± 0.07), and running (2.01 ± 0.08); the four feminine sports were artistic gymnastics (−2.33 ± 0.09), gymnastics (−1.76 ± 0.10), ice dance (−1.15 ± 0.09), and synchronized swimming (1.13 ± 0.08).

(3) Attribute adjectives nomination: After searching the relevant literature, the researchers identified 16 masculine attribute adjectives and 17 feminine attribute adjectives.

(4) Attribute adjective evaluation: A 10-point scale format (“−5” to “+5”) was for participants to rate each gendered attribute adjective. The four highest-scoring attribute adjectives were taken as masculine, and the four lowest-scoring attribute adjectives were taken as feminine. The four masculine attribute adjectives were virile (1.74 ± 0.25), doughty (1.11 ± 0.24), brave (1.10 ± 0.23), and stouthearted (1.09 ± 0.21); the four feminine attribute adjectives were beautiful (−0.73 ± 0.29), tender (− 0.52 ± 0.26), missish (−0.31 ± 0.24), and virtuous (−0.24 ± 0.25).

In nominations and the evaluations, we found that both male and female college students held sport–gender stereotypes, and they believed that men preferred masculine sports (e.g., football, basketball), and women preferred feminine sports (e.g., artistic gymnastics, synchronized swimming).

The material was combined with each of the eight attribute adjectives to form the sport–gender stereotypes questionnaire using a 7-point scale (1 = very inconsistent, 7 = very consistent), to show the influence of explicit sport–gender stereotypes on the evaluation.

Questionnaire for Study 1a formation: The typical male/female names (Yu Minghui/Du Huimin, Fan Kunhong/Wang Yuexuan) and typical masculine/feminine sports (football/basketball, artistic gymnastics/synchronized swimming) used in the pilot experiment were selected and combined to compile textual materials to form gender-stereotyped consistent target descriptions (e.g., “Yu Minghui likes playing basketball”, “Du Huimin likes playing artistic gymnastics”) and vice versa (e.g., “ Fan Kunhong likes playing artistic gymnastics”, “Wang Yuexuan likes playing basketball”). The participants were then asked to evaluate the conformity of the target descriptions with the eight attribute adjectives (e.g., “Yu Minghui likes playing basketball. Please evaluate the following eight words to match his/her personality traits based on this sentence.”). Each participant will be asked to evaluate each of the stereotype-consistent and inconsistent male and female targets, for a total of four targets. The order in which each target appeared was counterbalanced among participants.

The material was also used in the development of the gender stereotypes questionnaire for Study 1b and IATs for Study 2.

Study 1: The effect of explicit sport–gender stereotypes

Study 1a: the impact of explicit sport–gender stereotypes on impression evaluations.

This study explored how explicit sport–gender stereotypes influence gender evaluations of individuals and gender differences between evaluators and evaluated targets in the evaluation process.

The study used G*Power 3.1 (Faul et al., 2007 ) to calculate the sample size with the effect set to 0.25 and an α level of 0.05. According to the 2 × 2 × 2 mixed design standard, to obtain a statistical power of 0.95, at least 36 participants would be needed. The actual number of college students recruited was 192 (102 females, M age  = 19.00 years, SD = 0.71). The participants were all right-handed, and all completed an informed consent form before the experiment began.

Experimental design

A 2 (participant gender: male vs. female) × 2 (target gender: male vs. female) × 2 (stereotype: consistent vs. inconsistent) mixed design was used. Target gender was a within-subject variable, participant gender and stereotype were between-subject variables, and the dependent variables were the scores of the participant’s evaluation of the targets who were consistent or inconsistent with the sport–gender stereotypes of masculine and feminine traits.

Experimental materials

The sport–gender stereotypes questionnaire developed in the pilot study was used. The entire questionnaire and its instructions for use can be found in the Supplementary online (see Appendix B ).

Participants were asked to fill out the sport–gender stereotypes questionnaire and were paid for the experiment after completion.

Repeated-measures ANOVA was performed with a 2 (participant gender: male vs. female) × 2 (target gender: male vs. female) × 2 (stereotype: consistent vs. inconsistent) design to examine participants’ evaluation of whether the sport–gender stereotypes were consistent for both males and females in terms of masculine and feminine traits, to test H1 and H2 at the explicit level.

Analysis of masculine trait evaluation (see Tables 1 , S1 )

The main effect of target gender was significant, F (1, 190) = 28.251, p  < 0.001, η p 2 = 0.129, the male targets (4.74 ± 0.06) were higher than the female targets (4.38 ± 0.07); the main effect of stereotype (in)consistency was significant, F (1, 190) = 5.535, p  = 0.02, η p 2  = 0.028, the stereotype consistency (4.62 ± 0.06) was higher than the stereotype inconsistency (4.49 ± 0.06). The interaction between stereotype (in)consistency and target gender was significant, F (1, 190) = 398.282, p  < 0.001, η p 2  = 0.667, and the third-order interaction among target gender, stereotype (in)consistency, and participant gender was significant, F (1, 190) = 7.062, p  = 0.009, η p 2  = 0.036. Further simple effects analysis of the third-order interaction revealed (see Fig. 1a ) that when participants were male, they rated stereotype-consistent male masculine traits higher (5.79 ± 0.10) than stereotype-inconsistent traits (3.83 ± 0.13), and rated stereotype-consistent female masculine traits lower (3.58 ± 0.13) than stereotype-inconsistent traits (5.29 ± 0.11); when the participants were female the results were similar to those for male participants, i.e., the evaluation of stereotype-consistent males (5.43 ± 0.09) was higher than that of stereotype-inconsistent males (3.90 ± 0.12), and the evaluation of stereotype-consistent females (3.68 ± 0.12) was lower than that of stereotype-inconsistent females (4.96 ± 0.11). Further, male participants perceived stereotype-consistent male targets (5.79 ± 0.10) and stereotype-inconsistent female targets (5.29 ± 0.11) as more masculine than female participants perceived the evaluations of stereotype-consistent male targets (5.43 ± 0.09, p  = 0.008) and stereotype-inconsistent female targets (4.96 ± 0.11, p  = 0.032). Results revealed that the stereotype-consistent males and stereotype-inconsistent females were perceived as more masculine, but there were also evaluator gender differences.

a Third-order interaction of participants’ evaluations of the masculine traits stereotype-(in)consistent targets. b Second-order interaction of participants’ evaluations of the feminine traits of stereotype-(in)consistent targets. Note. Error bars all indicate ±1 SE. * p  < 0.05, ** p  < 0.01, or *** p  < 0.001.

Analysis of feminine trait evaluation (see Tables 2 , S2 )

The main effect of target gender was significant, F (1, 190) = 79.287, p  < 0.001, η p 2  = 0.294, the female targets (4.11 ± 0.06) were higher than the male targets (3.40 ± 0.07). The interaction between stereotype-(in)consistency and target gender was significant, F (1, 190) = 413.92, p  < 0.001, η p 2  = 0.685. Further analysis of the simple effect (see Fig. 1b ) showed that participants rated feminine traits higher for stereotype-inconsistent males (4.24 ± 0.09) than for stereotype-consistent males (2.62 ± 0.08), and they rated feminine traits higher for stereotype-consistent females (4.87 ± 0.07) than for stereotype-inconsistent females (3.36 ± 0.08). It revealed that the stereotype-inconsistent males and stereotype-consistent females were perceived as more feminine. None of the other interactions and main effects were significant ( p s > 0.05).

Study 1b: Explicit differences between sport–gender stereotypes and general gender stereotypes

Building on Study 1a’s finding of the influence of sport–gender stereotypes, this study further explores the difference between these stereotypes and general gender stereotypes at the explicit level.

For joint analysis with Experiment 1a, a minimum of 36 participants were needed. The actual number of college students recruited was 203 (95 females, M age  = 20.30 years, SD = 2.12). The college students were all right-handed, and all completed an informed consent form before the experiment began.

A 2 (participant gender: male vs. female) × 2 (target gender: male vs. female) × 2 (stereotype type: sport–gender stereotype test vs. general gender stereotype test) mixed design was used. Target gender was a within-subject variable, and participant gender and stereotypes were between-subject variables. The dependent variable was the difference between the masculine and feminine trait scores.

The sports in the textual description of the sport–gender stereotypes questionnaire used in Study 1a were removed, leaving the typical male/female names and the attribute adjectives unchanged to obtain the general gender stereotypes questionnaire. The entire questionnaire and its instructions for use can be found in the Supplementary Online (see Appendix C ).

Participants were asked to fill out the general gender stereotypes questionnaire and were paid for the experiment after completion.

To more visually represent participants’ gender-evaluated attitudes toward the targets, we calculated the means of the masculine and feminine scores for both males and females in terms of general gender stereotypes and sport–gender stereotypes. We then performed paired-sample t -tests separately and found that the higher-scoring gender traits were almost always consistent with the targets’ gender (see Table 3 for details). It revealed that participants’ evaluations of each type of stereotyped target had a specific gender direction. Therefore, the scores of masculine traits minus feminine trait scores were used as the dependent variable for trait evaluation of male targets, and the scores of feminine traits minus male trait scores were used as the dependent variable for trait evaluation of female targets. The dependent variable was the indicator included in the next statistical analysis (ANOVA). However, it is worth noting that masculine traits (5.11 ± 1.08) were rated significantly higher than feminine traits (3.35 ± 1.12, p  < 0.001) in female targets when sport–gender stereotypes were inconsistent.

Next, repeated-measures ANOVA was performed on 2 (stereotype type: general gender stereotype vs. sport–gender stereotype) × 2 (target gender: male vs. female) × 2 (participant gender: male vs. female) mixed design to compare the differences between the impression evaluation after adding stereotype-consistent and stereotype-inconsistent sports to the general gender stereotype impression evaluation, and to test H3 at the explicit level. Note that when the target is male, the dependent variable is masculine traits, determined by subtracting the feminine scores from the masculine scores; when the target is female, the dependent variable is feminine traits, determined by subtracting the masculine scores from the feminine scores.

(1) When the stereotype was consistent (see Fig. 2a, b ) (see Table S3 ), the main effect of target gender was significant, F (1, 391) = 56.800, p  < 0.001, η p 2  = 0.127, the male targets (0.71 ± 0.09) were higher than female targets (0.13 ± 0.09); and the second-order interaction of stereotype type and target gender was significant, F (1, 391) = 98.035, p  < 0.001, η p 2  = 0.200. Simple effects analysis revealed that masculine traits (2.98 ± 0.11) were significantly higher than general gender stereotypes (1.78 ± 0.11, p  < 0.001) and feminine traits (1.24 ± 0.13) were significantly lower than general gender stereotypes (2.03 ± 0.13, p  < 0.001) after the inclusion of sports activities. It revealed that the inclusion of sports activities made the targets more masculine. The second-order interaction of stereotype type and participant gender was significant, F (1, 391) = 4.071, p  = 0.044, η p 2  = 0.010, and simple effects analysis revealed that only male participants perceived a significant gender trait difference between sports activity inclusion (2.18 ± 0.14) and general gender stereotypes (1.70 ± 0.13, p  = 0.013). It revealed that only the male participants agreed that the inclusion of sports activities would improve the targets’ gender traits.

a Addition of the stereotype-consistent sport activities, the second-order interaction of stereotype type and target gender. b Addition of the stereotype-consistent sport activities, the second-order interaction of stereotype type and participant gender. c Adding stereotype-inconsistent sport activities, third-order interaction of target gender, stereotype type, and participant gender. Note. Error bars all indicate ±1 SE. GGS general gender stereotypes, SGS sport–gender stereotypes. * p  < 0.05 or *** p  < 0.001.

(2) When the stereotype was inconsistent (see Fig. 2c ) (see Table S4 ), the main effect of target gender was significant, F (1, 391) = 30.930, p <0.001, η p 2  = 0.073, the male targets (0.71 ± 0.085) were higher than the female targets (0.13 ± 0.093); the main effect of stereotype type was significant, F (1, 391) = 424.703, p <0.001, η p 2  = 0.521, the general gender stereotype (1.91 ± 0.101) was higher than the sport–gender stereotype (−1.07 ± 0.104); the main effect of participant gender was significant, F (1, 391) = 4.198, p =0.041, η p 2  = 0.011, the female participants (0.57 ± 0.102) were higher than the male participants (1.91 ± 0.101); the interaction between target gender and stereotype type was significant, F (1, 391) = 61.412, p  < 0.001, η p 2  = 0.136; and the third-order interaction of target gender, stereotype type, and participant gender was significant, F (1, 391) = 3.943, p  = 0.048, η p 2  = 0.010. A simple effects analysis of the third-order interaction found that male participants perceived that the gender traits of males performing counterstereotypical sports (−0.50 ± 0.18) were weaker than the general gender stereotypes (1.76 ± 0.16) and that the gender traits of females performing counterstereotypical-sports (−1.83 ± 0.20) were weaker than the general gender stereotypes (1.64 ± 0.18). Female participants believed that the gender traits of males performing counterstereotypical sports (−0.26 ± 0.17) were weaker than the general gender stereotypes (1.82 ± 0.17), and the gender traits of females performing counterstereotypical sports (−1.71 ± 0.18) were weaker than the general gender stereotypes (2.41 ± 0.19). It revealed that both male and female participants agree that performing counterstereotypical sports is inappropriate for the targets’ gender traits. Additionally, female participants believed that the gender traits of general males (1.82 ± 0.17) were weaker than the general females (2.41 ± 0.19, p  = 0.006), but no significant difference in male participants. This different pattern revealed that there may be a stronger self-serving tendency among females.

Study 1 focused on the explicit level. Study 1a demonstrated that explicit sport–gender stereotypes influence evaluations, as evidenced by the fact that targets who are consistent with sport-gender stereotypes have more gender-specific traits than stereotype-inconsistent targets. At the same time, both the targets and the evaluator jointly influence the evaluation process, and there are gender differences. These results validated H1 and H2 at the explicit level. In addition to discussing influence, we explored the difference between sport–gender stereotypes and general gender stereotypes through Study 1b, in which we discussed the effect of gender-typed sports on evaluations based on general gender stereotypes. Study 1b still proved that sports are considered distinctly masculine. This result partially validated H3 . Meanwhile, these results were limited to the explicit level, but the implicit and explicit levels may differ; thus, Study 2 explored the effect of implicit sport–gender stereotypes.

Study 2: The effect of implicit sport–gender stereotypes

Study 2a: the impact of implicit sport–gender stereotypes on impression evaluations.

This study utilized a similar design and logic as Study 1a to explore the influence of the implicit level and gender differences in the evaluation process.

The study used G*Power 3.1 (Faul et al., 2007 ) to calculate the sample size with the effect set to 0.25 and an α level of 0.05. According to the 2 × 2 × 2 mixed design standard, to obtain a statistical power of 0.95, at least 36 participants would be needed. The actual number of college students recruited was 61 (35 females, M age  = 19.57 years, SD = 1.65). The participants were all right-handed, and all completed an informed consent form before the experiment began.

A 2 (participant gender: male vs. female) × 2 (target gender: male vs. female) × 2 (stereotype: consistent vs. inconsistent) mixed design was used. The participant gender was a between-subject variable, target gender and stereotype were within-group variables, and the dependent variable was reaction time to the sport activity, which was (in)consistent with the gender of the performer in the IAT.

The IAT program was written in E-prime 2.0 using conceptual and attribute adjectives selected from the pilot study. We created separate IAT programs for sports-gender stereotypes with males and females as the sports performers (see Tables 4 and 5 ). Each IAT was administered using a 7-block criterion (Greenwald et al., 2003 ). The practice phase consisted of 20 trials, and the test phase consisted of 40 trials. In the sport–gender stereotypes IAT procedure, blocks 4 and 7 indicated sport and participant gender (in)consistency. Participants categorized the stereotyped pairings as well as the attribute adjectives by pressing the E or I key. We recorded and analyzed the reaction time of participants to different stereotype situations to understand their implicit evaluations.

Each participant completed two sets of the sport–gender stereotypes IAT at approximately one-week intervals, and to balance the sequence effect, participants were randomly assigned to either Task 1 (male–female targets) or Task 2 (female–male targets). Participants were informed that they needed to complete a keystroke sorting task as prompted by the instructions and to respond as quickly as possible while ensuring correctness. During the experiment, participants were asked to follow the categorization prompts at the top left and right of the screen and perform keystroke categorization of the blocks of words presented one by one in the center of the screen. Errors were identified during the practice phase and could be corrected before continuing; however, no errors were indicated during the test. A cash payment was paid for the experiment after completion.

Repeated-measure ANOVA on a 2 (participant gender: male vs. female) × 2 (target gender: male vs. female) × 2 (stereotype: consistent vs. inconsistent) model was conducted to examine the impact of implicit sport–gender stereotypes on impression evaluations, and test H1 and H2 at the implicit level. The results showed (see Table S5 ) that the third-order interaction for participant gender, target gender and stereotype (in)consistency was significant, F (1, 58) = 6.265, p  = 0.015, η p 2  = 0.097; the stereotype (in)consistency main effect was significant, F (1, 58) = 258.409, p  < 0.001, η p 2  = 0.817, the responses for consistent stereotypes (637.87 ± 14.98) were faster than inconsistent stereotypes (931.38 ± 23.48); no other main effects or interactions were significant ( p s > 0.05).

Further analysis of the third-order interaction showed significant differences between both male and female participants for stereotyped congruent or incongruent objects for both males and females (see Fig. 3 ). Male participants differed significantly in their assessment of consistent and inconsistent male stereotypes, and their responses for consistent male stereotypes (653.64 ± 26.62) were faster than their responses for inconsistent male stereotypes (939.98 ± 39.11); male participants differed significantly for consistent and inconsistent female stereotypes, and their responses for consistent female stereotypes (687.28 ± 25.40) were faster than their responses for inconsistent female stereotypes (956.61 ± 43.39). Female participants differed significantly in their assessment of consistent and inconsistent male stereotypes, and their responses for consistent male stereotypes (624.97 ± 22.50) were faster than their responses for inconsistent male stereotypes (867.24 ± 33.06); and their assessment of consistent female stereotypes (585.57 ± 21.47) was faster than their assessment of inconsistent female stereotypes (961.69 ± 36.67). It revealed that responses to stereotype-consistent targets are commonly faster than those to stereotype-inconsistent targets. Further, male participants’ assessments of consistent male stereotypes were faster than female participants’ assessments. Further, female participants’ assessments of consistent male stereotypes (624.97 ± 22.50) were faster than male participants’ assessments (653.64 ± 26.62, p  = 0.003). And female participants’ assessments of inconsistent male stereotypes (867.24 ± 33.06) were faster than inconsistent female stereotypes (961.69 ± 36.67, p  = 0.008), however, there was no significant difference in male participants’ responses to these two stereotypes. It revealed that there were implicit gender differences in evaluators and targets.

Note. Error bars all indicate ±1 SE. ** p  < 0.01 or *** p  < 0.001.

Study 2b: Implicit differences between sport–gender stereotypes and general gender stereotypes

Similarly to Study 1b, this study focuses on implicit sport–gender stereotypes, exploring how they differ from general gender stereotypes and further reflecting on the similarities and differences with the explicit level.

For joint analysis with Study 2a, the minimum number of participants required for Study 2b was 36, and the actual number of college students recruited was 42 (22 females, M age  = 19.25 years, SD = 1.25). The college students were all right-handed, and all completed an informed consent form before the experiment began.

A 2 (participant gender: male vs. female) × 2 (stereotype type: sport–gender stereotype test vs. general gender stereotype test) between-group design was used. The dependent variable was the D scores of the IAT.

An IAT procedure for the evaluation of general gender-stereotyped targets (see Table 6 ) was created based on the IAT of Study 2a (see Tables 4 and 5 ), which was also administered using a 7-block criterion (Greenwald et al., 2003 ). The practice phase consisted of 20 trials, and the test phase consisted of 40 trials.

Each participant completed the general gender stereotypes IAT according to the same procedure as in Study 2a. A cash payment was given at the end of the experiment.

Table 7 shows the subgroups’ descriptive statistics. To test H3 at the implicit level, the 2 (participant gender: male vs. female) × 2 (stereotype types: sport–gender stereotype test vs. general gender stereotype test) ANOVA results indicated a significant main effect of stereotype types, F (1, 98) = 58.032, p  < 0.001, η p 2  = 0.372, and a higher D score for the general gender stereotype (1.10 ± 0.04) than for the sport–gender stereotype (0.70 ± 0.03) (see Fig. 4 ) (see Table S6 ). No other main effects and interactions were significant ( p s > 0.05).

Note. Error bars all indicate ±1 SE. GGS general gender stereotypes, SGS, sport–gender stereotypes. *** p  < 0.001.

Study 2 focused on the implicit level, using a modified IAT to explore the impact of implicit sport–gender stereotypes on impression evaluations and how they differ from general gender stereotypes. We found that individuals implicitly associated the targets of performing gender-typed sports with their corresponding gender traits, and evaluators of different genders responded at different rates to targets of different genders. These results validated H1 and H2 at the implicit level. Additionally, by comparing the differences in IAT D scores between the two stereotypes, we suggested that sports reduced the degree of implicit association. This result further validated H3 .

General discussion

This study focused on gender stereotypes and impression evaluation and investigated explicit and implicit attitudes towards males and females about sport–gender stereotypes in China in the Global South. College students were asked to rate explicitly or associate implicitly typical male and female names of individuals who played gender-consistent or inconsistent sports with masculine and feminine traits. Results indicated that sport–gender stereotypes exist, that both the gender or the target and the rater can influence the strength of these stereotypes, and that they are distinct from general gender stereotypes.

The pilot study yielded masculine and feminine sports, enabling a reexamination of the existence of sport–gender stereotypes in the Chinese context. This was also illustrated by comparing previous studies with some cross-temporal and cross-cultural consistency studies (e.g., Plaza et al., 2017 ; Liu, 2012 ; Qian et al., 2021 ; Xu et al., 2008 ). In the present study, it was hypothesized that the phenomenon of certain sports being “male” or “female” persists to this day and is expressed at both the explicit and implicit levels. Specifically, there were three main results in this study.

The effects of explicit and implicit sport–gender stereotypes on impression evaluation

Sport–gender stereotypes impact impression evaluation both explicitly and implicitly. Study 1a examined the effect at the explicit level, which was reflected in higher gender trait scores for stereotype-consistent targets, but the opposite is true for inconsistent targets. Study 2a explored the effect at the implicit level, and people were slower to react to stereotype-inconsistent targets, suggesting that inconsistency interfered with people’s normal implicit cognition, i.e., people had a cognitive conflict with counterstereotypical targets that did not conform to their inherent perceptions. Together, the two findings validated Hypothesis 1 and both verified and extended the social role theory and the maintenance of the gender stereotypes model. People tend to remember and trust stereotype-consistent information (Hilton and von Hippel, 1996 ); those who clearly violate stereotypes will attract our attention, and this information may further influence attributions and dominate our judgments (Ellemers, 2018 ; Sherman and Hamilton, 1994 ). When individuals violate stereotypical expectations of their corresponding gender role, people resist such counterstereotypical individuals both cognitively and behaviorally (Plaks et al., 2001 ). Therefore, stereotype-inconsistent individuals tend to be evaluated differently. At the same time, gender stereotypes also convey how we think people should behave (Prentice and Carranza, 2002 ); i.e., there is a shift from descriptive stereotypes ( what is ) to prescriptive stereotypes ( what should be ) (Roberts, 2022 ). In this study, stereotype-inconsistent men violated gender stereotypes about what sports they should choose as males, and therefore the evaluation of their masculinity was lowered. Again, due to the compensatory effect, whereby people lower their evaluation of one aspect while increasing the opposite aspect (Cambon and Yzerbyt, 2017 ), the evaluation of the feminine traits of stereotype-inconsistent men and the masculine traits of stereotype-inconsistent women increased.

The gender difference in evaluators and targets

Evaluators of different genders have different attitudes toward the targets, and individuals’ evaluations of the counterstereotypical targets of different genders are also different; therefore, Hypothesis 2 has been verified. Male participants had higher scores on the evaluation of targets of both genders than female participants did (at the explicit level); meanwhile, male and female evaluators had stronger cognitive conflicts about counterstereotypical women (at the implicit level). Women may judge other stereotypical women harshly because of the queen bee phenomenon (McKinnon and O’Connell, 2020 ). This differed from other studies, where previous works have found a tendency to serve the self-gender (Rudman et al., 2001 ; Nowicki and Lopata, 2017 ). In Study 2a, we found that in the stereotype-consistent case, female participants reacted faster than males when directed at female targets. When inconsistent, female participants rated male targets faster than female targets. These results may be related to the differences in sports motivation and interest between male and female college students in China, and male students have more physical activity (Jia et al., 2006 ; Zhao and Liu, 2023 ). People’s attitudes toward female athletes were significantly different from those of male athletes and tended to involve greater cognitive conflict. This finding validated the dominance theory’s view on gender salience.

Notably, female athletes are more likely to be objectified than male athletes, especially male participants (Nezlek et al., 2015 ). Similarly, emphasizing the gender attributes of women tended to overlook their performance and abilities (Gurung and Chrouser, 2007 ; Knight and Giuliano, 2001 ). Although these results indicate difficulties for females in sports, we call for more female participation in sports and more media coverage of outstanding female athletes from a sports perspective. Media plays a significant role in shaping attitudes towards gender roles (Haris et al., 2023 ). Same-sex role models are particularly valuable for women, as seen with the role model effect of mothers on girls’ interest in science (Guo et al., 2019 ). Because they show that success is attainable and better represents possible future selves (Midgley et al., 2021 ).

The difference between sport–gender stereotypes and general gender stereotypes

We discussed the differences between the two stereotypes to provide a clearer picture of the role gender-typed sports played in evaluations. The present study found differences at both the explicit and implicit levels, validating Hypothesis 3. Unexpectedly, there was also an experimental separation. Explicit and implicit measures can reflect different but interrelated processes (Hofmann et al., 2005 ; Nosek and Smyth, 2011 ). Previous research on the dual-attitude model has demonstrated that people may experience a separation between their explicit and implicit attitudes toward the same target (Breen and Karpinski, 2013 ). The results of Studies 1b and 2b were not identical. Study 1b found that unlike with general gender stereotypes, (1) men who performed masculine sports were considered more masculine, whereas women who performed feminine sports were considered less feminine; (2) only male participants perceived the gender traits of the evaluated targets to be more distinct; and (3) targets who were counterstereotypical were all rated as the opposite of their gender, and this effect was particularly harsh for women. In Study 2b, compared with the IAT’s D score for general gender stereotypes, that for sport–gender stereotypes is smaller, which indicates that people have a lower degree of implicit association. This suggests that sports play a buffering role in implicit social cognition. A similar study has shown that high facial attractiveness perceived without cues can weaken the negative age stereotypes of older adults (Palumbo et al., 2017 ).

A combined comparison of studies 1 and 2 revealed differences between the explicit and implicit levels. While implicit beliefs are not necessarily associated with the explicit endorsement of stereotypes, a certain strength of implicit perceptions can then shape behavior without the individual’s awareness (Lane et al., 2007 ; Nosek et al., 2002 ). At the same time, subjective inferences about implicit attitudes can also influence explicit attitudes, which could potentially result in prejudice and discrimination (Cooley et al., 2015 ). For example, compared to male patients, female patients are often belittled and are more likely to be diagnosed as being overly sensitive or hysterical (Saini, 2020 ).

Limitations and future research directions

This study was a preliminary exploration of the relationship between sport–gender stereotypes and evaluations of others among Chinese people, and inevitably, there were still some limitations that require future studies.

The participants and evaluated targets were Chinese college students, so the findings may not be generalizable to other groups. Furthermore, there will be variations due to, for example, generational and group factors (e.g., Jerald et al., 2017 ). Children begin to show identification with gender stereotypes at six (Bian et al., 2017 ), and this is reinforced through adolescence (Steffens et al., 2010 ). There is also a large body of research on athletes (e.g., Brinkschulte et al., 2020 ; Hermann and Vollmeyer, 2016 ; Hively and El-Alayli, 2014 ). College students were chosen because adults’ responses could be attributed to social expectations (Greenwald et al., 2002 ) or benevolent sexism (Glick and Fiske, 1996 ; Glick et al., 2000 ). Young people may be less inclined to hide opinions because they are in a period when gender roles and personality development are very prominent (Caspi et al., 2005 ). Considering most participants in previous studies were also college students, this could provide a new sample for comparison. Future research is needed to differentiate stereotypes according to different populations.

There is still much room for exploration of the implicit level, and ecological validity needs to be improved. In real life, generating evaluations is never just a simple pairing of words like in the IAT. Differences among both males and females are often greater than those between males and females, and this phenomenon is associated with stereotype formation and maintenance (Ellemers, 2018 ). In the future, more diverse and vivid triggers and methods can be considered, such as the use of images or videos, situational simulations, and VR. Additionally, the explanation of the intrinsic mechanisms at both the explicit and implicit levels distinguished in this study is still weak. There is also no way to further explain other meaningful effects based on only gender evaluation. Integrating various social cognitive measures (e.g., IRAP, GNAT, etc.) with cognitive neuroscience techniques (e.g., ERPs, fMRI) to explore the brain mechanisms of stereotypes can be an important direction for future research (Amodio, 2014 ).

Practical implications

This study can help raise awareness of sports as a social phenomenon among the Chinese public. Sports are traditionally considered more masculine, and women often face disadvantages in sports (Messner, 2011 ), with gender inequalities in sports still prevalent (Chalabaev et al., 2013 ; Wellard, 2016 ). The sports selected from the pilot study generally had higher masculinity scores. Stereotypes on an individual level alone do not necessarily result in prejudice and discrimination, as this study concluded that the impact of evaluations may not be externalized into action, but they are reflective of the subconscious connections prevalent in society and culture (Hinton, 2017 ). Models are valuable in many fields characterized by negative gender stereotypes (Midgley et al., 2021 ). For instance, STEM students prefer faculty who motivate them to continue their careers (Ortiz-Martínez et al., 2023 ). Fortunately, there have been many efforts to increase female representation in many fields (Greider et al., 2019 ), and significant policy attention (Edmunds et al., 2016 ). However, continued interventions in this area are needed (e.g., Leippe and Eisenstadt, 1994 ; Mackie et al., 1992 ). We believe that the field of sports is also an important area for change.

The relationship between physical education and gender traits has contributed to the reform of physical education and the development of healthy self-perceptions among children and adolescents. Research and practice have shown that boys value strength, athleticism, and masculinity, whereas girls consider looks, body attributes, and femininity much more important (Klomsten et al., 2005 ). In contrast, the physical health of children and adolescents is at risk, and there are gender differences in health between boys and girls (Dong et al., 2019 ). Physical activity is perhaps the best intervention to remedy these issues. Additionally, physical education should encourage self-directed sports rather than forced sports . Most children choose to conform to stereotypes, but some are brave enough to break them (Rogers, 2020 ). Children can be educated to be more aware of gender and sexism (Lamb et al., 2009 ; Pahlke et al., 2014 ). There is nothing wrong with having boys participate in masculine sports and girls participate in feminine sports. However, future physical education curricula should be designed to emphasize gender inclusiveness and explicitness, as well as values and goals (Connell, 2008 ).

Conclusions

China has a unique culture and unique gender issues. Sport–gender stereotypes remained stable in China in the Global South and influenced impression evaluations, both targets and evaluators jointly influence the process, and there are gender differences. Both explicitly and implicitly, targets that were consistent with sport–gender stereotypes were perceived to have more gender-specific traits than the inconsistent targets. There was an experimental separation between these stereotypes and general gender stereotypes. Stereotype-consistent sports led the targets to be assessed as more masculine, and the evaluations were harsh toward women. Implicitly, sports acted as a buffer for social cognition. This work contributes to the discussion about not treating people differently just because they choose different sports, and gender must not be an obstacle.

Data availability

The authors confirm that all data generated or analyzed during this study are included in this published article and its supplementary information files. Deidentified data are available upon reasonable request from the corresponding author(s) for academic research.

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Acknowledgements

The current study thanks to the support of The Second Batch of 2022 MOE of PRC Industry-University Collaborative Education Program (Grant number 220705329271706, Kingfar-CES “Human Factors and Ergonomics” Program), Youth Foundation of Humanity and Social Science of Ministry of Education of China (Grant number 20YJC890049), and the College Students’ Innovative Entrepreneurial Training Plan Program (Grant number S202210043007).

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Liu, Z., Shentu, M., Xue, Y. et al. Sport–gender stereotypes and their impact on impression evaluations. Humanit Soc Sci Commun 10 , 614 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-023-02132-9

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Insights > Sports & gaming

On Different Playing Fields: The Case for Gender Equity in Sports

6 minute read | Stacie de Armas, SVP, Diverse Insights & Initiatives | March 2021

Women make up more than half of the U.S. population, but they are still fighting for equality in the world of sports, where gender-based discrimination is all too common. Recently, we saw a very public and painful example, during Women’s History Month no less, of the stark inequity in the treatment of female versus male athletes in the NCAA Basketball Tournament. It’s difficult to understand how neglecting to supply female student-athletes with the proper equipment and facilities—especially during the largest tournament of their sport—can still happen today. Unfortunately, it seems that sexism in sports is ingrained from the time our children are in youth sports. This inequity is also institutionalized—from how we define what qualifies as a sport to the imagery used to represent female athletes, disparities in the facilities, and support for female athletes. 

As superstar athlete and World Cup champion Megan Rapinoe testified to Congress, “One cannot simply outperform inequality or be excellent enough to escape discrimination of any kind.” As a mother of a son and a daughter, this inequality hit very close to home just last week. Up until two weeks ago, in my state of California, all youth sports, which were prohibited for nearly a year, were permitted to return. All sports, that is, except for one female-dominated sport: cheer. While my son was able to get back on the field and enjoy his sport, I, alongside many other concerned parents, had to continue to advocate at the state level for equity for cheer athletes. We were successful, but why did we even have to fight for recognition and equal treatment for these athletes? Women and girls in sports should not be an afterthought.

It is disheartening to see that the fight for equality for women’s sports continues beyond grade school, as collegiate athletes in the NCAA Women’s Basketball Tournament recently experienced firsthand. Like many of you, I recently saw the viral video from University of Oregon sophomore forward Sedona Prince showing the weight room facilities provided for the female players at the basketball tournament compared with the facilities provided for the men. The women’s weight room consisted of a single set of dumbbells and some yoga mats, while the men’s weight room was stocked with state-of-the-art training equipment, rows of weights, and workout machines. Her TikTok video was further socialized on Instagram and Twitter and now has more than 20 million views. 

The outrage was swift, as many people were quick to criticize the blatant inequities for these female athletes, but the brands stepped in even faster. Not only did the outcry to correct the situation come from celebrities, sports journalists, and fans, but companies weighed in, too. Fitness and retail brands like Orange Theory, Dick’s Sporting Goods and Tonal responded to support these women athletes (who don powerful social media influence) with equipment the very next day and offered to make appropriate training facilities available. Shortly thereafter, the NCAA acknowledged this terrible error in judgment and installed a fully functional women’s weight room coupled with an apology. 

These brands understand the power of the moment and of female athletes. Research from Nielsen Sports illustrates the power female athletes hold as social media endorsers. Fans like to buy products and services that their favorite athletes endorse on social media. When brands partner with athletes to embrace their power and advocate for equity, they can enact change as well as accountability in sports institutions. That’s a winning play for brands—fully embracing the power of female athletes, while proactively building equity in women’s sports and not just in response to a crisis.

There are several fundamental truths here that brands need to embrace: social media is powerful; female athletes are powerful influencers; and consumers are asking more from brands when it comes to social responsibility. For example, a global Nielsen Fan Insights study reveals that 47.5% of respondents have a greater interest in brands that have been socially responsible and “do good.” The good news is that some brands are taking notice and recalibrating business and marketing models to meet consumers’ changing needs in a new era of sports sponsorship . The brands stepping in to act on the values they espouse as an organization are a perfect example. Brands, including leagues, teams, owners, and even school districts, must address changing consumer and social demands and their female athletes’ needs by operating with equity in women’s sports. 

More opportunity leads to more audience

The weight room in San Antonio isn’t the only place where we need to see change. While we’re seeing progress in how women are represented on television in scripted content, we have not seen the same visibility in women’s sports. This isn’t for lack of women’s sporting events or even viewer interest, but rather the relative lack of access to women’s team sporting events being broadcast and promoted on TV compared with men’s events. We know this needs to change, but it is a catch 22. Far fewer women’s sports are being broadcast, and when they are, games are often carried on difficult to find, smaller outlets, and are under-promoted, naturally resulting in smaller audiences. This overall lack of investment and promotion on television negatively affects audience draw, and therefore ROI for advertisers and sponsors. This lower brand investment is being used to justify disparities in resources for women’s sports. And the cycle continues. 

The good news is that there seems to be a change in tide. Coverage for the NCAA Women’s Basketball Tournament this year is one of the broadest in its history thanks to ESPN’s expanding coverage—a move that has so far doubled the audience reach of the first round of the women’s tournament compared with the one in 2019. 

Along with the gripping game play, the increase in reach is most likely attributed to the number of games actually being aired. Round 1 of the tournament in 2019 was exclusively broadcast on ESPN2, which aired just nine game windows. This year’s NCAA women’s games have been on ABC, ESPN, ESPN2 and ESPNU, and every single one of the 32 games has been aired in round 1. When audiences have access to women’s sports, they tune in. Female athletes deserve the facilities, equipment and support they need to thrive. While the men’s tournament has seen multi-network coverage since 2011, the women’s tournament is finally seeing increased coverage, with 2021 marking the first time the women’s tournament has been on network TV—and not just on cable—in decades. Because that viewing opportunity exists, more people are watching. It is time women’s sports get the investment, coverage and support they deserve. Advertisers should take note: A growing fan base means a bigger audience.

It has been nearly 50 years since Title IX legislation granted women equal opportunities to play sports. But the legislation also mandates the equal treatment of female and male student-athletes from equipment to competitive facilities to publicity and promotions and more. As more and more brands champion equity for women’s sports and female athletes become more influential as brand endorsers, it is my hope that we will see fewer disparities in playing time, facilities, brand partnerships, and coverage of women’s sports on screen. And that for future female athletes, equity for women’s sports will be a slam dunk.

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Gender Issues in Sport and Leisure Activities

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A special issue of Sustainability (ISSN 2071-1050). This special issue belongs to the section " Psychology of Sustainability and Sustainable Development ".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (30 November 2022) | Viewed by 35281

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Dear Colleagues,

As you probably know well, the sport domain retains a considerable degree of disparity between males and females. This is true for both the sport organizations and the sport performance as well as for many of the activities that people carry on in their free time. Sport is considered mainly a masculine domain for its intrinsic characteristics (i.e., strength) and women who engage in some specific kind of sports may be perceived as “masculine”. The persistence of these stereotypes, reinforced by the mass-media representation of female athletes (e.g., masculine, sexualized), put other barriers for gender equality inside the sport field. Gender inequality is at the origin of under-performance of female athletes and barrier to job career for women working in sport organizations. Respecting gender difference in sport activities and sport organizations helps maintaining an inclusive environment. On the contrary, a lack of respect brings to social and psychological cost both for women and men. This special issue is devoted to investigating the questions raised by gender inequalities in the diverse areas of sport and leisure practice. In this way we may all together make stock of the current situation and contribute to raise the awareness of these phenomena. Your contribution will certainly improve the quality and the impact of this special issue of Sustainability.

Prof. Stefano Boca Dr. Ambra Gentile Guest Editors

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Taking up the field as women: the question of gender equality in sports

Interview with nathalie boy de la tour and adèle stern.

• Taking up the field as…

Former President of the French Professional Football league Nathalie Boy de la Tour and Adèle Stern , a former high-level athlete (modern pentathlon) and member of the Paris 2024 Organising Committee for Olympic and Paralympic Games, share their experiences and take on gender equality in sports.

Hi Nathalie, Hi Adèle — you both are involved in sports at a very high level, whether by being an athlete yourself or on the business side of the industry.

What challenges did you face to get to these positions? Has being a woman influenced your experience?

Nathalie Boy de la Tour: When I worked in counseling or entrepreneurship, I was already in a male environment, but I did not see it as a challenge because I had integrated the needed codes. When I became president of the French Football League (FFL), I noticed that being a woman had not been a problem as long as I remained number two. But once I became the Number One leader, I started to feel that I was not as listened to as my predecessors. Tonie Marshall, who was a movie director I really admire, talks about “benevolent misogyny” applied to women as long as they are not in the position of leader. Men tend to put women forward at first, but once you get to the highest position, things get more difficult. You have to stand your ground, and in a particularly masculine environment, it can be hard not to feel isolated. Some studies have shown that in order for a female voice to be heard in governing bodies, it would require the presence of at least 30% of women among the board members.

Compared to other industries, would you say sport is lagging or leading the pack?

Adèle Stern: In my opinion, sport is actually leading the pack in terms of gender equality. In the sport industry, people are much more aware of gender equality. I feel like the question is tackled more efficiently than in other industries. When I first joined the Paris 2024 Organising Committee, I felt that everyone was aware of how important gender equality is. And from what I see now, there are a lot of things put into place to make sure women have a voice in every part of the Committee.

Has the inclusion of women improved? How are sports professionals fighting sexist harassment and homophobia in sports?

Nathalie Boy de la Tour: I am very committed to diversity issues. When I became president of the FFL, I immediately decided to set up a corporate social responsibility (CSR) department to work through these questions. We signed partnerships with various associations that fight against sexist violence, homophobia or racism. What happens in stadiums is a reflection of society. And if football as a sport cannot radically change society, it can at least be used to pass on some important messages. We have worked with SOS Homophobie, Foot Ensemble and other NGOs to promote respect on and outside the field. I believe prevention is the best way to work on those issues. Through the Fondation du Football , which I helped create with Philippe Séguin, we organise workshops for younger kids to help them approach those questions at an age when sexual orientation starts to become evident.

Adèle Stern: Regarding the sports industry, I sometimes feel that women are well represented at junior or intermediate positions but the gap seems to show up for very high-level positions. Paris 2024 is putting a lot of effort into making sure women are well represented in the highest governing instances. On another note, the 2024 Paris Olympic Games will be the first gender-equal games in history, meaning there will be exactly as many women athletes as male athletes. It’s a very strong engagement from Paris 2024. 

What kinds of problems regarding sexism remain in the sports industry today?

Nathalie Boy de la Tour: I’m starting to think that in order to have more women in leading positions, we should implement quotas. Most club presidents are men, and today it’s still hard to have perfect gender equality in football institutions. There still are barriers for women to be more involved in football. One of them is contained in the fact that football is highly publicised and it can be harder for women to be confronted with media exposure when it comes to the political nature of that sport. It’s also a very testosterone-fuelled universe, so you have to be really passionate and convinced in order to succeed as a woman.

Adèle Stern: When I started training as a pentathlete, boys and girls were trained together. Later, when I arrived at INSEP (National Institute of Sport, Expertise, and Performance) boys and girls were trained separately. I really wanted to be trained with boys because I was very good at running and performed better than most girls and always thought it would reinforce the overall French Pentathlon team spirit. At that time, it was difficult for them to understand how hard we were training since we were not able to reach the same results. Then, they decided to group the boys and the girls, and they saw that our results improved a lot. At that point, boys started to understand that girls were training very seriously, and were amazed by our ability to push ourselves so hard.

Nathalie, there was a debate around the mediatic treatment of the Women’s Football World Cup back in 2019, which is still less popular than the “men’s world cup”. American female players also protested that same year regarding their inferior pay compared to men’s and filed a gender discrimination lawsuit. 

What kind of changes have you noticed in football regarding women athletes since then?

Nathalie Boy de la Tour: Those are unjustifiable gaps but we have to acknowledge the underlying economics of football. Women’s football is not as developed as male football. In order to pay women football players as much as male players, we have to create the right economic environment: so let’s create a melting pot of female players, work on the image of feminine football, enhance the value of TV rights, and create a real economy that will enable them to be better paid.

How can sports be leveraged for women’s empowerment?

Nathalie Boy de la Tour: Sport is very important in female empowerment. It helps develop self-confidence from an early age. A study conducted in kindergarten and primary classes in France showed that boys occupy 70% of the space in the playground and little girls only 30%. Boys are raised to physically occupy the space. This figure means everything. If you occupy space physically at this age, it will be less difficult to occupy it in a professional environment. The day when little girls play football, things will change relatively naturally because they will learn to occupy space. The practice of football by little girls is crucial. Women referees like Stéphanie Frapard are examples to be proud of. The numbers shown by the Federation are positive though: women in the football industry (players, coaches, and referees) have grown from less than 90,000 players ten years ago to 200,000 today.

Adèle Stern: I think one of the most important aspects of sport is the generated awareness of what your body can do. Sometimes when you’re a girl, you can feel like your body won’t let you do as many things as you’d like, if you’re uncomfortable with it for example. And for me, doing all these different sports is a way to feel complete and free with the body that is mine.

What piece of advice would you give to women who dream of making it in the sports business or as athletes? What are the main qualities required to succeed in this domain?

Nathalie Boy de la Tour: To me, essential qualities would be courage, resilience, and the ability to listen, to build consensus. It’s also about having the right attitude: I think women should not be afraid of taking advantage of their singularity, not copying codes that are not ours. I truly believe in collective intelligence and the fact that different profiles bring something to the table.

Adèle Stern: My advice would be to look at who is in the same industry you want to work in or get inspired by female leaders you wish to become. Being a woman should not be thought of as a disadvantage. Women should not be scared of being different. Our way of seeing the world can be a real asset to a team.

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EDITORIAL article

Editorial: gender and racial bias in sport organizations.

• 1 Center for Sport Management Research and Education, Department of Health and Kinesiology, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX, United States
• 2 Department of Sports Science, Bielefeld University, Bielefeld, Germany
• 3 Mark H. McCormack Department of Sport Management, University of Massachusetts Amherst, Amherst, MA, United States

Editorial on the Research Topic

Gender and Racial Bias in Sport Organizations

Legal mandates, social pressures for inclusion, and shifting demographic landscapes all contribute to an increased focus on diversity, equity, and inclusion in sport ( Cunningham, 2019 ). Some leagues, such as the Women’s National Basketball Association, excel in this area, serving as a model for others ( Lapchick, 2021 ). Despite the presence of exemplars, most of professional sport in the United States remains mired in the decades-long pattern of similarity and exclusion where White, able-bodied, cisgender, heterosexual men hold key leadership roles ( Brassil & Lutz, 2020 ). These patterns are also evident in other sport contexts in the United States and around the world ( Ahn & Cunningham, 2017 ; Cunningham et al., 2021 ; Walker & Bopp, 2011 ; Wicker et al., 2019 ; Wicker et al., 2020 ). Thus, even though members of underrepresented, minoritized groups frequently represent the majority of players, leadership roles are seemingly reserved for those who have historically held power.

In addition to limited access, members of underrepresented groups are likely to encounter stereotypes, prejudice, and treatment discrimination in sport. The disparities are evident among athletes, administrators, coaches, officials, and fans ( Burton, 2015 ; Singer, 2016 ; Sveinson et al., 2019 ; Hindman & Walker, 2020 ; Wells et al., 2021 ; Wicker & Kerwin, 2020 ). These patterns suggest that, even though group diversity is frequently associated with desired outcomes, such as organizational effectiveness and positive affective outcomes ( Lee & Cunningham, 2019 ), sport is a place where people who differ from the typical majority face various biases, limiting their access to and full participation in sport.

The purpose of this Research Topic was to explore these issues in greater depth. Specifically, we sought research from authors who 1) focused on taken-for-granted assumptions, 2) considered the myriad of factors that could influence the manifestation of bias, and 3) explored the intersections of race, gender, and other diversity forms. As we outline in the following section, the selected articles accomplished these aims.

Selected Dimensions of Gender and Racial Bias in Sport Organizations

One of the themes to materialize from the articles was the value of critically examining the presence of and consequences of diverging from taken-for-granted assumptions and practices. Frick and Moser ’s study offers an apt illustration, questioning the assumption that, among Nordic and Alpine skiers, women are less competitive than men. To do so, they analyzed decades of data from the sport. Their results showed that women and men were equally adept at managing career successes and failures, and that the career length of women and men was virtually identical. Thus, at least among elite skiers, their findings counter the notion of gender differences in competitiveness and drive. From another perspective, Braumüller et al. drew from a large-scale dataset, which included respondents from Germany, Scotland, Austria, Italy, and Hungary, to explore the experiences of transgender, non-binary, and cisgender athletes. Given that sport is largely segregated based on sex assigned at birth, and transgender and non-binary athletes challenge this demarcation, it is possible they have poor experiences in sport. Consistent with this perspective, results showed that transgender and non-binary athletes faced continued anti-trans bias, including structural forms of discrimination.

Two articles considered factors that might influence the presence of bias in sport. Mire et al. , for example, conducted a study of weightlifters and examined whether coach-athlete gender similarity influenced the athletes’ performance. Among men, gender congruence was associated with better performance. Women performed better when their coach was a man, but only until age 43, at which point they performed better when guided by a woman. The authors noted historical biases against women in the sport could contribute to these patterns. Demographic similarity, or a lack thereof, is also associated with referee decisions. Specifically, in examining multiple years of data from the National Football League, Eiserloh et al. found that Black umpires called more penalties when their referee (the leader of the team of officials) was White. The authors reasoned that Black umpires might feel more pressure to assess infractions when their team leader is White—stresses others have observed in different sport contexts ( Foreman & Turick, 2020 ).

The importance of contextual factors was highlighted in two studies. Focusing on men’s intercollegiate basketball in the United States, Nesseler et al. found that Black coaches were underrepresented—a pattern that continued for decades. The effects were more pronounced, however, in Division III institutions, which are comparatively smaller with more White undergraduate students. Gomez-Gonzalez et al. also illustrated the importance of context. The authors noted that previous researchers had found that demographic dissimilarity was associated with the number of infractions a referee called on an athlete. Most of these studies, though, were set in the United States or United Kingdom and focused on men’s sport. Gomez-Gonzalez et al. diverged from this pattern, analyzing data from women’s basketball teams in Spain. Contrary to previous work, the authors observed no effects of racial dissimilarity or nationality dissimilarity. Thus, the country and sport might moderate the relationship between dissimilarity and infractions called.

Finally, other contributors highlighted the importance of explicitly considering intersectionality—a position for which previous researchers have advocated ( Walker & Melton, 2015 ). In the first study, Bartsch and Rulofs focused on physical education teachers’ attitudes toward children from refugee backgrounds. Racialized and gendered notions of threat and vulnerability were evident, with four themes emerging: victimization and vulnerabilization, notions of threat and impulsivity, claims for assimilation and normalization , and demands for discipline . Given the increased number of refugees around the world, and the important role of physical activity and sport in their lives ( Anderson et al., 2019 ), Bartsch and Rulofs’ findings are especially instructive. Finally, Cooper and colleagues made a persuasive argument for new, innovative leadership approaches in sport. They argued that leaders should adopt anti-racism, anti-sexism, and culturally responsive stances. Only through such a paradigmatic shift can leaders hope to create and maintain diversity, equity, and inclusion in their sport organizations.

The Research Topic enhances the understanding of gender and racial bias in sport and its organizational settings. The included articles have provided rich insights into the topic from a number of perspectives, including the challenge of taken-for-granted assumptions, the study of factors that might influence the presence of bias in sport, the role of contextual factors in terms of national research settings, and the consideration of intersectionality. They help understanding how, why, and in what contexts gender and racial bias toward and discrimination of under-represented groups in sport is evident, ultimately enhancing the evidence base for taking informed action toward making sport a more inclusive and diverse environment.

Author Contributions

All authors listed have made a substantial, direct, and intellectual contribution to the work and approved it for publication.

Conflict of Interest

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Ahn, N. Y., and Cunningham, G. B. (2017). Cultural Values and Gender Equity on National Olympic Committee Boards. Int. J. Exerc. Sci. 10 (6), 857–874.

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Anderson, A., Dixon, M. A., Oshiro, K. F., Wicker, P., Cunningham, G. B., and Heere, B. (2019). Managerial Perceptions of Factors Affecting the Design and Delivery of Sport for Health Programs for Refugee Populations. Sport Manage. Rev. 22 (1), 80–95. doi:10.1016/j.smr.2018.06.015

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Brassil, G. R., and Lutz, E. (2020). 30 Years, Little Progress for U.S. Sports Leagues on Leadership Diversity . New York: New York Times . Available at: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/12/23/sports/diversity-coaches-sports.html?auth=login-email&login=email .

Burton, L. J. (2015). Underrepresentation of Women in Sport Leadership: A Review of Research. Sport Manage. Rev. 18 (2), 155–165. doi:10.1016/j.smr.2014.02.004

Cunningham, G. B., Wicker, P., and Kutsko, K. (2021). Gendered Racial Stereotypes and Coaching Intercollegiate Athletic Teams: The Representation of Black and Asian Women Coaches on U.S. Women's and Men's Teams. Sex Roles 84, 574–583. doi:10.1007/s11199-020-01186-2

Cunningham, G. B. (2019). Diversity and Inclusion in Sport Organizations: A Multilevel Perspective . New York, NY: Routledge . doi:10.4324/9780429504310

CrossRef Full Text

Foreman, J. J., and Turick, R. M. (2020). ”The Effect of Race on Lateral Moves to Coach central Positions,” in Sport Management Review (in press). doi:10.1016/j.smr.2020.04.004

Hindman, L. C., and Walker, N. A. (2020). Sexism in Professional Sports: How Women Managers Experience and Survive Sport Organizational Culture. J. Sport Manage. 34 (1), 64–76. doi:10.1123/jsm.2018-0331

Lapchick, R. (2021). WNBA, NBA Set Standard for Diverse, Equitable, Inclusive Hiring across U.S. Sports . ESPN.com Available at: https://www.espn.com/espn/story/_/id/31003620/wnba-nba-set-standard-diverse-equitable-inclusive-hiring-us-sports .

Lee, W., and Cunningham, G. B. (2019). Group Diversity's Influence on Sport Teams and Organizations: a Meta-Analytic Examination and Identification of Key Moderators. Eur. Sport Manage. Q. 19 (2), 139–159. doi:10.1080/16184742.2018.1478440

Singer, J. N. (2016). African American Male College Athletes' Narratives on Education and Racism. Urban Educ. 51 (9), 1065–1095. doi:10.1177/0042085916669749

Sveinson, K., Hoeber, L., and Toffoletti, K. (2019). "If People Are Wearing Pink Stuff They're Probably Not Real Fans": Exploring Women's Perceptions of Sport Fan Clothing. Sport Manage. Rev. 22 (5), 736–747. doi:10.1016/j.smr.2018.12.003

Walker, N. A., and Bopp, T. (2011). The Underrepresentation of Women in the Male-Dominated Sport Workplace: Perspectives of Female Coaches. J. Workplace Rights 15 (1), 47–64. doi:10.2190/wr.15.1.d

Walker, N. A., and Melton, E. N. (2015). The Tipping point: The Intersection of Race, Gender, and Sexual Orientation in Intercollegiate Sports. J. Sport Manage. 29 (3), 257–271. doi:10.1123/jsm.2013-0079

Wells, J. E., Sartore-Baldwin, M., Walker, N. A., and Gray, C. E. (2021). Stigma Consciousness and Work Outcomes of Senior Woman Administrators: The Role of Workplace Incivility. J. Sport Manage. 35 (1), 69–80. doi:10.1123/jsm.2019-0422

Wicker, P., and Kerwin, S. (2020). “Women Representation in the Boardroom of Canadian Sport Governing Bodies: Structural and Financial Characteristics of Three Organizational Clusters,” in Managing Sport and Leisure .(in press).

Wicker, P., Cunningham, G. B., and Fields, D. (2019). Head Coach Changes in Women's College Soccer: An Investigation of Women Coaches through the Lenses of Gender Stereotypes and the Glass Cliff. Sex Roles 81 (11), 797–807. doi:10.1007/s11199-019-01022-2

Wicker, P., Feiler, S., and Breuer, C. (2020). Board Gender Diversity, Critical Masses, and Organizational Problems of Non-profit Sport Clubs,” in European Sport Management Quarterly . (in press).

Keywords: diversity, equity, inclusion, gender, race, sport, intersectionality

Citation: Cunningham GB, Wicker P and Walker NA (2021) Editorial: Gender and Racial Bias in Sport Organizations. Front. Sociol. 6:684066. doi: 10.3389/fsoc.2021.684066

Received: 22 March 2021; Accepted: 18 May 2021; Published: 31 May 2021.

Edited and reviewed by:

Copyright © 2021 Cunningham, Wicker and Walker. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

*Correspondence: George B. Cunningham, [email protected]

Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.

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Gender Inequality in Sports: Women face a double bind

“Who is your favorite male athlete?”

“How do you balance your career with raising a family?”

“Can you give us a twirl?”

These are just a few of the many sex-based questions professional female athletes are asked in interviews. In 2015, the #CoverTheAthelete movement became popular by highlighting the difference in how male and female athletes were covered in interviews and the news.

I believe that interview questions are just one example of the way in which female athletes are treated differently than their male counterparts. Gender inequality still exists in sports and has permeated the culture in such a way that female athletes cannot win.

The foremost debated argument around the topic of gender inequality in sports is the wage gap that exists between male and female sporting events. It is fairly easy to show that there is a difference in the payment for male and female athletes.

In 2015, the total payout for men competing in the World Cup was almost 40 times as much as the women’s payout.

The Women’s National Basketball Association (WNBA) had a 2018 salary cap of $110,000 while the National Basketball Association (NBA) minimum salary was $582,186.

In the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) and and Women’s Tennis Association (WTA) the median pay gap between a woman in the top 100 and the man of her same rank is $120,624

Women in the Ladies Professional Golf Association (LPGA) earn about 80 per cent less for each shot than men in the Professional Golfers’ Association (PGA).

While it is clear that women are paid less than men, the debate among inequality in payment has shifted to discuss revenue.

The statistics provided above are explained by recognizing that organizations such as the WNBA and WTA simply do not pull in as much revenue as their male counterparts – this is true.

In 2014, the ATP’s revenue was $37.4 million more than the WTA.

Conservative figures estimate that the WBNA makes around $50-$60 million each year in revenue while the NBA makes almost $6 billion in revenue each year.

In 2013, the PGA brought in a little over $1 billion in revenue while the LPGA earned almost $103 million in revenue.

U.S. women’s soccer has traditionally earned less revenue than U.S. men’s soccer. However, the U.S. women’s league has actually produced more revenue in some years compared to the men’s which has resulted in greater strides toward pay equality.

Arguments for the pay inequality between men and women are traditionally explained through the disparity in revenue. Some advocate that pay be based on revenue and since men consistently bring in more revenue they should be paid more.

While a revenue-based pay argument might be a way to mitigate the issue of wage gap I believe that we must take into consideration the double bind which a revenue-based pay scale places on women.

The revenue-based pay scale tells women that they must bring in more revenue –through sponsorships, ratings, broadcasting time etc. – in order to earn more money. However, women’s sports are viewed as not being as entertaining as men’s and thus, less people view or care about them.

This creates an endless cycle in which women are told they need to bring in more viewership in order to make more money yet they are also told that their sport is not as entertaining to watch and therefore don’t make as much.

While it does not feel fair that women make more than men if they are not bringing in as much revenue, we must realize that women are trapped in this cycle in which it seems almost impossible for them to generate more revenue.

The issue of gender inequality in sports is greater than the pay difference between men’s and women’s teams. The pay gap is part of the issue but inequality is a greater structural issue than pay difference.

Women’s professional sports teams are viewed as worse than men’s teams and not as fun to watch. This societal stigma creates an endless cycle in which women have trouble creating more revenue and thus are paid because of the way society views their sport – something that women cannot control.

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8 Times Women in Sports Fought for Equality

By Sarah Mervosh and Christina Caron

• March 8, 2019

On Friday, all 28 players on the United States women’s soccer team filed a gender discrimination lawsuit against the United States Soccer Federation, an escalation in their increasingly public battle for equality.

The players have said that they play more games than the men’s team — and win more of them — yet still receive less pay. They said “institutionalized gender discrimination” affected not only their paychecks, but also where they played and how often, how they trained, the medical care and coaching they received, and even how they traveled to matches.

They are not alone in their fight for fairer pay and better treatment. Here are eight times in recent memory when women fought for equality in sports.

Finishing the Boston Marathon despite an attempt to eject her

Experts claimed for years that distance running was damaging to women’s health and femininity.

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7 Causes of Gender Inequality in Sports

Feb 15, 2022

By Kevin Nguyen

The sports world is a completely different place for women than it is for men. This contrast applies to sports at all levels — from women in power at the top of the sports industry and pro athletes, to amateurs, college-level players, and young girls.

This leaves so many women and girls in sports wondering, why? What is gender imbalance in sports and where did it all come from? 

Gender Inequality in Sports: Here's What's Happening

Yes — men’s and women’s sports are different because men and women are different.

But physical differences don’t account for the massive scope of gender inequality in athletics that persists even when women work just as hard or achieve more than the men in their field.

When we delve deeper and examine how gender inequality in sports really functions, its systemic nature appears.

The underrepresentation of women in sports leadership, the gender gaps in athletes’ pay, and the differences in funding, opportunities, and support for female athletes accumulate into a troubling domino effect.

We should all be concerned that, compared to boys, girls are almost twice as likely to drop out of sports by age 14 . For many girls, participating in sports is the best path toward health improvements, interpersonal skills, greater social equality, and confidence. 

For current and upcoming generations of female athletes, let’s get to the bottom of why gender inequality still impacts sports.

7 Causes of Gender Inequality in Sports: Why & How

What are some of the causes of gender inequality in sports?

There isn’t a proportionate number of women with access to power in the sports industry. 

The most important decisions in any industry happen from the top down. A sports world that treats women and girls equally is therefore synonymous with a sports world that represents women equally in power and influence.

• Women make up only 18% of qualified coaches, 9% of senior coaches, and less than 25% of the governing boards of almost half of publicly-funded national sports governing bodies.
• As of 2016, less than 30% of Olympic governing bodies, 16.6% of National Olympic Committees, and 18% of international Sports Federations were women.

Many athletes receive income from the organization they play for, but corporate sponsorships are another major source of income for successful athletes. When considering both forms of compensation, women athletes get short-changed. 

The gender pay gap is a problem because young women and girls deserve the chance to aspire to sports as a career to the same degree that boys and young men do. Of course, it’s harder to pursue dreams of going pro in a sport when your hard work is unlikely to pay off in the same way it would if you were male.

• Depending on the sport, the average professional woman athlete is paid a small fraction of her male counterpart. Tennis is a relatively promising example, where the average female athlete makes 84% of the average male athlete’s pay.
• Women’s sports get an estimated 0.4% of total corporate sponsorships .
• The WNBA recently resolved a situation where they were paying players 23% of their revenue , whereas NBA players earned half of their league’s revenue.

3. Marketing and Promotion

In the face of criticism toward the gender pay gap in sports, some athletic organizations have pointed to women athletes bringing in less revenue, though they still pay women lower percentages of said revenue. This argument only reveals the underlying gender gap in the way organizations market and promote women’s sports.

The discrepancy in marketing and promotion translates to smaller and less enthusiastic followings, fewer sponsorships, fewer profits, and ultimately lower pay.

• Washington Mystics’ Elene Delle Donne observed, “ We absolutely do not get promoted as our male counterparts do . When you put millions of dollars into marketing athletes and allowing fans to get to know a player, they develop a connection with someone.” 
• Official WNBA Jerseys are extremely hard to come by — even fans of WNBA Finals MVP Kahleah Copper couldn’t find her jersey online to purchase. 
• Marketing for women in sports is sometimes over-sexualized, which understandably alienates female fans.

4. Media Coverage 

Media coverage of women’s sports is often minimal, even when women athletes’ accomplishments outshine male athletes. Even worse, media portrayals of female athletes often focus on their outer appearance or sexualize them.

Those mentalities that originate from the sexist portrayal of women can harm young athletes’ performance and personal fulfillment in sports and make them more likely to drop out. What young girls in sports need is access to inspiring role models to celebrate for their excellence.

Acknowledging and celebrating women’s sports is key to driving widespread engagement, fandom, and participation. 

• Women comprise about 40% of athletes, but women’s sports make up 4% of sports media coverage.
• Though viewers can identify when broadcasting underrepresents female athletes, news staff may be unaware of the imbalance in their coverage of women.
• Female athletes are considerably more likely than males to be sexualized in the media.
• 2021 was the first year the women’s NCAA tournament was on network TV. The fact that audiences have been growing steadily for women’s sports means it’s past time to give women’s athletics the attention they deserve.

In college sports, women’s athletic programs are often underfunded or underserviced compared to men’s sports. 

Gender gaps in college funding for women’s sports can impact coaching, facilities , opportunities, promotional investment, and fan enthusiasm. 

• Collegiate institutions spend 33% of scholarship budgets, 24% of athletic operating budgets, and 16% of recruitment budgets on women . 
• College women’s team coaches earn 63% of what men’s college teams’ coaches earn.

6. Opportunities

One of the most basic imbalances is the gender inequality in sports opportunities.

Arguably even  more impactful on women’s sports than adequate media exposure for high-level female athletes, pay incentives, and college funding, is girls and women simply  getting the chance to play. Having opportunities to play sports in and of itself cultivates the positive impact of sports on girls’ lives and the lifelong passion that follows. 

• 1.13 million fewer high school athletics opportunities exist for girls compared to boys.
• It took until 2020 to have the “first gender-equal [Olympic] games ,” with 49% female participants.

7. Gender Stereotyping

Society overwhelmingly reinforces stereotypes to shape girls’ and boys’ feelings about sports as they grow up.

Girls are often subject to messaging that fails to encourage or altogether discourages equal participation in sports.

• Girls’ environments underemphasize motor skills and physical activity during formative years.
• Gender stereotyping works its way into the childhood toys that girls are expected to play with, the specific sports they’re pushed to join , and the media portrayals of women in sports to which girls are exposed.

What Is the Role of Sports in Gender Issues?

Participating in sports makes women and girls healthier physically and mentally, and lowers serious disease risks. Young women in sports also experience improved reproductive health, engage in less drug use, and have lower rates of gender-specific health problems.

The agency, empowerment, social integration,  and personal development women and girls gain from sports are equally impactful.

The Solution: Fixing Gender Inequality in Sports

Though plenty of us are actively pushing for change in the sports arena, balancing the scales in power, investment, representation, and opportunity won’t happen overnight. 

These changes won’t happen by themselves, either. Social media has become a powerful tool to help women in sports push for change and  gradually democratize the sports industry. Through social media, women in sports have a direct line to the public to take control of their marketing, promotion, sponsorships, and public image while speaking their minds, raising awareness, and becoming role models. It has also contributed to the increased media coverage of women’s sports that we are starting to see by granting visibility to women’s sports fans who take to the platform to expose inequities and celebrate female athletics. Additionally, there have been hundreds of gender inequality in sports articles written in the past few years that aim to help raise awareness 

Encouragingly, all of us can join the charge and find ways to elevate female athletes of all ages in our own spheres and beyond.

How have sports positively impacted your life?

Tell us your story on Instagram @goalfive and share what athletics has added to your life’s journey.

We know there’s no shortage of girls and women who have flourished due to casual, intramural, school, college, amateur, or professional sports. 

That’s why we’re on a mission to share sports and their  transformative impact on health,, social equality, and inner fulfillment with more girls around the world. Consider joining our equal play advocacy to help us make a difference.  

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If We Want Better Care, We Need a Better Tax Code

If the wealthiest paid their fair share, we could easily fund better child care, elder care, and health care for the rest of us.

Research & Commentary

September 04, 2024.

by Amy Hanauer

Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump have starkly different views on taxes and how the tax code can support families.

Harris voices strong support for families through investments in  the care economy . She’s vowed to advance paid family leave, affordable child care, care for disabled or aging family members, and health care. This could be funded with a better tax code.

These policies would help all of us care for our families and strengthen our communities. Investing public dollars in care could also narrow racial and gender pay gaps by boosting the pay of care workers — who are mostly women, and many of them women of color.

The Trump campaign has been largely silent on care investments. But his campaign  has  signaled support for more tax cuts at the top. Such cuts would increase inequality and reduce the availability of federal funding to strengthen the care economy.

We saw this in the 2017 tax law that former President Trump signed. It cut taxes for the wealthiest people and corporations, including cutting the effective tax rate for our largest corporations from an average 22.0 percent to an average 12.8 percent. It also preserved loopholes that allow some of the wealthiest corporations to avoid taxes on most —  if not all  — of their profits.

These tax cuts for the ultra wealthy led to huge losses in federal tax revenue and  spiked the national debt , making it harder for the government to fund new investments in priorities that are important to families.

If re-elected, Trump has said he wants to  slash corporate taxes further  — even though some billionaires  pay a lower share of their income  in taxes than nurses and teachers do.

By contrast, the Biden-Harris administration created a  minimum corporate tax  so the wealthiest corporations could no longer pay nothing, added a modest tax on stock buybacks, and funded the IRS to better collect taxes from corporations. These policies  raised revenue  for care investments and other priorities.

Going forward, Harris has signaled support for raising corporate tax rates, which are at historic lows, and closing loopholes.

Inequality and taxes

Harris and Trump also have different priorities on taxes for families. As a senator, Harris championed a tax credit of $6,000 for married couples and $3,000 for single people in her  Lift the Middle Class Act . This would have delivered  88 percent of its benefits to earners under $119,000 .

Harris might not promote this specific plan going forward, but it suggests she’d aim to direct benefits to moderate earners instead of the wealthiest. More recently, she’s proposed expanding the Child Tax Credit and adding a  $6,000 credit  for families with newborns.

By contrast, the tax bill that Trump signed delivered  more than half its benefits to the top 5 percent of households  — those with incomes over $263,000. (Like Harris, Trump’s vice presidential nominee, J.D. Vance, has suggested a bigger Child Tax Credit. But Vance has also floated making  people without children pay more taxes .)

Taxing the wealthiest and big corporations would support care investments  and  make our  tax code more fair . Strengthening care infrastructure would help us all thrive and make the economy stronger. But we need to collect sufficient revenue to support those transformational policies.

There is  strong public support for  better care and for fairer taxes. Tax justice advocates should call on both the Harris and Trump campaigns to commit to a fairer tax system — and to use the money it would raise to invest in the child care, elder care, and health care our families need.

Solutions ,

Gender gap ,, care economy ,, explore more, the united states needs a ‘robin hood tax’.

A tiny Wall Street sales tax could fund huge improvements for the rest of us.

The Racial Wealth Gap is Persistent – and Growing

The racial wealth gap continues to deepen in large part due to the cumulative impact of the country’s racial history.

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