Women in Sport Leadership

Research and practice for change

Laura J. Burton, Sarah Leberman, Laura J. Burton, Sarah Leberman

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781134871599
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Management
• Index: Business

Although women and girls participate in sport in greater numbers than ever before, research shows there has been no significant increase in women leading sport organizations. This book takes an international, evidence-based perspective in examining women in sport leadership and offers future directions for improving gender equity. With contributions from leading international sport scholars and practitioners, it explores the opportunities and challenges women face while exercising leadership in sport organizations and evaluates leadership development practices.

While positional leadership is crucial, this book argues that some women may choose to exercise leadership in non-positional ways, challenging readers to consider their personal values and passions. The chapters not only discuss key topics such as gender bias, intersectionality, quotas, networking, mentoring and sponsoring, but also present a variety of strategies to develop and support the next generation of women leaders in sport. A new model of how to achieve gender equity in sport leadership is also introduced.

Women in Sport Leadership: Research and Practice for Change is important reading for all students, scholars, leaders, administrators, and coaches with an interest in sport business, policy and management, as well as women's sport and gender studies.

Chapter 1
Why this book? Framing the conversation about women in sport leadership

Sarah Leberman and Laura J. Burton

Introduction

As we began work on this book, we considered why it is so important to provide a detailed discussion of the state of research on women in sport leadership. One of our primary motivating factors for embarking on this work is the ubiquitous nature of sport—sport is everywhere—in the media, in parks, and in educational institutions, and in many parts of the world, girls and women are participating in sport in record numbers. However, decisions about what happens in sport, including girls’ and women’s access to sport, are still predominantly made by white, heterosexual men. This affects what we see in the media, such as how often women athletes are portrayed in active non-sexualized ways (Fink, 2016), the amount of coverage afforded female athletes in all forms of media (Bruce, 2016; Cooky, Messner, & Hextrum, 2013), and the amount of prize money and level of salary female athletes receive in sport (Women on Boards, 2016). Further, we need to know who is on the board of national and international sport federations, holding leadership positions in interscholastic and intercollegiate athletic administration, and who is provided the opportunity to coach our children. It is critically important to know who leads our sports organizations and why only a privileged few continue to hold power. It is our goal to provide insights into these critical questions in the chapters that follow, and in the final chapter to suggest ways forward to increase both access to and equity in sport leadership.

Framing the conversation

Sport participation by women and girls has increased over the past 40 years, due to both legislative interventions, such as Title IX in the USA, and programs at national, regional, and local levels worldwide, which encourage girls and women to be physically active. The 2012 Summer Olympics in London were touted as the Women’s Olympics with a record number of female participants, and the requirement since 2014 that all Olympic Sports be available for men and women, with women’s ski jumping being added to the competition. However, this increase in participation has not been matched by a significant increase in the proportion of women in leadership positions within sport at any level, but in particular at the national and international level. The International Olympic Committee (IOC) set a target of 20% representation on national sport governing bodies and National Olympic Committees by 2005 for its member countries. However, by 2016 this figure had only been achieved in some countries by some sports (27 out of 135 National Olympic Committees who responded to the survey) (International Olympic Committee, 2016; Women on Boards, 2016). Women remain underrepresented in leadership positions throughout sport; women hold less than 20% of board director positions, only 10% as board chairs and only 16% of chief executive positions (Adriaanse, 2015). In most cases sport is still a male-dominated environment, where women, despite an increase in opportunities to prepare themselves through education and training, are still largely underrepresented in leadership roles the world over.

The 2016 Rio Olympics served to reinforce this pattern. For the first time there were seven countries with a majority of women delegation in terms of athletes –Puerto Rico (66%), China (61%), Canada (60%), United States (53%), Bahrain (53%), Australia (51%), and New Zealand (51%). Overall women athletes made up 45% of the competitors. However, the 2016 International Sports Report Card on Women in Leadership Roles (Lapchick, 2016) paints a very different picture in terms of off-field participation by women. Men run 33 of the 35 international federations affiliated with the Olympics. Currently, only two women lead international sport federations: Marisol Casado the International Triathlon Union (ITU) a summer sport federation and Kate Caithness a winter sport federation—World Curling. The report provides some disappointing figures with respect to women in sport leadership roles. Only 5.7% of International Federations presidents were women, 12.2% were vice-presidents, and 13.1% were executive committee members, and only 24.4% of the IOC members were women. More concerning perhaps is the fact that a number of international federations have no women on their executive committees despite having high levels of participation by women—International Association of Athletics Federation, Federation of International Basketball Association, International Golf Federation, International Handball Federation, and the International Swimming Federation. At a national level the figures are not much better. Only 9% (389/4303) of national presidents across the world were women.

Some sports organizations are taking positive steps to address these challenges. For example, the Commonwealth Games Federation (CGF) launched its Gender Equality Taskforce in July 2016. The focus is to achieve equality in both opportunities and participation for athletes, coaches, team and technical officials, and in governance in all events and organizations linked to the CGF by 2022 in Durban. The CGF elected its first woman president, Louise Martin, in 2015 and constitutionally is committed to gender equity having both women and men represented in vice-presidential elections (Commonwealth Games Federation, 2016).

Other issues affecting women in sport during 2016 included, for example, the US Women’s National Team Soccer pay equity claim (March 31, 2016), where five members of the US national women’s soccer team filed a complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission charging US Soccer with wage discrimination. The women were paid nearly four times less than the men despite being more prominent, better known and successful and exceeding projected revenues by $16,000,000 (Powell, 2016). Similarly, Australia’s leading women surfers are seeking pay equity. The difference in prize money for the same surf event can be as much as AUS$40,000 (Atkins & Burns, 2016). The gender pay gap in sport is only being reduced very slowly. Some sports, however, have taken strategic decisions which are positively impacting women in their sport. For example, women cricketers in both Australia and the United Kingdom are being paid more equitably as a result of increased game attendance, TV coverage, and sponsorship opportunities (Women on Boards, 2016).

Business case for diversity

Most Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries have a strong pipeline of female talent with more women graduating with tertiary qualifications than men. However, this is not yet translating into equity within senior management and governance, or in terms of pay. Research demonstrates the benefits to business of both gender and ethnic diversity—it improves financial performance, widens the talent pool, supports enhanced innovation and group performance, encourages adaptability, and improves employee retention. It is therefore important for policymakers and sport organizations alike to identify strategies which capitalize on the many and diverse strengths women and people of different racial and ethnic backgrounds bring to the workforce and to the development of successful sport organizations as we move through the 21st century (Badal & Harter, 2014; Catalyst, 2013; Equal Employment Opportunities Trust, 2010; Pellegrino, D’Amato, & Weisberg, 2011). Within sport, intercollegiate athletic departments in the United States that adopt an inclusive culture and were racially diverse had better performance outcomes (Cunningham, 2009). Further, athletic departments supporting an inclusive culture that had a higher number of LGBT employees performed better (more team success) than other less inclusive athletic departments (Cunningham, 2011). This research suggests that diversity benefits organizations for a wide variety of reasons. Despite the evidence, the practice in sport worldwide is quite different.

Sport is also seen as an important vehicle for achieving gender equality more broadly, as evidenced in the United Nations ‘Advancing Gender Equality through Sports: 2030 Agenda’ (United Nations Women, 2016). The terms ‘gender equality’ and ‘gender equity’ are often used interchangeably:

Gender equality is the result of the absence of discrimination on the basis of a person’s sex in opportunities and the allocation of resources or benefits or in access to services. Gender equity entails the provision of fairness and justice in the distribution of benefits and responsibilities between women and men. The concept recognizes that women and men have different needs and power and that these differences should be identified and addressed in a manner that rectifies the imbalances between the sexes.

(European Commission, 2014, p. 47)

We favor the term ‘gender equity,’ as ‘gender equality’ tends to perpetuate the existing structures that privilege men particularly with respect to career paths, for example (Bailyn, 2003; Schein, 2007). Gender equity, in contrast, seeks to ensure that everyone is treated fairly, but not necessarily in the same way and therefore better accommodates difference.

Why are women still underrepresented? Why then after over 40 years of initiatives and interventions and research to evidence that diversity is positive for outcomes across a number of measures is the representation of women in leadership positions within sport organizations and on governance boards, nationally and internationally, still not equitable? Women’s representation in leadership positions in sport organizations has declined in some areas (intercollegiate sport in the United States) and is virtually nonexistent in other areas (international professional sport), with overall progress being glacial (Fink, 2016; Knoppers, 2015; Shaw, 2006; Shaw, 2013; Shaw & Hoeber, 2003; Women on Boards, 2016). Scholars have studied this area extensively over the past 30 plus years and their research reveals there are numerous forces at societal, organizational, and individual levels that impede women’s opportunities for leadership positions in sport. Chapter 2 provides a detailed discussion on these factors. Some countries, such as Norway, have introduced quotas at a national level to ensure gender equity on boards (see Chapter 6 for a discussion in the context of sport).

At the end of this introduction, we provide a conceptual framework (Figure 1.1) to examine this issue taking into account the available scholarship to date. In our framework we focus on three main areas that must be addressed to advance women in sport leadership—institutional practices that reinforce the dominant male hegemony within sport (e.g., Cunningham, 2010; Shaw & Frisby, 2006) (see Chapter 3), inherent biases, often unconscious, toward women in sport and sport leadership (e.g. Burton, 2015; Burton, Grappendorf, & Henderson, 2011) (see Chapter 4), and the lack of understanding and recognition of intersectionality. Intersectionality means that not all women are the same, and as such hold multiple identities, some of which are more immediately apparent including race, ethnicity, and disability, and others which are not, such as sexuality, class, and religion (e.g., Palmer & Masters, 2010; Walker & Melton, 2015) (see Chapter 5).

To counter this situation, Shaw (2013) argued that gender needs to be at the center of sport policy development, with the analysis being scrutinized through a gender lens. Her key message, drawing on radical feminist theory, is the need to ask questions in different ways, which places the onus on the organizations and structures which drive the sport sector, rather than on what women can do to help themselves. The example she provided related to the Black Ferns, the very successful New Zealand women’s rugby team:

rather than asking how the Black Ferns can fit within the male dominated landscape of high performance sport, questions should be framed by ‘how do our assumptions about gender limit funding and the potential for meaningful development for the Black Ferns and women’s rugby?’

(Shaw, 2013, pp. 312–313)

Working to address the three core areas highlighted above and placing gender at the forefront of structural decision making will go some way to redressing the ongoing gender equity issues present in sport leadership.

Starting young

If we wait for these structural changes (institutional structures, removal of bias, understanding of intersectionality) to take place in sport organizations, we will continue with the very slow progress toward gender equity. Because if we have few women in strategic decision-making positions, the status quo is likely to prevail. Therefore leadership development programs for women in sport still need to be available, as do networking, mentoring, and sponsoring opportunities (see Chapter 8). Looking to the future, rather than waiting until women have entered the workforce for leadership development opportunities, we believe providing these opportunities when girls are aged between 10 and 12 will assist in equipping them with an understanding of who they are, what their values and strengths are, and how to navigate in the world of sport in order to exercise leadership, beyond being sport participants. Learning about leadership and exercising leadership are very different. Therefore providing multiple avenues for practicing leadership (Raelin, 2016) will enable girls once they are women to ha...