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August 22, 2005
IN THE NEWS...
Women playing, but men still coach
John MacKinnon
The Edmonton Journal
What are they teaching the young people at university these days?
The question struck home on a visit to the International Association of Physical Education and Sport for Girls and Women World Congress at the University of Alberta on Saturday. Quickly scanning the Gateway between workshops, a visitor was startled by this student newspaper headline: "Gender equity achieved -- let's move on."
One would be tempted to party on, dudes, to celebrate the glad tidings if there weren't such overwhelming evidence that, like racism and poverty, gender inequality hasn't been licked just yet, in many of life's arenas, certainly not sport.
For example, the Brazilian women's soccer team won a silver medal at the 2004 Summer Games in Athens, then returned home to find their program dropped. Not a fate the up-and-coming Ronaldos of Brazil need to worry about.
It's 2005, 33 years after Title IX legislated equal access to sports programs for males and females in the U.S. school system, yet of 918 athletic directors at Division I NCAA schools, just 168 are female. Of those, nine are African-American women, noted Leah Robinson, a doctoral candidate at Ohio State University who spoke at a morning workshop on barriers to women in sport.
Robinson added that African-American women often face the "double-whammy" -- race and gender discrimination. Title IX itself has become a target under the administration of President George W. Bush, not noted as a progressive thinker on issues of gender equity.
"The public thinks the work is done because they see people in the fields (of play)," said Karin Lofstrom, the executive director of the Canadian Association for the Advancement of Women and Sport and Physical Activity (CAAWS). "In every league there are girls playing, but what's not seen is the people behind the scenes -- the coaches, the officials, the women in decision-making roles.
"In Canada, the stats are similar to the U.S. About 11 per cent of national teams in Canada are coached by women."
Marion Lay, the former Olympic swimmer and president and CEO of 2010 LegaciesNow, an offshoot of the Vancouver Organizing Committee (VANOC), reframed the concept of the glass ceiling in a more precise and powerful way.
"She said she preferred to think of it in one of two ways -- either as a thick male or many men there that are blocking the way," said Dru Marshall, associate dean, academic at the U of A's Department of Physical Education and Recreation. "The young women coming up have this wonderful confidence it's not going to be a factor for them, that they can do anything they want to do. They don't recognize the systemic barriers that are going to be there to prevent them."
Which is not to deny that progress has been made. For instance, the Athens Olympics set a record for female participation, with 4,412 women competing, 40.6 per cent of the 10,864 athletes. By contrast, 1,247 female athletes -- 20.7 per cent -- competed at the Summer Games in Montreal in 1976.
"But we do still see gaps in terms of participation of women in the field versus their presence in key leadership roles where they can impact decision-making," said Charmaine Crooks, a former 400- and 800-metre runner for Canada, now a Canadian Olympic Committee executive board member. "We can't get complacent about the role women have to play in sport."
Crooks, who sits on two International Olympic Committee commissions, said Canada is one of the more progressive countries in this regard, which is not to say equality is at hand here, either. At VANOC, for example, 58 per cent of the 124 employees are women and four of eight vice-presidents are female. But just six of the 20-member VANOC board are women and two members of the nine-person executive committee are female.
Marshall, who was presented Saturday with CAAWS's Marion Lay Award for her positive impact on female sport over a 21-year coaching career, said Canada has had a gender-equity policy since 1986 "and we're still talking about it." She believes female coaches moving up through the sports systems need to be educated about the career obstacles women face.
"Those coaches maybe don't get that they've got some responsibilities," Marshall said. "Coaches like me that have been in the system for a long time recognize how many shoulders we're standing on, how many women have gone before us to create inroads."
Crooks and Marshall and many more like them continue to cr
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CAAWS
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