Do Female Athletes in Canada Currently Enjoy Equal Opportunity in Canadian Sports?

Wilfrid Laurier University

Women’s Sports

BREAKING THE INEQUALITIES

Dumethre Saunders

WS-100 – OC1

Lorraine Vander Hoef

December 1, 2017

Do female athletes in Canada currently enjoy equal opportunity in Canadian Sports?

As of 2017, women across Canada have made tremendous progress with having equal access to the same opportunities as men. However, despite this great progression, women are still battling with inequalities due to many barriers which still exist today. When it comes to sports, female athletes are consistently being challenged with obstacles such as stereotypes, lack of leadership, media coverage, financing and even pay. As a result, these barriers may make it difficult for women to enjoy equal opportunities in Canadian sports.

Canadian history, men were always stereotyped to have characteristics such as strength and physicality, whereas women were seen to be more fragile and non-physical. Society has been ascribing these characteristics to both genders for generations, which has made it difficult for women to enjoy sports (Laurier - Single Sign On, mylearningspace.wlu.ca). For example, when people think about sports such as football or rugby, there’s a prejudice to associate that sport with men instead females. This is due to stereotypes, people assume that because these are high-contact sports, that men are less likely to get hurt in contrast to women because they are more “athletic, physical and less fragile.” However, although women have made great progression with sporting opportunities, they came a long way from where they are now. According to research conducted by the Government of Canada, men were more likely to participate in sports on a regular basis than woman, approximately one-third of Canadian men and one-sixth of Canadian women regularly participated in sports (Sport Participation 2013). This illustrates that the gender gap in sports is still present, despite how far society’s come. People were more likely to encourage women to participate in more non-physical, low-contact sports such as tennis and golf. In addition, society has created norms where younger children, teens and adults would stereotype sports to be male in influenced, further affecting women’s participation in sports, to the point where some women were even criticized and labelled to be a “tomboy” for participating and exhibiting behaviour that men would usually exhibit. Labels and stereotypes like these would ultimately affect how much women would participate in sports. Although Canadian women team sports have increased, there is still a great disparity in overall participation, due to numerous barriers.

One challenge that women are faced when it comes to Canadian sports is leadership. If you watch sports on television, or attend sporting events in your local community, you may not see many female coaches. In fact, many girl sports teams have male head coaches. This lack of female leadership once again exhibits the disparity between male and female involvement in Canadian sports. In 2013, studies show that only 17% of the athletic director positions in Canadian universities were held by women (Coaching Association of Canada 2013). With less than one-fifth, it can be seen how difficult it was for women to obtain such a position, despite the fact that they may have been equally qualified for the position, people might have the tendency to still choose a man over a woman.

One factor that I believe is contributing to the inequality is prejudice. When it comes to sports, people assume that males have more knowledge and expertise than females when discussing and analysing them. This again traces back to stereotypes, which can create a preconceived notion that because sports can be seen to be male-dominated, that men must have more knowledge, which is false. False because people can not participate in sports and can still be knowledgeable about them, but stereotypes have already made an impact on society and it has become understandable to most people that a lack of female coaches is not much of a concern, and that it’s okay. In addition, in Sydney, only 16 out of 86 Canadian Olympic coaches were female (Coaching Association of Canada 2013). This can be seen as both positive and negative, because although the number may seem low, the number of female Olympic coaches were at an all time high, marking another great accomplishment and progress for Canada. From my personal experience, when I was younger in middle school, our all boy’s basketball team had a female coach due to the lack of availability of coaches at the time. Every game we attended we would receive stares and people would look at our team waiting to see when our male coach would arrive, but would only see a female coach. Eventually, realizing that our head coach is female, students would laugh, and the other coaches looked at our coach as a joke, assuming she didn’t know how to run basketball plays, and other tasks a basketball coach would be responsible for. What really frustrated me though was the fact that just by looking at her, without knowing who she was, everyone assumed that she couldn’t do her job as effectively as the other male head coaches, when in reality, she knew exactly what she was doing. When she was yelling and instructing the team on plays during the game on the sidelines, everyone looked at her like she didn’t know what she was talking about. The games we lost we were laughed at, and the games we won people remained in silence. Overall, it was a tough season for my team physically and mentally, but we ended up doing well and decided to throw a surprise party for my coach. Presently, I certainly feel that female coaches are steadily increasing and becoming more accepted, and believe that Canada is making great progression towards achieving more female leadership positions in Canadian sports.

Another barrier that women face when it comes to inequalities regarding sports is gender role socialization. Socialization is the process of learning which attitudes and behaviours can be seen as appropriate for each sex (Laurier - Single Sign On, mylearningspace.wlu.ca). Looking at sports in Canada, beginning with the earlier stages, younger boys and girls usually socialize in diverse ways. The boys are more likely to socialize through sports than girls are at a younger age. However, as they grow older, girls usually tend to become more involved in sporting activities, participating in sports such as volleyball, soccer and more, breaking the gender stereotypes. Studies show that in general, the higher the level of education, the more likely an individual is to participate in sports. Approximately one-third of university graduates practice sports on a regular basis compared to 25% of Canadians who have a post-secondary diploma (Sport Participation 2013). Women eventually socialize through sports, more frequently at the high school level. However, in order to break the cycle of gender stereotypes and socialization, Canadian institutions should try their best to introduce both genders to sporting activities at a younger age equally, giving equal access to participation, encouraging more female participation and trying to be more creative in allowing both genders to participate with each other.