{"id":87412,"date":"2023-08-21T13:07:52","date_gmt":"2023-08-21T17:07:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/?p=87412"},"modified":"2024-09-01T09:54:31","modified_gmt":"2024-09-01T13:54:31","slug":"opinion-michele-donnelly-discusses-gender-inequality-at-the-paris-2024-olympics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/2023\/08\/opinion-michele-donnelly-discusses-gender-inequality-at-the-paris-2024-olympics\/","title":{"rendered":"OPINION: Michele Donnelly discusses gender inequality at the Paris 2024 Olympics"},"content":{"rendered":"

This article written by Michele Donnelly, Assistant Professor of Sport Management at Brock University, was originally published in The Conversation<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

With one year to go until the Paris 2024 Summer Olympic Games, fans around the world have been following their teams\u2019 performances at the FIFA Women\u2019s World Cup.<\/p>\n

For fans\u00a0whose national teams didn\u2019t advance as much as they had hoped, they can look forward to seeing those same teams play at the Paris Olympics.<\/p>\n

But the same is not true for the men\u2019s national teams that competed at the\u00a02022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar. At the Olympic Games,\u00a0men\u2019s national teams are limited to 23-year-old and younger players, with three exceptions for overage players. There are\u00a0no age restrictions for the women players.<\/p>\n

This is only one of the many gender-based differences in how men and women athletes compete at the Olympic Games.<\/p>\n

Olympic Games sport programme<\/strong><\/p>\n

My research examines how the International Olympic Committee (IOC) has promoted gender equality at the Games. My book\u00a0Gender Equality and the Olympic Programme\u00a0focuses on the sport programme \u2014 all the sports and events included at the Games \u2014 because it is the most visible aspect of the Olympic Games.<\/p>\n

According to the IOC:<\/p>\n

\u201cthe Olympic programme is the fundamental core of the Olympic Games as decisions regarding the programme have an impact on virtually all other areas of the Olympic Games and Olympic Movement.\u201d<\/p>\n

The inclusion of specific sports and events, as well as how women and men athletes play those sports (and what they wear to play them), sends important messages about how the IOC and other international sport federations define and attempt to achieve gender equality.<\/p>\n

In addition, the sport programme is highly contested. International sport federations, athletes, Games Organizing Committees, broadcasters and the IOC all have interests in its composition. And, sometimes,\u00a0those interests conflict.<\/p>\n

IOC\u2019s quest for gender equality<\/strong><\/p>\n

Most of the IOC\u2019s claims about gender equality achievements at the Games are focused on the sport programme. The IOC has announced that at the 2024 Games, for the first time, there will be\u00a0an equal number of men and women athletes, and the same number of events (opportunities to win a medal) for men and women.<\/p>\n

In 2014, the IOC released\u00a0a strategic plan for the future of the Olympic Games. Among the 40 recommendations is one about fostering gender equality. Including an equal number of men and women athletes at the Games is one strategy the IOC identified to \u201cfoster gender equality.\u201d<\/p>\n

Claims about achieving \u201cgender balance\u201d have been an integral part of all the IOC\u2019s statements about Paris 2024. It is crucial to critically examine what these claims mean and how they relate to achieving gender equality.<\/p>\n

Ensuring gender parity \u2014 the same number of men and women athletes and men\u2019s and women\u2019s events \u2014 is important for gender equality at the Games, but it does not address the conditions of men\u2019s and women\u2019s participation.<\/p>\n

Gender differences in sporting events<\/strong><\/p>\n

The IOC\u2019s\u00a0aim to achieve gender balance\u00a0reveals an incomplete, numbers-focused commitment to gender equality.<\/p>\n

When men and women compete in the same sports, international federations continue to enforce differences between men\u2019s and women\u2019s events. These differences include: the\u00a0length of races;\u00a0weight categories; the\u00a0height, weight, size and spacing of equipment; the\u00a0size of venues; and differences in\u00a0judging,\u00a0rules\u00a0and\u00a0uniforms.<\/p>\n

For example, in artistic gymnastics,\u00a0the differences between the men\u2019s and women\u2019s competitions\u00a0include age requirements (18 years old for men and 16 for women); different apparatus (e.g., parallel bars for men and uneven parallel bars for women); the number of apparatus (six for men and four for women); and uniform requirements (long or short pants for men, leotards or unitards for women).<\/p>\n

On the floor and vault \u2014 apparatus on which both men and women compete \u2014 women\u2019s floor routines are set to music and include dance elements, while the men\u2019s do not. When performing the same skills, men\u2019s eligible scores are lower than women\u2019s.<\/p>\n

What the audience sees is women\u2019s gymnastics performed in ways that\u00a0emphasize stereotypical femininity\u00a0and minimize strength and power. In contrast, men\u2019s gymnastics events are organized to\u00a0emphasize the athletes\u2019 strength and power.<\/p>\n

These gender-based differences are examples of gender inequality.<\/p>\n

Complete gender equality<\/strong><\/p>\n

In cases where sports are gender-differentiated, women\u2019s sports are designed to be a lesser version than the men\u2019s. Women\u2019s races are shorter, there are fewer weight categories, equipment and venues are lighter and smaller and women wear more revealing uniforms.<\/p>\n

Differences in men\u2019s and women\u2019s conditions of participation are the result of decisions made by those who control Olympic sports \u2014 decision-makers\u00a0who continue to be predominantly men. The differences are not naturally occurring, nor are they universal.<\/p>\n

In fact, there are several sports and events on the Olympic programme that are not gender-differentiated. For example, men and women athletes competing in\u00a0archery\u00a0and\u00a0badminton\u00a0use the same venue, equipment and rules.<\/p>\n

This is evidence of internal contradictions in the Olympic programme; some events are constructed to be different for men and women athletes, while others are not. This reinforces the need to identify and explain the remaining examples of gender-based differences.<\/p>\n

These internal contradictions also require further attention from the IOC and the adoption of a more complete definition of gender equality \u2014 one that includes opportunity and status.<\/p>\n

The IOC needs to look beyond the numbers and work with international federations to address athletes\u2019 conditions of participation in the same sports.<\/p>\n

Crucially, embracing and enforcing gender equality should not mean using men\u2019s sports as the standard (e.g., increasing the length of women\u2019s races to be the same as the men\u2019s distance). Rather, this is an opportunity for international federations to determine the best possible conditions for all athletes in their sports.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In this article, originally published in The Conversation, Michele Donnelly, Assistant Professor of Sport Management, discusses gender inequality at the Paris 2024 Olympics.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":87415,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[36,7,6],"tags":[12863,12861,4753,8463,8387,307,12862],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87412"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=87412"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87412\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":87417,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87412\/revisions\/87417"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/87415"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=87412"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=87412"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=87412"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}