Gender (INTERN)

In this chapter the authors introduce and discuss several current debates in the issue of gender and sport. They do this by describing a case that focuses on current developments in the professionalization/commercialization of women’s football and a case that examines the promotion of greater gender equity in positions of leadership. They use social constructionism and the concept of unequal power relations as important theoretical perspectives in their analysis. They argue that gender, i.e. men and women, masculinities and femininities, is assigned hierarchical meanings through sport. In addition, sports structures and cultures are still largely gendered, although several transformations towards more gender equity have taken place. Sport therefore continues to be an important field for scholars and practitioners to develop insights as to how gender ideologies and inequalities are reproduced, reconstructed and challenged, and how to promote and create more ‘level playing fields’ for different groups of women and men.