Ninth International Conference on Sport & Society

Abstract

Gender, albeit for all the wrong reasons, has been at the forefront of debate in the modern world. The pathogen of gender segregation has been deep rooted among the ethical divisions of the international community. There are no merits for such segregation in the light of the effervescent concept of Equality that has been adopted by all the forward thinking nations of the world. Sports for centuries have largely undermined the role of women and thus has been mostly unsuccessful in breaking the stereotypes regarding gender in the society. The perception of women in sports has transformed from horrific to stable in the past century and their presence can now be felt from the Olympic turf to the Administrative chairs. Even though these changes are visible, they are limited and the stereotypical nexus between women and weakness still remains. The 206 member committees strong Olympic Movement spearheaded the crusade against gender equity for years, a feature clearly evident from the women participation and inclusion of events for women in the Olympic Games in initial years. Although, advanced economies have achieved significant results, a holistic change in the perceived bias and pre-conceived notions of the opposite gender is still beckoning. Even though “Women’s sport is an expression of the right to equality and the freedom of all women to take control of their bodies and participate in sports publicly, regardless of nationality, age, disability, sexual orientation or religion,” sports bodies and regulatory authorities have little or no regulations mandating the gender neutral spaces in the field of sports and this has critically imbalanced the growth and development of women in sport. Amateur athletes from a very tender age are subjected to the misogynistic views of the authoritative paternalism due to which they have to forego the opportunity to make a career in the world of sports. The condition of the disadvantaged communities and indigenous tribes is even worse as they face racial vilification on a regular basis which has led to a significant fall in their participation rates in spite of the existence of a plethora of rights based policies for the protection of their claims. To move out of the traditional channels of thought-process, this study adopts a socio-legal perspective to break the glass ceiling of myths regarding women participation in sports and to act as a catalyst for the betterment of the law and policy structure governing free and equal participation. Along with this, the research work tries to explore the efforts undertaken by International forums and authorities to tackle the menace of discrimination and how certain stereotypical barriers the society need to overcome in search of a level playing field. In a conclusive manner, the research work tries to comparatively analyse the position as it exist in developed and developing economies and find the best solutions.