The sport world can be an especially challenging environment for gender equality, with its mix of new and old cases of inequality in sports participation and opportunities, pay, and gender-based harassment. This is why UNESCO is collaborating with the world’s leading players in sports to accelerate efforts to promote women’s leadership and equality in governance models, prevent and respond to gender-based violence, close the gap in investment in girls’ sports and promote equal economic opportunities, ensure women’s equal participation and bias-free representation in media, and promote gender-neutral policies that strengthen, rather than harm, sport for all.
Gender stereotypes in sports still persist, with girls as young as five feeling that they don’t belong in sport. This can be due to an insidious combination of factors, including lack of role models and a perception that sport is only for boys. It also includes the belief that men are better athletes than women, which is based on misinformation and false assumptions.
It is time to dispel the myth that trans athletes have an unfair advantage in sport. The truth is that the vast majority of studies assessing performance in trans athletes have found them to be as competitive as their cisgender counterparts. Moreover, claims that the transgender community poses an “athletic threat” are based on misogyny and not science. It is time to reclaim women’s prizes, their sports and their spaces. This will go a long way toward making the world of sports more inclusive and welcoming to everyone.
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