Toward the meaningful gender equality in sport and the real essence of sport

Abstract

During the 1970-1980s, the major concerns about the under-representation of women in sport world centered on `why women are not likely to participate in sport`. The answer was found in the inner world of women rather than the outside world of women, the social structure. It was psychological; women are passive and don`t like to be active. Some sport psychologists argued that sport was generally away from the femininity so women were reluctant to be involved in sporting activities. They stressed that the passivity and emotional traits of women were closed related to their little attention to sporting behavior. Unfortunately this approach limited the scope of analysis to the micro and individual dimensions, ignoring the social-structural factors working against women`s participation in sports.. Since the 1990s, the major concerns about women in sport have paid attention to the cultural and structural factors. The questions about `what hinders women from participating in sport?` and `how women are excluded from their involvement in sport?` were issued in the community of feminist sport scholarship. Feminist sport scholars take a look at sport as a male domain: in sport world, men are overrepresented and composed of majority; they are dominant in sporting organizations so the top hierarchical positions were in men`s hands. The feminists view sport as a male preserve; the masculinity is celebrated; the non-sporting images of female athletes are highlighted. This paper attempts to critically analyze the phenomenon of gender inequality including in terms of practice and theory. Practice refers to the sport participation rate by gender and the sport organizations. Theory refers to ideological meanings about the definitions of sport focusing on physicality based upon power and speed in which men are superior to women and about the distorted media images of sporting women. With the critiques of traditional definition and essence of sport, the study proposes the new genuine definition of sport which is equally applicable to all sport regardless of the sex of athletes. It suggests `more beautiful based upon balance, harmony and creativity` as the real essence of sport. Finally this paper concludes that sport will be acting as a site for women`s liberation by stressing that sport as a site of women`s oppression is not working any longer.