Gender equality in sports coaching

The coaching space in the competitive sporting world is overwhelmingly populated by men, prompting Dr Kotryna Fraser, an expert in sport and performance psychology, to ask whether coaching really is a man’s job.

KEY POINTS

• A very small proportion of professional sports coaches are female
• Researchers have identified numerous barriers experienced by female coaches during their careers
• The negative experiences and chronic emotional toll put on female coaches often lead to lower job and sport satisfaction, burnout and eventual withdrawal
• If females are not being considered for coaching positions, the talent pool from which candidates are selected is undiversified and limited in scope
• A number of changes, from the grassroots level up, can provide experiences that have the ability to change perceptions and behaviours, resulting in greater numbers of female coaches.

Who comes to mind when someone says “Hey, coach!”?

I hope you proved me wrong, but the majority of people most likely have an image of a middle-age white man with a whistle in his hands. I certainly still do. More often than not, such an image is true when talking about high performance coaches.

Look at the Rio 2016 Olympic Games – only 11% of all accredited coaches were female, and according to Norman (2017), almost half of all countries taking part at the Games had no female coaches on their National Team. Female coaches made up only 9% of our Australian National Team at Rio 2016.

Initial stats on the IOC webpage show that there has been slight progress in Tokyo, with women making up 13% of coaches. This figure is subject to change, however, as it did not yet take into account the gender of coaches for the Paralympic Games.

It seems that a stereotypical image of a middle-age white male overseeing athletes’ performance is representative of the actual landscape of elite coaches worldwide.

Sport, gender, and unconscious bias

Rarely do we think about the purpose of sport from a sociocultural perspective. Historically, sport was created by men for men to exercise their aggressiveness, masculinity, and perceived superiority over women, as a response to a new political reality of the 19th century and feminisation (i.e., women becoming more equal at public spaces such as schools and workplaces). Fast-forward to 2020 and women are still perceived to be a weaker and inferior species. Comments such as “boys don’t cry”, “you kick like a girl” or “coaching is a man’s job” illustrate gendered norms still existing in sport.

Importantly, such comments continue to marginalise women and glorify status quo masculine ideals by ignoring our advanced knowledge about such ‘ideals’ (e.g., prevalence of mental health issues among elite athletes and high achievers).

Let’s jump through yet another hurdle…

Researchers have identified numerous barriers experienced by female coaches during their careers:

• marginalising male-dominant culture where female coaches’ skills, competence and hiring is constantly challenged by male counterparts on the basis of sex
• experiences of prejudice, sexism and abusive language during coach education courses
• societal pressure to look after family, forcing them to leave coaching due to time commitments away from home and working unsociable hours.

Combined, these barriers can lead to feelings of fraudulence, internalised experiences of failure and inability to recognise success (i.e. imposter feelings) as the sports environment and culture suggests that female coaches simply don’t belong.

The negative experiences and chronic emotional toll put on female coaches often lead to lower job and sport satisfaction, burnout and eventual withdrawal. Numerous qualitative studies indicate that female coaches simply feel tired from constantly battling the existing barriers and eventually give up, which results in less role models other women could follow. This also means that female coaches (and, potentially, male coaches working with feminine sports) fail to achieve their potential.

But it is not only the individual who suffers. We, as a sport community and wider society, are also disadvantaged by the existing gender gap and gendered stereotypes still dominating sports culture. Put bluntly, the talent pool from which we are choosing the best candidates is undiversified and limited in scope. We may think we are using objective criteria, but what we really need is neutral and gender-free criteria.

Perhaps we shouldn’t be surprised that there are only a handful of elite female coaches, or by the lack of female coaches coaching male teams of any level, let alone professional. Language and behaviours constantly remind female coaches that they don’t belong. Stress is placed on the gender of female coaches, but not male; of female sports but not male; of female achievements but not male. Kane (1994) argued that we should move away from a gender segregated understanding and categorisation of sport performance (i.e. male-female binary) towards a continuum based on the skills and competence one demonstrates.

The solution

With support from the Olympic Study Centre, Dr Heather Douglas and I, from the University of Newcastle, set out to explore experiences of male and female elite coaches across a variety of sports worldwide through a lens of perceived stereotypes and imposter feelings influencing job coaches’ job satisfaction. While looking at elite coaches will not solve the problem, we hope it will shed more light on how we can do better at the grassroots level to develop a better path to elite coaching for all.

It is, however, a long process requiring all of us to chip in. There are ways we can all play a part in addressing this problem:

• Boys and men need female coaches so that they can see women in leadership positions. This will challenge gendered roles, stereotypes and status quo. Men, women and non-binary people can all be competent leaders, but seeing and experiencing competent female coaches in charge of male teams will help men gain respect for women in leadership roles and change the perceived status quo.
• Girls and women need to have role models that will inspire them to pursue careers in sport. While participation rates among girls and women have been growing rapidly over the last years due to heavy investments in grassroot sport (see Football Federation Australia, 2019), similar investments into grassroot coaching are needed. The more women engage with coaching positions at local clubs and with lower level athletes, the more women will progress into elite sport.
• Sport and fitness professionals, in general, need to re-examine their predefined beliefs, socialisation, perspectives and unconscious biases to challenge status quo to develop a much-needed self-awareness of how their implicit and explicit behaviours impact others.
• Sport is highly commercialised and driven by revenue. We need to start recognising competence and skills for what they are in all athletes and sport professionals, rather than let our gendered stereotypes and unconscious bias dictate how we talk about female professionals: marginalising language, sexist comments and double-standards should be put aside when reporting performance. Equally, female coaches and professionals should receive the same neutral assessment of their performance as male professionals do. Competence, skill and performance under pressure is part of neutral unbiased assessment, while celebrating these skills in the context of gender reinforces unequal power dynamics and the illusion of equality in sport.
• We, as a sport community and society, need to stop blaming the marginalised groups and recognise the power we hold over them.
  Paradoxically, it is predominantly men who are in the positions to make hiring and policy decisions that promote women.
• Boys and men need to learn how to be allies to girls and women, especially when they are treated on the basis of sex rather than skills and competence.

The final word

It is unlikely that we will ever close the gender gap among higher level coaches, as it is a deeply ingrained societal problem. But why wouldn’t we give it a go so that this and future generations could have a better chance of achieving their full potential? Who knows, maybe this is what we need for new records to be established – more female coaches at elite levels to offer different perspectives and to get the most out of their athletes. It is not about asking the female coaches to fit in, but making much needed change to create an environment suitable for all. After all, why do we keep investing in and learning how to use the newest piece of technology if we fail to do the same with human capital?

REFERENCES
1. Norman, L. Gender and Olympic Coaching Report Card: What’s changed since London 2012? International Council for coaching Excellence, 2017; https://www.icce.ws/_assets/files/norman.pdf
2. Kane, M J & Greendorfer, S L; “The Media’s Role in Accommodating and Resisting Stereotyped Images of Women in Sport”; pp28-44, Women, Media and Sport (edited by Pamela J. Creedon, 1994) click here for more info.

Dr Kotryna Fraser, PhD

Kotryna is an Associate Lecturer in Sport and Performance Psychology at The University of Newcastle.
She is also an accredited Sport and Exercise Scientist (psychology support) under the British Association of Sport and Exercise Scientists (BASES).

twitter.com/kotrynafraser

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