With the Olympics taking place in Tokyo this month, it’s time to raise a glass to the world’s women athletes who defy stereotypes and are inspiring role models. However, gender equality in sports remains a challenge. In order to make progress, the sports industry must ensure that there are equal opportunities for both men and women, invest in the development of women’s sport, provide equal funding, promote equitable governance models and reduce the prevalence of sexual harassment.
Despite the success of the #MeToo and #SeAcabo movements in raising awareness of discrimination against female athletes, social movement action alone is insufficient (95). A key step towards addressing this issue must be establishing effective anti-discrimination policies that can be enforced in sports organisations. These should be easy to use, secure and anonymous to encourage whistleblowers to come forward.
This article analyses the current state of GE in European sports using data from Special Eurobarometer 525 (2022). Fuzzy-hybrid TOPSIS is used to generate a synthetic indicator on Europeans’ attitudes towards GE in sport, while latent profile analysis and multinomial logistic regression are applied to identify its main determinants. The results highlight significant geographical, social and political differences in Europe’s stance on GE in sport. The Nordic countries, led by Sweden, are most supportive of GE in sport, while Eastern and Central European countries tend to resist progressive values and view feminism as an affront to their national identities. The results also show that sports participation is a strong predictor of support for GE in sport, indicating that increased engagement with sporting environments can increase people’s awareness of and sensitivity to GE in sport (102).