On this International Women’s Day, a new study released today shows a marked gender inequality in Canadian sports.
The study, “Women in Sport—Fuelling a Lifetime of Participation” was released by the Canadian Association for Advancement of Women and Sport and Physical Activity (CAAWS) and funded by was funded by Canada’s dairy farmers as part of their “Fuelling Women Champions” movement.
The study involving an examination of research from academic journals, primary research from national surveys, and analysis of four years of coverage in the media of female sports.
It shows that 41 per cent of girls between the ages of 3-17 years do not participate in sport—and this jumps to 84 per cent in adult women.
In Canadian Interuniversity Sport (CIS), the national governing body for university sport, 24 per cent of all Athletic Director positions and 17 per cent of all head coaching spots in the CIS are female.
As for sports networks, in 35,000 hours of programming only 4 percent was for coverage of female sports, and most of that was for female tennis and women at the Sochi Olympics.
Quoted in a press release, Caroline Emond, executive director, Dairy Farmers of Canada. “Launching this research publication is not only a significant stride for addressing pertinent social issues, but it is step in the right direction to propose actionable solutions and get people thinking about what they can do to change the situation.”
Additional information-sources
- Fuelling Women Champions ***to see this new report scroll down the page on this site to the pdf links at the bottom
- Canadian Sport for Life- Female athlete perspective (pdf)
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