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A.G.E.S. |
With this project, we want to investigate the existence of gender discrimination in sports and we are therefore willing to study models and organise initiatives aimed at bringing sports back to a universal language that can overcome differences. As a matter of fact, we want to use sports as a mean to make middle school and high school students and teachers, coaches, instructors, and sports managers aware of gender equality by contrasting stereotypes, prejudices and inequalities.
As far as we are concerned, sport allows mutual contact, facilitates non-verbal communication and confrontation with one’s own abilities and those of others, in a safe and healthy environment and within precise rules; in this sense it should be a facilitator.
However, episodes of “exclusion” happen frequently in different contexts in which sport is practiced. The reasons of this phenomenon are linked to different social status, different religion and gender and disability: a contradiction to those that are instead the strengths of sport and physical activities in terms of the development of both the individual and group relational network based on the balance between competition and cooperation.
Moreover, sports, whether at a European level, or amateur or professional levels, represent a broad and rapidly expanding sector of the economy and offers an important contribution to growth and employment. After all, equality between women and men is a fundamental principle of the European Union.
With this project we want to make a significant and original contribution to all the European surveys and studies that lay stress on the subject of discrimination present in sports at all levels and in particular on those related to discrimination against women in sport.
In fact, as of gender issues, it seems that sport is considered “the area that most discriminates women”. Even though female participation in sports is gradually increasing, women remain underrepresented in decision-making bodies of sports institutions, both locally and nationally, both in Europe and worldwide.
Sport is traditionally a man-dominated sector and progress made for gender equality in this field is restrained by the social concepts of femininity and masculinity such as the “handsome, good and intellectually limited” male footballer and the “masculine and lesbian” female footballer: these preconceptions damage at the social level both in the short term, shifting the focus of sports on the judgment of oneself and in the long term, allowing the communication of messages to the population that evolves into wrong behaviors easily transferable to other contexts. Indeed, there are still many stereotypes like these that characterize the world of sports, both for those who practice it and for those who organise and manage it: precisely these stereotypes contribute to fueling gender segregation.
Is there a condition of necessary predominance of men over women in sport? Are there sports only for women and sports only for men? No! We answer with this project: sport is for everyone and it includes all kinds of diversity.