Encouraging Women in Sport

What do the names Marilyn Bell, Nancy Greene, Abby Hoffman, Silken Laumann, Chantal Petitclerc and Hayley Wickenheiser mean to you? Do you know their tremendous accomplishments in sport and the stereotypes they shattered? Or do you wonder who these Canadian women are, or what they did?

Throughout history, women were discouraged from participating in sport because they were thought to be physically and psychologically "fragile," and competition was thought to lead to "manly" behaviours.

But thanks to the aforementioned and other pioneering and inspiring women athletes, young girls and women in our country now have the freedom to participate and excel in any sport.

On November 30, Sports Day in Canada was celebrated in communities from coast to coast to coast to recognize the power of sport, from grassroots to high-performance, to build community and national spirit, and to facilitate healthy living.

As February approaches and the Sochi Olympics and Paralympics begin, it is important to build awareness around issues concerning women in sport: for example, delivering sport programs that challenge young girls and women and enable them to achieve new heights, engaging more females in sport, increasing the number of women coaches and officials at the high-performance level, and increasing the number of women in leadership positions of sports organizations. But the challenge will be to maintain the enthusiasm, interest, and involvement between Olympic years.

We need to get more young girls into sport, to stay in the system, to try their hand at coaching and officiating--as we still have low numbers of women coaches and officials at the high performance level, college, university, and national teams -- and to be elected to boards of national sports organizations.

More fundamentally, new measures of the basic physical activity level of Canadian children indicate that only four percent of girls meet the new Canadian Physical Activity Guidelines. This percentage is less than half of the nine percent of boys who meet these guidelines, a number that is already alarmingly small. And as a whole, Canada consistently receives failing grades on the Active Healthy Kids Canada Report Card. This lack of physical activity is a public health crisis and requires immediate and sustained attention and resources. In particular, Canada must continue to deliver sport programs that meet the needs of girls and women and help them to become healthy and self-confident.

On the other hand, Canadian women have made real strides in achieving Olympic success. At the Vancouver Olympics, women made up 40.7 percent of athletes. In 2008, 42.4 percent of athletes at the Beijing Olympics were women.

However, women do not always receive the same recognition as male athletes, either by the establishment or by the media: In 1994, only 48 women were celebrated among the 377 athletes and builders (13 percent) in Canada's Sports Hall of Fame; in 2001, there were only 63 among the honoured members (15 percent).

Although equality of women in sport is within sight, achieving leadership-level equality remains an uphill battle. The International Olympic Committee (IOC) sought to have 20 percent of women in national federation leadership positions by 2013; the current number is 19.5 percent. In Canada, women account for 23 percent of leadership positions within national sports organizations.

We need more women on sports boards to provide a greater diversity of skills, experiences, opinions and strategies for improved governance and better results. National sports organizations that are funded by Sport Canada should be held accountable to reflect the stakeholders who are their members.

All Canadians look forward to the Sochi Olympics and Paralympics to cheer on our country's elite athletes, who are riding "a wave of momentum" after the unprecedented 26-medal performance in Vancouver, and to celebrating a new generation of female role models. Go, Canada, go!

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