Syracuse

Since sport has been recognised as one of the most powerful platforms for promoting gender equality and empowering women and girls, the question of how to accelerate the process of change that will redress the imbalances women face in their participation and involvement in sport has gained significant traction and importance on the agenda of the Olympic Movement throughout recent decades.

For the International Olympic Committee (IOC), the promotion of the presence of women in sport, be it on the field of play or in other roles, has become a priority since the 1960s. The United Nations addressed the right of women to participate in sport formally for the first time in 1979 in the “Convention on the elimination of all forms of discrimination against women”. In 1991, the Olympic Charter was amended to include “non-discrimination on the basis of sex”, and in 1994, the International Working Group on Women and Sport was established. This group held its inaugural World Conference on Women and Sport, resulting in the “Brighton declaration“, an international treaty to support the development of a fairer and more equitable system of sport and physical activity. The IOC supported the initiative and became a signatory.

At the Olympic Games, the participation of female athletes has grown steadily over the years. While no women participated in the first Olympic Games in Athens in 1896, and only 22 women took part, constituting 2.2 per cent of the 997 competitors at the Olympic Games in Paris in 1900, women’s participation had grown to 13 per cent at the Games in Tokyo 1964 and 23 per cent at Los Angeles 1984. Today, the Olympic Games are the largest gender-equal sporting event in the world, with women accounting for 49 per cent of the athletes at the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games, and full gender equality expected for the Games in Paris in 2024.

As an organisation, the IOC has also adopted various initiatives to increase the number of women in its decision-making bodies. In 1981, Venezuela’s Flor Isava Fonseca and Finland’s Pirjo Häggman were co-opted as the first two female IOC members. In 1995, it created the Women and Sport Working Group, which later became a Commission in 2004. In 1996, the first World Conference on Women and Sport was held to raise awareness of the role of women in sport.

As the owner of the Olympic Games, the IOC has been encouraging and working with National Olympic Committees (NOCs) and International Federations (IFs) to increase female participation at the Olympic Games. As a result, since 1991 any new sport included on the Olympic programme has had to have events for women. Since 2004, the principle of gender equality has been enshrined in the Olympic Charter, which states that the role of the IOC is “to encourage and support the promotion of women in sport at all levels and in all structures with a view to implementing the principle of equality of men and women”. London 2012 saw women allowed to compete in all the sports on the Olympic programme for the first time.

As the leader of the Olympic Movement, the IOC recommended at its 1996 Session that NOCs and IFs set a minimum target of 10 per cent of women in decision-making positions by the year 2000, and 20 per cent by 2005 (and as progress was made, this target was revised to a minimum of 30 per cent by 2020). In 2000, the IOC introduced the Women and Sport Awards, which highlight the role models and initiators of change working on gender equality. More recently, forums, seminars and training programmes have been organised for women in IFs, National Federations and NOCs to help prepare those in middle and senior management positions to stand for election to leadership positions. As of August 2021, 33 per cent of the IOC Executive Board members, 38 per cent of IOC Members and 40 per cent of IOC Commission Chairs were women; several NOCs and IFs had achieved gender balance or enshrined a gender equality target in their statutes; and many more were making steady progress to close the gender gap.

In March 2017, the IOC launched the Gender Equality Review Project to review the current state of gender equality in the Olympic Movement and “push gender equality globally” with “action-oriented recommendations for change”. The result was 25 recommendations to advance gender equality. Building on the progress achieved, in May 2021 the IOC approved “21 Gender Equality and Inclusion Objectives” for the period 2021-2024 to encourage the Olympic Movement constituents to strive for gender-balanced representation in their Games leadership roles and decision-making bodies.

To reach beyond the Olympic Movement, the IOC’s policy for women’s empowerment through sport has been developed and implemented through numerous partnerships with sports organisations, UN agencies and programmes, NGOs and other members of civil society. For example, in March 2020, the IOC joined the UN Women Sports for Generation Equality Initiative to accelerate progress on a set of common principles and aligned objectives that will harness the power of sport in making gender equality a reality within and through sport.

To get a good overview of this topic, we recommend reading: “Portrayal guidelines: gender-equal, fair and inclusive representation in sport” by the IOC; “Sport as a means of empowering women and girls all over the world” by Marie-Cécile Naves; and “Female Olympians: a mediated socio-cultural and political-economic timeline” by Linda K. Fuller.  

Note however that this is just a selection of the resources available on this topic in the Olympic World Library, so be sure to check out the full list of resources via the link at the bottom of the page, or search in the full catalogue for other topics of interest.