Underrepresentation of Women in Sports Organizations. Polish, British and International Organizations – a Comparative Analysis

Abstract

From feminist and critical point of view sport has been a sexist institution. Despite the women empowerment in sport they are still trivialized and marginalized. Research also shows that sport organizations may be exceptionally opposed to women, valuing hegemonic masculinity. Therefore the aim of this article is to check whether gender inequalities occur in Polish sports organizations and what is the scale of those inequalities in comparison to international and British organizations. The study used methods of examining official documents (information generated by other empirical data from official documents of the organisation). The sample consists of 17 Polish, 17 international and 17 British sports organisations. The results of research showed that in Polish sports organisations there are working less women than in the international and British organisations, there are also less women in committees and women committees (if they have been established). More women work in organisations which represent women-orientated sports disciplines.

Keywords

• British
• Polish
• equality
• gender
• international sport organisations
• sport organisations