Gender Mainstreaming and Sport

The European Commission has made a commitment to gender mainstreaming in the 1990s as a new approach to promoting gender equality. What gender mainstreaming really is, and how it is defined differs, and the paper starts with a discussion of the concept itself, and also a critique of it. As an example of a definition the following is mentioned "Gender mainstreaming is the systematic integration of gender equality into all systems and structures; policies, programs, processes and projects; into cultures and their organisations, into ways of seeing and doing" (Rees 2002, p 2)

But what does this really mean? Equality is often defined as " that women and men have the same rights, obligations and opportunities in all the main fields of life; women and men share power, influence and responsibility in all sectors of the community". According to Rees mainstreaming seeks to identify the ways in which existing systems and structures are 'institutionally sexist', - however unintentionally and however sub-consciously - and to neutralise the gender bias. Gender mainstreaming can be looked upon as an approach to producing policies and processes that seek to benefit men and women equally, but many sport organizations haven't been very concrete. Gender mainstreaming seems to have become a popular slogan, but if changes are going to occur it has to be followed up in practice. Concrete example of what gender main streaming in sport could mean is presented and discussed.