Sport for Business will be live at the Irish Times Sportswoman of the Year Lunch in Dublin today and will be keeping you up to date on social media with all the news and images of a celebration of what Women have achieved in sport over the past twelve months.
There is no Sports Man of the Year Award and if there was it would be condemned as sexist. In years to come we hope there will be no need to specifically highlight the role of Women in sport but that day is still some way away. Until such time as it arrives, and it will, days like today are important.
Research published today by PSG Sponsorship shows that there remains a significant gap between the genders in terms of sporting interest.
Writing in the Irish Times Mick O’Keefe reveals that “when it comes to males, 63 per cent claim to be either avid sports fans who attend as much live sport as they can or else don’t get to watch as much as they would like.”
“Women, on the other hand, seem to be far less enthused about sport: 38 per cent are either avid sports fans (4 per cent) or sports fans (34 per cent).”
“Moreover, three times as many women as men claim to “have no interest” in sport at all. If women aren’t talking the talk when it comes to sport, they definitely don’t seem to be walking the walk – and the differences in interest parallels participation.”
“In terms of actively competing, 10 per cent of men of all ages take part in “competitive and organised sports” (such as playing for a GAA or soccer club) versus 4 per cent of women . Of the male numbers, 22 per cent play “recreational sport” (such as playing five-a-side soccer), as opposed to 13 per cent for women.”
“The question then arises: can the gender gap be bridged, or do women not play organised sport simply because they have no interest in doing so? Or should we probe this further? Are there enough suitable sporting outlets for females? Do barriers to entry exist?”
Newer events such as Triathlon and especially Park Run have higher levels of participation. It may be that we need to look at different ways of describing and organising sport so that it is not just a Women’s version of a sport designed by mens and still more likely played by men.
These are complex questions. The answer we need to get to is that Women are as active as men, they get the same benefit from participation in team as well as individual sport as men and that we get to a point where we talk about sport in the same way we talk about education or entertainment as being completely unrelated to whether you are male or female, black or white.
The recent Sport for Business teaming Up for Women in Sport pointed in a number of directions we can go and we will be convening a powerful group of women and men in the New year to see what we can do collectively top bring this one or two steps closer to reality in 2017.
Today is a day to celebrate stunning achievement, against the odds of inherent bias, and all the more praiseworthy for that.
It is also another day though to keep trying as hard as we can and as smart as we can to make things better.
► VIDEO: Why do we play? Ireland’s top sportswomen prepare for the Irish Times/Sport Ireland Sportswoman of the year Awards pic.twitter.com/UiZfp3bhPL
— Irish Times Video (@irishtimesvideo) December 14, 2016
