Twelve days after speaking on the subject of equality in sport at a major gathering of Sport for Business members looking to improve the gender balance in sponsorship, media and leadership, Minister of State for Sport Patrick O’Donovan has thrown the cat amongst the (mainly male) pigeons with a clear broadside aimed at generating 30% of Women in leadership positions in sport by 2020.
Speaking on Morning Ireland this morning he indicated that larger organisations would have twelve months less to introduce a better balance to their leadership groups, and that those who do not step up would find question marks over their state funding.
Quotas are never the best solution but in this case where there is such an obvious imbalance it is the only place to start.
Who are the 50 Most Influential Women in Irish Sport in 2016?
We have consistently highlighted the ways in which Women are poorly served by sport in Ireland. There is a deficit in terms of the respect afforded to Women’s sporting achievements, a shortfall still in the media coverage they receive and the sponsorship that goes towards Women’s sport.
All those areas are changing for the better. Liberty Insurance, Lidl, Continental Tyres, Aon and AIB have all come on board for specific Women’s sport events since we first began campaigning four years ago.
Ireland will host the Women’s Rugby World Cup and the Women’s U18 European Championships in Basketball in August 2017.
RTE’s Paralympics Coverage last summer was co-hosted exclusively by Joanne Cantwell and Daráine Mulvihill.
And yet it does still require the threat of Government and funding intervention to make right the deficit in leadership that remains.
Read what happened at our Teaming Up for Women in Sport event
In 2014 we sought information from Ireland’s sporting bodies on their proportion of women represented on their leadership group. The number that replied were good, but they only represented one third of the sports we asked.
The Irish Times has greater resource and were able to produce a review earlier his year which showed that of the top 20 Government funded Sporting bodies only five – Special Olympics, Paralympics Ireland, the Confederation of Golf in Ireland, Basketball Ireland and the Camogie Association had 30% gender balance on their main boards. The Camogie Association itself would fall foul in reverse by only having two men out of 16.
The GAA, FAI and IRFU had one women among the 50 positions governing the three sports.
This is not a witch hunt to track down people with deep misogynist beliefs. It is not a bid to put people into positions of power they are unsuited to. It is not an attempt to bring about revolutionary change. It’s about equality, pure and simple.
Those men in positions of power who would be horrified at the thought they were acting in a sexist manner have to realise that gender balance is now the norm in education, in public service, increasingly in business and in every other area.
Read about the plans for the Women’s Rugby World Cup in 2017
The most powerful political leaders in Germany and Britain are women. They are capable because of their talent, not their gender. An organisation that can defend one in 50 positions being filled by a ‘minority’ that actually represents over 50 per cent of the population is living in cloud cuckoo land.
It has been known for a long time, recognised for years, promised over all that time but if it takes the threat of financial penalty to make it right then that’s what is needed and fair play to Minister O’Donovan for having the courage to step up.
Now what is needed is for women themselves to do likewise.
There is no shortage of talented women already in positions of power around Irish sport as evidenced by our Annual list of the 50 Most influential Women published in August.
It is not always easy though to persuade them to step in to positions where they will undoubtedly face some questioning and hostility in the early days. Without them though it can’t and won’t happen.
One prominent executive was told in no uncertain terms that she was stepping into a man’s world and would fail when she took up a senior position within a sporting body. It made her more determined to prove them wrong, and she did.
Sport for Business always looks to have gender balance in any of our events and on any of our panels. Our count Social Media Mavens list is already dominated by Women.
See how our Social Media Mavens list is shaping up
We fell short though with the One Zero Conference earlier this year when only seven of 34 speakers were Women. We were criticised by some for this, and with good reason but it was not for lack of trying. The proportion of women speakers we approached who did not wish to speak was much higher than for the men, and some were much blunter in terms of financial demands than a first year event was able to sustain.
This will not be an easy journey but it is one that there is already a route laid down to follow. Sport played a role in the Women’s suffrage movement when Emily Davison killed herself by running out in front of the King’s horse in the Epsom Derby in 2013. That was a milestone in achieving the vote.
Sport is not so important as that right to determination but it is a marker on how we treat ourselves as people, how we treat our wives, daughters and mothers, those we work with, those we are friends with, those with whom we share this country.
Sport needs to step up and we are sure it will be found willing. Women need to do likewise and not be afraid of sullen glances, barbed comments and stupid commentary.
Teaming Up for Women in Sport was a keynote event as we draw to an end of 2016. If we played some small part in giving courage to the Minister to make today’s statement it will have done some good. We will be gathering a group of prominent leaders together in early January to put actions to the fine words spoken that day.
