In the aftermath of the opening ceremony of the Paris 2024 Olympic Games, whose splendour cannot be denied, one question remains: equality in sport. More precisely, the issue of discrimination. Though less visible than in the past, it still persists in various forms. While not dismissing other types of discrimination, today we will focus on sexism in sport.
While the objective of the opening ceremony, and of sport in general, seems to be inclusion and well-being, the reality is quite different in practice.
In theory, men and women can access the same sports. However, this remains only theoretical and raises a new question: the role of transgender and non-binary individuals in competitions. This topic has sparked controversy many times, particularly due to the alleged physical advantages of individuals who have experienced “male puberty”. Furthermore, the issue of gendered locker rooms often serves as a barrier to the participation of transgender and non-binary individuals in sports.
Beyond access to sport, the issue of clothing also reveals numerous inequalities: women are systematically less covered than men, and their outfits remain steeped in gender stereotypes, with skirts being the norm. There are countless examples to illustrate this: in 2021, the Norwegian beach handball players were required to wear “revealing” two-piece bikinis, which they protested against. When the players each paid a €150 fine, amounting to a €1,500 penalty imposed on the women’s team by the European Handball Federation for wearing shorts during a match, the regulation was amended to specify “short and tight” shorts for women’s outfits. In the world of tennis, female bodies are still far from being freed from traditional constraints. American player Serena Williams was criticised in 2018 for wearing a full-body black suit, deemed disrespectful by Bernard Giudicelli, then president of the French Tennis Federation. As Béatrice Barbusse, author of Du sexisme dans le sport (On Sexism in Sport), said in an interview with La Croix in 2018: “Either they’re not dressed enough, or they’re dressed too much” (Free GROW translation from original: « soit elles ne sont pas suffisamment habillées, soit elles le sont trop »). The issue of clothing lies at the intersection of discrimination between sexism and racism: on June 29 June 2023, the French Council of State handed down a decision allowing sports federations to restrict the freedom to wear religious symbols in order to “guarantee the proper functioning of public services and the protection of the rights and freedoms of others” (Free GROW translation from original: « garantir le bon fonctionnement du service public et la protection des droits et libertés d’autrui »). In response to this ruling, Thomas Dossus, a green senator from the Rhône, lamented the “risk of exclusion, which runs contrary to the emancipatory vocation of sport” (Free GROW translation from original: « risque d’exclusion contraire à la vocation émancipatrice du sport »).
Similarly, there is also a type of discrimination that persists in sport that affects representation: media visibility. According to data from 2021 collected by ARCOM, 74% of the airtime dedicated to sport on television features exclusively male sports, with 21% showing mixed sports and only 4.8% dedicated to women’s sports.
Gender stereotypes also play an important role in discrimination within the world of sport, often criticising the physiques of female athletes and accusing them of being too “masculine”. They are often forced to strike a precarious balance between accusations of “virilisation” of their bodies and a manufactured image of them as “objects of seduction”.
Sport is a vast field, and discrimination does not stop at sexism. Racism, homophobia and other forms of prejudice also play a crucial role in the world of sport, affecting many sportspeople every year. One of the reasons for this is that sport represents international society as a whole, and therefore reflects the inequalities that exist within each country. The international scene in general, and the world of sport in particular, still has a long way to go to reduce and eliminate discrimination, including that based on gender and sex, even if progress can be noted in certain cases, such as in the sporting world’s relationship with disability, particularly in the context of the Paralympic Games.
Translated by Gabriel Capitolo
