The IOC says the Olympic Games has reached gender parity, but historic gender inequality still lingers | CNN (2024)

CNN

Three years before the Olympics last visited Paris in 1924, a small gathering of female athletes led by Alice Milliat staged their own Games as they were still largely excluded from the biggest sporting event in the world.

Female athletes competing at the Games was simply not “in keeping” with how Pierre de Coubertin envisioned the event he revived in 1896, an event he saw as an “exaltation of male athleticism … with the applause of women as a reward,” as he wrote in 1912.

Now, a century later in the French capital, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) has distributed its quota places equally in the hope that anequal number of male and female athleteswould competeat an Olympic Games for the very first time, thoughit fell just short of that target as ultimately 5630 male athletes and 5416 female athletes will compete in Paris.

Still, women representing 49% of the total athlete populationmarksanotherstep for gender equality in sport, one that has been celebrated as part of the increasing popularity of women’s sports and comes as the IOC attempts to address sexist media coverage and improve the support available for parent athletes. But at the same time, beyond the numbers, activists and academics point out that historic inequalities still linger at the Olympics, influencing everything from the small proportion of female coaches present to attitudes toward women’s clothing.

“Parity is one part of equality, but it isn’t equality,” Michele Donnelly, assistant professor of sport management at Brock University who specializes in gender equality at the Olympics, told CNN Sport. “It’s the numerical piece, but it’s not the conditions, status, experience piece that is still missing from large parts of athlete’s experiences at the Games.”

Nonetheless, at the same time as the Olympics targets reaching gender parity among its athletes, there is a “buzz right now with women’s sport,” soccer player Emily Sonnett told CNN.

It is part of moment when the growth of women’s sport is “unreal,” as Olympic volleyball player Jordan Larson told CNN, and headlines in the USA are dominated by figures like Caitlin Clark, Simone Biles and Nelly Korda.

And with the biggest ever proportion of female athletes competing on sport’s biggest stage spotlighted by “two weeks of major media coverage where the entire world is tuning in to watch,” it will have wide-reaching consequences outside sport too, Katrina Adams, the IOC’s Gender Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Champion for 2023, and the first ever Black woman to be President and CEO of the United States Tennis Association (USTA), told CNN Sport.

The IOC says the Olympic Games has reached gender parity, but historic gender inequality still lingers | CNN (1)

Katrina Adams was honored asthe IOC’s Gender Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Champion for 2023.

“I think that’s going to elevate how people are thinking about it, how people are looking at it, how the sponsors are looking at it, how businesspeople are looking at it and how the focus is going to say, wow, we really have to start to look at our sport different and our business different and how we address gender equality,” she says.

‘Only just now getting here’

Getting closer to thislandmarkof gender equality is “incredibly important,” Olympic weightlifter Jourdan Delacruz told CNN.

“It’s kind of shocking that it’s 2024 and we’re only just now getting here but I think it means not only that women are becoming better competitors but from the grassroots level, there’s more access, … there’s more representation that encourages girls and women to get into sport,” she said.

Women were prohibited from competing, and spectating, at the first ever modern Olympics in 1896, and then only allowed to participate in sports deemed suitable for them such as tennis, golf or equestrian.

It wasn’t until 2012 that the IOC allowed women to compete in all sports and 2014 that the organization committed to achieving gender parity among athletes at the Olympics, setting itself a series of targets to reach this milestone.

The IOC says the Olympic Games has reached gender parity, but historic gender inequality still lingers | CNN (2)

A Czechoslovakian long jumper competes at the 1922 Women's World Games, the second edition of the games organized in response to the IOC's refusal to allow women to compete in athletics events at the Olympics.

“They’ve really developed a roadmap and a plan that leads us to the place that we’re at this summer in the Paris Olympics,” Nicole LaVoi, director of the Tucker Center for Research on Girls & Women in Sport, told CNN. “There’s been some metrics and some accountability in terms of reaching these target metrics and one was equal participation so that’s really important.”

Over time, the number of female athletes at the Olympics has increased, rising from 11.4% of athletes in 1960, to 28.9% in 1996, 44.2% in 2016 before this opportunity for gender parity in 2024.

“We fought hard to be here, and I just want to say thank you to those in the past because you guys fought hard for me to be here right now,” US Olympic boxer Morelle McCane told CNN. “Just seeing all the love pour into women’s sport, it just opens up all these avenues. It’s beautiful.”

Part of the IOC’s strategy to reach gender parity has involved tweaking its program of events, in some cases by cutting male-only events like the 50km race walk in favor of a mixed gender marathon relay instead. In Paris, there will be slightly fewer women’s events than men’s events – 152 compared to 157 – as well as 20 mixed gender events.

And tangible images of gender equality will be emblazoned on TV screens around the world at these Olympics. The IOC has encouraged each country to have a male and female flagbearer at the opening ceremony, like in Tokyo when 91% of participating countries had a female flagbearer – a “subtle” but “major” shift, said Adams.

The IOC says the Olympic Games has reached gender parity, but historic gender inequality still lingers | CNN (3)

Flag bearers Adriana Díaz and Brian Afanador of Team Puerto Rico walk their team out during the opening ceremony at the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games.

The organization has also reordered the broadcast schedule so that women’s events will run during peak viewing times and provided direction to producers to encourage a “gender equal and fair portrayal,” while the Olympic Broadcasting Services have increased the number of female commentators employed to 40% of its total.

Whether such steps have an impact remains to be seen – female athletes were about 10 times more likely than their male counterparts to be visually objectified by a camera angle at the Tokyo Olympics, according to a report conducted by The Representation Project.

And for athletes with children, there will be positive changes at this Olympics too, even if athletes rather than organizers are often the driving force behind them. Following pressure, most notably from French judo star Clarisse Agbegnenou, French Olympic Committee secretary general Astrid Guyart told reporters that breastfeeding athletes would be able to stay in hotels nearby the Olympic Village with their infants, per local media.

The IOC says the Olympic Games has reached gender parity, but historic gender inequality still lingers | CNN (4)

Panamanian artistic gymnast Hillary Heron interacts with her coach Yareimi Vazquez (L) and her daughter Aitana Vazquez inside a nursery room in the Athletes' Village ahead of the Paris Olympic Games.

A nursery on site in the Olympic village for athletes will also provide space for athlete parents to spend time with their children.

‘More women through the pipeline of leadership’

But as female athletes are achieving gender parity on the field of play, female representation in the boardroom and among coaches, where power is concentrated, still lags behind.

Just 13% of coaches who attended the Tokyo Olympics were women, a number that is widely expected to rise but still remain low in Paris.

“If you look at women in coaching … you’re going to see a small percentage compared to men being in that role because since sports have started, it’s been a men’s play until women have had to start showing we can do great things as coaches and athletes … and we’re starting to see that shift,” Mechelle Lewis Freeman – a former Olympian and now the head women’s relay coach for the USA’s Track and Field Team – told CNN.

Freeman is the first woman to hold that post, she says, adding that the societal norms which traditionally prevented women from holding such leadership roles in sport are beginning to break down, particularly as their work “speaks for themselves.”

“Now you’re starting to see … the spaces being created,” she said. “Because the talent was always there … and so now you’re having that space for you to be able to demonstrate and show that, yes, women can do this too.”

The IOC says the Olympic Games has reached gender parity, but historic gender inequality still lingers | CNN (5)

First Lady Jill Biden, left, learns the proper technique to pass a baton from head women's relay coach Mechelle Lewis Freeman.

With still such a low proportion of female coaches, they have taken to creating their own support systems, outside of their national federations and the IOC. Vicky Huyton, founder of the Female Coaching Network, has created a WhatsApp group for 52 of the world’s best female coaches to support one another, and share advice as well as vent about a system that still discriminates against women.

“We’ve got women who have coached a current Olympic gold medalist … that have still not been chosen as team staff for Paris, even though that athlete is going to be defending their gold medal,” Huyton told CNN.

She explains that many national teams don’t have a standardized way of selecting coaches for a major competition, instead relying on “who the head coach wants,” rather than considering the needs of female athletes.

Women are underrepresented in the boardroom as well as among the coaching staff – there has never been a female president of the IOC, while just a third of the IOC Executive Board are women.

For much of Adams’ career in the boardroom, after she had retired from professional tennis, she would look around “and constantly realize I was the only one,” she says, prompting her to “do something about it” and push for change.

“If you don’t have female decision makers in the room that understand female athletes, it’s very hard to make decisions,” she said. “That’s why we need to have diversity of thought in the boardrooms that are helping people understand what the needs of female athletes are, as opposed to just pushing these aside because they don’t understand them.”

‘My hoo haa is gonna be out’

For female athletes, meanwhile, controversies around their clothing have appeared in the build-up to Paris, much like they did in Tokyo when several of them found themselves rebuked for wearing too little – or too much – clothing.

“My hoo haa is gonna be out,” American long jumper Tara Davis-Woodall quipped when Nike released its designs for the USA track and field athletes at the Olympics with the women’s outfits featuring a high-cut bikini waistline and the men’s a boxer short cut that covered up more of their bodies.

Nike's design for the US women's team outfit, right, is seen in an image posted to X by @CitiusMag. From CitiusMag via X Related article Nike’s US women’s Olympic team outfits criticized for being ‘born of patriarchal forces’

Such a discrepancy prompted a torrent of criticism, including from former US track and field athlete Lauren Fleshman who wrote on Instagram that athletes “should be able to compete without dedicating brain space to constant pube vigilance … or having every vulnerable piece of your body on display.”

Nike later said the leotard design would be one of several options available and some athletes, including Davis-Woodall, walked back their criticism when they saw the uniform in person.

Still, the controversy is indicative of the greater scrutiny female athletes face when choosing their clothing. Due to France’s secular laws, Muslim athletes who wear hijabs while competing cannot wear them in Paris – a step that Amnesty International says “defies Olympic values and human rights” and that athletes say has forced them to choose between their faith and love of sport.

Some accommodations have been made for these athletes at the last minute, like French sprinter Sounkamba Sylla who is now able to participate in the Opening Ceremony after she had previously said she would not be allowed because she wears a hijab.

On Thursday, French sports minister Amélie Oudéa-Castéra told CNN’s Christiane Amanpour that Sylla and LVHM, who are designing France’s Opening Ceremony, found a solution where the sprinter can cover her hair.

“There’s a lot left to do, in terms of these kinds of things,” Donnelly said. “One of my biggest concerns, I think about the way that the IOC is promoting #genderequal Olympics is that overstating the accomplishments of these Games really sends the message that we’ve achieved everything we need to achieve with gender equality. And we know that without conscious, intentional action, to move towards gender equality, we consistently see regression.”

CNN’s Coy Wire, Amy Jordan and Dan Moriarty contributed reporting.

The IOC says the Olympic Games has reached gender parity, but historic gender inequality still lingers | CNN (2024)

FAQs

What does gender parity mean in the Olympics? ›

Now, a century later in the French capital, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) has distributed its quota places equally in the hope that an equal number of male and female athletes would compete at an Olympic Games for the very first time, though it fell just short of that target as ultimately 5630 male athletes ...

Will the Olympics have gender equality in 2024? ›

A century later, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) has dubbed the 2024 Paris Games the #GenderEqualOlympics, with half of the athlete spots available to men and half to women, the organization says.

Why did the Olympics stop gender testing? ›

This test was still subject to criticism and several medical associations opposed gender verification by the late 1990s. A resolution was passed at the 1996 International Olympic Committee (IOC) World Conference on Women and Health "to discontinue the current process of gender verification during the Olympic Games".

How long has gender inequality been an issue in sports? ›

The long road to equality

It has been a long road since the Paris 1900 Olympic Games, when the first female athletes competed in five events: tennis, sailing, croquet, equestrian and golf. Only 22 women took part, constituting a meagre 2.2 per cent of the 997 total competitors.

What is gender parity and why is it important? ›

Gender parity concerns relative equality in terms of numbers and proportions of women and men, girls and boys, and is often calculated as the ratio of female-to-male values for a given indicator.

What is an example of gender parity? ›

For example, if there are equal number of girls and boys who completed primary education in a specific country, the gender parity ratio for that indicator is one. The greater the difference between girls and boys, the lower is the gender parity value.

Which sport is removed from the 2024 Olympics? ›

Baseball and softball were postponed from the Summer Olympics to the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics — despite both being removed from the 2024 Paris Olympics.

What is the symbol of 2024 Olympics? ›

The official mascot of the Paris Games — the Olympic Phryge — is a nod to a historic piece of clothing in France. You may be wondering what the mascot is that you've seen during NBC's coverage of the 2024 Paris Olympics. They are little animated hats -- Phrygian caps to be precise.

Will the Olympics still be in 2024? ›

The 2024 Summer Olympics, officially the Games of the XXXIII Olympiad and officially branded as Paris 2024, is an international multi-sport event taking place from 24 July to 11 August 2024 in France, with the opening ceremony having taken place on 26 July.

Why does the Olympics give out condoms? ›

Providing condoms at the Olympics has been a tradition since the 1988 Seoul Olympics, as an effort to raise awareness for HIV and AIDS, according to CBS Sports.

Which sports are gender neutral in Olympics? ›

In an historic milestone, the Paris 2024 Olympics has achieved gender equality on the field of play – but there are no gender diverse athletes competing at the Games. Associate Professor Seema Patel, gender discrimination in sport expert at Nottingham Law School, explores the complex issue of inclusion.

Can intersex people compete in the Olympics? ›

The 1932 Summer Olympics was the first instance of an athlete now known to be intersex competing, also winning a medal. 7 have won a medal (43.75% of intersex athletes), with 3 winning at least one gold (18.75% of intersex athletes). The majority of intersex Olympians have competed in athletics, generally running.

What sport has the most gender inequality? ›

The gender pay gap in sports exemplifies profound disparities, notably in soccer and basketball, where men's earnings far surpass those of women.

Has a woman ever beaten a man in any sport? ›

Dame Ellen MacArthur Sets Sailing World Record

She took the record from Francis Joyon, a French sailor, beating him by 1 day, 8 hours, 35 minutes and 49 seconds.

Why are the Olympics separated by gender? ›

Female athletes were excluded from the first modern Olympic Games in 1896 because its founder, Pierre de Coubertin, felt their participation would be inappropriate. “No matter how toughened a sportswoman may be, her organism is not cut out to sustain certain shocks,” the French educator and historian said then.

What does parity mean in sports? ›

When people talk about parity in a football league, for example, they mean the teams are evenly matched. Go, evenly matched team, go! Parity comes from the same Latin root as pair, which is par, for “equal.” Parity is an equal amount of something, or an equal rank or skill level between people or teams.

What is gender salary parity? ›

The gender pay gap – the difference between the earnings of men and women – has barely closed in the United States in the past two decades. In 2022, American women typically earned 82 cents for every dollar earned by men.

What is gender parity score? ›

The gender parity index = 1 indicates the parity/equality between females and males. A value of less than 1 generally indicates a disparity in favor of boys/men, while a value greater than 1 indicates disparity in favor of girls/women. Domain: Gender.

Are Special Olympics separated by gender? ›

ABOUT SPECIAL OLYMPICS DIVISIONING

Special Olympics calls this competition-level matching “divisioning.” It's a fundamental rule at Special Olympics that athletes in competitions are matched up with others of the same gender, about the same age and most importantly, of about the same competitive ability.

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