Print
ShareGender Equity in Athletics and Sports
Women in the Olympics
On The Road to Equality in London 2012
Besides the discrimination women and girls face in high school and college, amateur sports are also biased against women.
The Amateur Sports Act, passed in 1978, requires the United States Olympic Committee and its National Governing Bodies to operate in a nondiscriminatory manner for each sport. However, years after this federal law was passed the governing bodies of the United States Olympic Committee (USOC) are still overwhelmingly male. Out of the USOC's 11-member Board of Directors, including the chairman of the USOC, only three are women. The USOC's 58-member Executive Committee has 21 female members. Meanwhile, the 135-member International Olympic Committee (IOC) has 15 female members.
In order to increase the number of women participating, IOC President Jacques Rogge has mandated the committee to find ways to increase the number of female athletes. In March 2008, during the fourth International Olympic Committee conference on women and sports, 600 participants endorsed the Dead Sea Plan of Action. The plan calls for gender equality in national teams, leadership and technicians, as well as encouraging female sports reporters to actively cover events.
With these continuing efforts, for the first time it appears that the London games in 2012 will have an equal number of men and women athletes competing. In the recent 2008 Olympics in Beijing women made up 42 percent of the 11,196 athletes who competed in the game.
Despite these numerous accomplishments, there are still many things to be done. Many Muslim countries still frown upon female athletes competing in public for "cultural and religious reasons..Countries such as Saudi Arabia and Brunei prevent women from playing any sports at all. Others including Qatar and Kuwait sent only male athletes to Beijing to increase their competitive chances for the games. However, some Muslim countries are slowly warming up to the idea of women competing on the world stage. The United Arab Emirates and Oman sent their first female athletes to Beijng in 2008. Tunisia, the Muslim leader in women's participation, had women competing in eight events. And in the biggest landmark for Muslim female athletes, Nawal El Moutawakel from Morocco was elected to the International Olympic Committee Executive Board, becoming the highest-ranking woman in the Olympic movement and the first Muslim female on the powerful committee.
