Women's sports leadership as a catalyst for social change

Social Change Through Women's Sports

Promoting Social Change Through Women's Sports Leadership

The problems that cry out for social change solutions

No one who is intelligent, literate, and who is paying attention could avoid the fact that much of the world today is in need of fresh and creative ways to resolve cultural and social conflicts and to build better communities where families feel safe and futures seem secure. War, bloodshed, racial rage, and mindless military carnage -- in addition to the disturbing, ongoing violence against women -- make up too much of the front pages of daily newspapers. Dramatic social changes are desperately needed, and the plans for those changes have yet to be drawn up by present political leadership in the United States and elsewhere.

Over the first week in October, for example: suicide bombers killed 19 innocent tourists in Bali; car bomb blasts killed numerous citizens and soldiers in Iraq; 6 Hispanic immigrants were murdered in Georgia; two African-Americans were shot to death by a Mexican store owner in Los Angeles, to name a handful of incidents.

Meanwhile, actress Jennifer Lopez is starring in a movie now being filmed about the unsolved murders of over 400 women and girls in Cuidad Juarez, Mexico. Lopez' star power, fortunately, helps shed light on the hideous 13-year legacy of blood-letting against women in that Mexican community, which has been largely ignored by an American news media seemingly obsessed with the kidnappings of attractive young, mostly white American females.

Moreover, on the subject of women as victims, Amnesty International has released a report asserting that one out of every three women in the world "has been beaten, coerced into sex, or otherwise abused in her lifetime" (Khan, 2004) ("It's In Our Hands: Stop Violence Against Women" www.amnesty.org). The report further asserts that: a) more than 60 million women "are missing" due to "sex-selective" abortions, and "infanticide" (notably carried out in China, where baby boys are allowed to live and baby girls are killed); b) "domestic violence" is the major cause of death and disability for women ages 14-44 in Europe; c) Russian government officials estimate that "1,400 women were killed by partners or relatives in 1999" yet no law exists in Russia addressing domestic violence; d) the World Health Organization (WHO) reports that "up to 70% of female murder victims are killed by their male partners"; e) in the U.S., "women accounted for 85% of the victims of violence in 1999."

In addition to those data, Amnesty International also reports that women in the Middle East and Asia "are killed in the name of honor"; women and girls in West Africa "undergo genital mutilation in the name of custom"; young girls in southern Africa "are raped and infected with HIV / AIDS because their perpetrators believe that sex with virgins will cure them of their disease."

And the problem goes beyond violence against women and against cultures. The problem is intimately associated with cycles of poverty, poor health, and a lack of education. Further, and importantly, the problem in Western culture is associated with popular personalities in the media -- in movies, television, magazines, books, the Internet -- and in the media's own marketing machines, which tend to promote roles, attitudes and customs that define women as physically desirable but not intellectually, morally or physically capable. Sex sells; and unfortunately, women are placed into unfair, untrue stereotypes that are promoted by advertisers and marketers.

The bottom line in this introduction is, women need to be empowered to generate a more positive future for themselves, their children, and their children's children, in addition to helping those women and children throughout the world who are unable to help themselves.

Title IX: What women can accomplish in sports if given empowerment opportunities

One of the topics on the agenda for the Kennesaw State University -- which is held in cooperation with the United States Olympic Committee (USOC) -- is Title IX, and its impact on women in sports and in society.

Indeed, thanks to Title IX in 1972, American women and girls began to partake in amateur, interscholastic sporting activities at a level equal or close to equal in comparison to men's sports. And, the bottom line is that women made the most of it. Indeed, when females in college and high school were not only "allowed" to but encouraged to shine on the field of play because Title IX opened the door -- whether in basketball, softball, tennis, gymnastics, soccer or other sports of their choice -- they produced, they profited physically and socially, and they played with tremendous pride. The facts are available for all to see.

Title IX has had a profound impact on the American athletic culture since it was included in the Educational Amendments of 1972. In fact, according to the "Save Title IX" group (www.savetitleix.com/coalition), an alliance of sixty organizations spearheaded by the National Coalition for Women and Girls in Education (NCWGE), in 1971 there were 32,000 women in varsity / intercollegiate sports in U.S., colleges and universities; but by 1997, thanks to Title IX, there were 160,000 women participating in interscholastic athletics on university and college campuses.

On high school campuses, according to NCWGE data, the rate of growth of girls playing sports was even more dramatic. When athletically inclined girls know that that they will be able to participate in intercollegiate sports in college, they participate in high school sports in droves. To wit, in 1971, the year prior to Title IX, there were 294,000 girls playing interscholastic sports, and by the 2002-2003 school year, over 2.8 million high school girls were playing interscholastic sports.

Meantime, studies show that high school girls playing sports on a school team is a very good thing for the girls, according to an article in the Journal of Gender, Social Policy & The Law (Brake, 2004): "Studies show that girls who compete in sports not only receive a physical benefit, but also benefit academically and socially," Brake explains. Girls playing sports have "higher self-esteem, less risk of depression," less likelihood of "engaging in high-risk behaviors," and also, those young women "perform better in school than girls who do not play sports," Blake's article continues.

Moreover, engaging in vigorous athletic activities on a sports team -- at the interscholastic and intercollegiate levels -- gives girls and women "the opportunity to develop new relationships with their bodies, as a source of strength and learning," Brake adds.

According to the Women's Sports Foundation (WSF) -- created by tennis great Billy Jean King in 1974 -- groups advocating vigorously for full implementation of Title IX account for that fact that high school girls were playing sports at a ratio of 1 to 2.5 by the year 2002. In 1972, the ratio was 1 girl out of 27 high school girls playing sports. Clearly, women, girls, and advocates for feminine betterment through athletics have seized opportunities and gained momentum through those opportunities.

Granted, enormous progress has been made for girls and women, but, if the United States is to be placed in a position of global leadership regarding women's empowerment, the down-side of women's opportunities in American should be brought to light as well. For example, WSF points out (www.gogirlgo.com) that males have "30% more college sports participation than females," and also that males receive " ... $133 million more in athletic scholarship funds each year" than females do.

In the professional sporting ranks, WSF asserts that female tennis players receive 37 cents for every dollar a professional male tennis players is paid for their efforts. Also, women's sport receives " ... only 8% of all print and television sports media coverage," which is just a notch up from what "horses, dogs and fishing" receives in coverage. Moreover, in terms of coaching opportunities, women only represent some 44% of all collegiate women's sports teams, and women only coach 2% of men's sports teams. So, men coach 56% of women's teams, but women only coach 2% of men's teams. Plus, women only hold 16% of athletic director's positions in American colleges and universities.

The WSF, meantime, has been very influential, receiving the International Olympic Committee's highest award -- the "Women and Sport Trophy" -- in 2001. That was the very first time the award has been given out.

And, back to Title IX, given the overall successful reality of Title IX, what if women were empowered on a global level to become sporting role models for all girls within their cultures, to help young females grow in self-esteem and reach their economic potential?

Australian Sports Commission is funding women's leadership in sports programs

The government of Australia, through the Australian Sports Commission (ASC), is taking action that could provide a leadership example for governments on a global basis. The ASC announced on September 5, 2005 (Howes, 2005) that $400,000 in funding is presently available "to women across the country to pursue leadership opportunities in sport."

The ASC is "committed to providing opportunities and improving the participation of women in leadership roles in sport." What that means, in summary, is that more women will have a chance to pursue training that will open doors to coaching, officiating, governance and management in sports programs. These grants are available in five areas: "high performance coaching and officiating; Indigenous women; women in disability sport; women from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds; and women in general sport leadership."

Granted, the amount of money available in Australia due to this new program -- $400,000 -- is paltry compared with the scholarships that the Women's Sports Foundation in the United States. For example, the WSF grants $10,000 to $20,000 every week of the year to "girls and women's sports programs, researchers, student-athletes and leaders in women's sports." And in total, more than $372 million is granted to women in scholarships annually; still, the gesture on the part of the Australian government shows that political leaders see the value in providing women's sports with the potential to develop strong leaders.

The International Year of Sport and Physical Education

Among the speakers who will energize participants at the Kennesaw conference is Adolf Ogi, the former president of Switzerland, and currently Special Advisor to the UN Secretary General on Sport for Development and Peace. Ogi sees sport as "a tool for peace," as a way to "promote health," a "contribution to development" and as "a channel of communication." He also sees, of course, a link between the international promoting of sports and fair play and the UN's Millennium Development Goals (MDG): combating hunger, illiteracy, poverty, child mortality, environmental degradation and gender inequality.

On the subject of gender injustice and inequality, Ogi points out (Ogi, 2005) in the UN Chronicle, that young girls and women are "bought and sold [as slaves] by organized crime rings" in a "multi-billion-dollar sex industry." More than 14 million children are orphaned by HIV / AIDS, he continues, and of the 121 million children who "are denied education worldwide," an estimated 65 million are girls.

All these dark statistics notwithstanding, Ogi believes that "... one should look for opportunity in adversity." And, further, he asserts that by training female coaches to go into struggling communities around the world to show -- and teach -- the values linked to spirited sporting experiences, life can be made better for the socially challenged and the children who now are clearly underdogs in the game of life.

South African girls and women are victims of cruelty and sexual abuse

One places in the world where there is certainly " ... opportunity in adversity," and where there is a desperate need for the idealism and energy of the UN-led women's leadership in sports program is South Africa. According to a Bulletin of the World Health Organization (Christofides, et al., 2005), there were 52,425 cases of rape reported in the years 2002-2003. Those data are probably far less than that actual number of girls and women who were raped during that period of time -- due to "documented under-reporting" -- and yet they reflect at least 115 reported rapes per 100,000 females in the South African population.

When that ratio is compared with reported rapes in the United States (31.8 per 100,000 women) or Brazil (8.5 per 100,000 women) during that same time frame, the seriousness of the problem becomes blatantly obvious. Meanwhile, exacerbating the problem of rape in South Africa is the lack of adequate "gender-sensitive health care for rape survivors" in that nation, according to the article. Indeed, an investigation by Human Rights Watch (HRW) revealed that "there was little incentive for district surgeons to 'do a good job'" in caring for rape victims.

The health care system in South Africa, in terms of the needs of girls and women who had been brutally raped, was "deeply flawed with problems of inaccessibility, prejudice and lack of training at all levels," the HRW reported. Indeed, some doctors had been given credentials for services " ... without taking account of the necessity for formal training ... To provide evidence of competence." Many "doctors," the report concluded, were simply "ill equipped and reluctant to conduct examinations of rape survivors."

Given the traumatic situation a girl or woman goes through during and after being raped, it is unconscionable to expect that victim to wait up to five hours for health care, and after that wait be confronted with the fact that her care provider is neither willing or qualified.

The challenging social position of Afghan women and how sports could help

Afghanistan is one of the "remote" areas of the world where sports and women's leadership in sports -- going along with the UN goals, and the thrust of the Kennesaw conference -- could become instrumental in empowering girls and women to initiate social change in their communities. First, prior to pointing out the needs of females in Afghanistan, a bit of background into recent political and social history will be instructive.

After the United States was attacked by Islamic extremists / terrorists on September 11, 2001, it was only a matter of time before American firepower would be fully engaged in rooting out the ruling Taliban group in Afghanistan. The reason for attacking the Taliban was twofold, according to the U.S. government. For one, the Taliban had allowed Osama bin Laden to use Afghanistan as a training ground for his terrorism activities, which led to the attacks on the U.S. And two, as First Lady Laura Bush stated on November 1, 2001, Afghani women had suffered " ... brutal oppression" and the lives of Afghani women and children were being made "miserable" (Zalman, 2004) under the rule of the Taliban. Hence, the removal of the Taliban from power "would mean the liberation of Afghan women," Zalman wrote in the Wilson Quarterly. And so, attacking the Taliban wasn't just about finding and killing bin Laden and ruining his training grounds, it was about liberating Muslim women in Afghanistan.

In a few months following September 11, 2001, the U.S. did launch attacks against the Taliban, and appeared to win the war against the Islamic fundamentalists quite handily. However, two years after Taliban leadership were apparently expelled and/or killed, and the U.S. had aided in the formation of an "Islamic democracy" in Afghanistan, the Human Rights Watch reported that in parts of Afghanistan, "girls and boys would no longer be permitted to go to school together." This meant, according to the article written by Amy Zalman -- who received her Ph.D. In modern Arab cultural politics in June, 2003 -- that "because most teachers are men," girls would be shut out of an education."

Another repressive result of the "Islamic democracy" in Afghanistan meant that a girl seen in public with a boy "might be taken against their will to a hospital to check for her 'chastity'." And since, according to Zalman, "Islam is the prism through which human rights are articulated in Afghanistan," it is "crucial for women that their rights to education, work, and free chosen marriages be articulated in its terms." Some "ninety-five percent of Afghan women are Muslims, and their faith is extremely important to them," Zalman quotes Masuda Sultan (spokesperson for Women for Afghan Women) as saying. Meanwhile, despite promises to the contrary, Afghan leaders either cannot -- because the Taliban has re-emerged in positions of power in Southern and Eastern parts of the country -- or will not guarantee fairness and equality for women.

That having been said, it would seem reasonable that bringing teams of coaches and players for exhibitions to be presented in non-hostile areas of Afghanistan would meet the goals of the UN and of the Kennesaw conference. "Gender inequality" is one of those aforementioned goals that could be addressed in Afghanistan; "social and cultural development," "empowering women," bringing "different communities together" and enhancing "social and moral inclusion for marginalized populations" are several others that most assuredly apply.

Women in Islam: human rights, civil rights, justice and economic fairness are elusive...

A report funded by the United Nations -- called the Arab Human Development Report -- was published in July, 2002, and it " ... came as a rude surprise" to some more moderate Middle East nations, according to an article in the Wilson Quarterly (Esfandiari, 2004). The results of the report indicate that several Islamic / Muslim nations would be prime candidates for advocacy sports presentations featuring the kinds of talent and values that are being put together at Kennesaw's conference. Why? Because "the Middle East lags far behind in making progress on gender issues, human rights, and good governance," the report charges.

Was the report written a group of western scholars from non-Arab points-of-view? No. "A group of prominent Arab intellectuals and experts" compiled the report, and blamed "the Arabs themselves, rather than colonialism and other external factors, for the failures of the Arab world," Esfandiari writes.

The report studied economic, civil, cultural and political development in twenty-two Middle East countries, which represent over 300 million people. Three major areas of "deficit in the Arab world" include "freedom, women's empowerment, and knowledge." As for women, the authors of the report state that, "Sadly, the Arab World is largely depriving itself of the creativity and productivity of half its citizens." On paper, the report continues, boys and girls have equal educational opportunities in all 22 countries. In reality, however, most countries practice "segregated" secondary education.

Another report, "Gender and Development in the Middle East and North Africa: Women in the Public Sphere," was produced by the World Bank, and reports that "half of all Arab women" cannot read or write, according to the Esfandiari article. Further embarrassing to progressives in Muslim nations is the fact that "... The rate of female integration into the labor market 'remains the lowest in the world'." That situation is the result of the fact that "restrictive family law" creates a culture that "sees man as families' sole breadwinner."

In fairness, both reports do indicate that education opportunities have opened up for women, but governments have been "timid in addressing obstacles embedded in family law." And moreover, looking beyond the two reports, the national constitutions of Middle East nations "generally guarantee equality under the law for both men and women." Rarely, however, "is this promise realized," according to Esfandiari's article.

In four of the 22 nations, women cannot vote (Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait, and the UAE). And women currently claim "only 3.5% of the seats in Arab parliaments." In most of the 22 countries, women "need the permission of the male member of the family to seek education and employment." They have no right to divorce, and they lose custody of their children when their husbands divorce them."

In some of the 22 nations, because "family law" is based on "the sharia" in the Koran, "girls as young as nine can be married at the whim of their fathers ... And in many places "women can be killed for bringing 'shame' on the family, stoned for adultery, and flogged for showing a bit of hair."

Does the Middle East seem ripe for some women's leadership through sports and empowerment? Most assuredly. Will the UN's program be allowed into Islamic nations, which in many cases see America and the West in general as "infidels" and "occupiers of Iraq"? That remains to be seen.

But, when looking at the population statistics in some Muslim nations, one can see that the number of girls is very significant. And, matched with unfair gender practices in some of those nations, it is clear that the UN initiative (talented, community-friendly female coaches training young girls to be coaches in their own towns, and training them in practical ways of empowerment) will be pivotal to the needs of girls and women.

For example, in Oman, girls from ages 0-14 make up 20.8% of the population. While the total number of women in Oman is only 44.1%, one-fifth of Oman's citizens is made up of girls 14 years of age and younger. There are enormous challenges facing those girls as they come of age and challenge some of the old values that have traditionally prevented females from full participation in society. In Saudi Arabia, 18.8% of the population is girls up to the age of 14; in Yemen, the percentage of the population made up of girls 14 and under is 22.9.

In Syria, the percentage of girls 14 and under is 18.4; in Jordan, the percentage is 17.2, and in Libya it is 16.7.

Conclusion

The future may not be a positive one for millions of young women and young men in Muslim nations -- and indeed, in nations all over the world -- unless, of course, there are programs provided for them that offer the hope, the training, and the tools, to make the world they will inherit a better place. The UN program is just one small step, if one looks at the big picture, and gives sincere, intelligent thought to the millions of girls and boys who need to be helped out of poverty and hopelessness. But bringing women together as coaches to lead teams and entertain while inspiring a whole generation of girls, boys, and adults in need, is a vital step.

And the first step is a very critical step when such a dramatic need for change is so very obvious in this world of struggling humanity.