Rebeca Cristina Cassiano dos Anjos from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, started swimming when she was four years old. However, staying in sport was a struggle.
“It’s a daily struggle against prejudice, sexism, lack of sponsorship and encouragement,” says Rebeca, now 19.
Photo: UN Women/Rossana Fraga
She is among a cohort of 15 young women from Brazil and another 30 from Argentina who recently completed a sport programme sponsored by UN Women and the International Olympic Committee (IOC). Under the “OWLA Participate” initiative, they expanded their communications and advocacy skills, and met with several high-profile decision-makers in the sport ecosystem to raise key challenges and propose strategies to expand girls’ and women’s access to sport.
The initiative builds upon the strong legacy of the One Win Leads to Another (OWLA) programme, which enhanced leadership skills of 2,000 girls and young women in Brazil and 1,200 in Argentina through sport.
The benefits of participation in sport for girls and women are many, yet the barriers to safe access to sport and leadership opportunities persist.
Barriers to girls’ and women’s participation in sport
Sport teaches girls the skills they need to advance in life. Girls who play sports develop self-esteem, confidence, resilience, and learn to work in teams. They tend to stay in school longer, delay pregnancy, and get better jobs. Eighty per cent of female Fortune 500 CEOs played sports in their formative years.
Yet, by the age of 14, girls drop out of sports at twice the rate of boys because of social norms and expectations and the lack of safe spaces and investment in sport programmes for girls.
“Inequalities start from childhood,” said Rebeca. “Girls are given dolls and kitchen utensils and expected to learn how to devote themselves to their home and family, while boys are given footballs and enrolled in football programmes.”
“As the years go by, we realize that even though we girls work much harder than the boys, we can’t even get close to sponsorship in sport.”
Eighteen-year-old Maria Luiza Oliveira Coelho, also from Rio, and a participant of OWLA Participate, agrees with Rebeca.
She points to the “lack of safe spaces for practicing sport and the care and domestic work that takes up a significant amount of time for girls and women and [as a result] they have less time to devote to sport. Due to sexist views, they have less support and investment to enter or remain in the sporting world.”
Maria also shared that discrimination and sexist attitudes are sometimes evident in the way coaches treat their students.
Photo: UN Women/Rossana Fraga
How media representation affects girls and women in sport
For the first time in history, the Paris Olympics will see an equal number of men and women athletes competing, and there is growing attention to women’s sport. Around 35 female commentators have been hired by the Olympic Broadcasting Services for Paris 2024 – that’s a nearly 80 per cent increase compared to Tokyo Olympics in 2021. The data shows that seven out of 10 people now watch women’s sports, yet women’s sport has an average share of just 16 per cent of sport media coverage as of 2022.
Seeing more women play, and better representation of women in sport and in sports media matter to girls like Rebeca and Maria and countless others.
“Media representation influences us a lot,” said Rebeca. “When we see ourselves on TV competing in the Olympics and playing in World Cups, we feel represented and the dream (…) to get there becomes real.”
For Maria, seeing female players, like the Brazilian football player, Marta Vieira da Silva, who is UN Women’s Goodwill Ambassador for women and girls in sport, fight for gender equality in sport is a source of inspiration.
Girls and women need and want to see more female role models in the sport ecosystem, including in leadership roles. They also need encouragement and enabling support to stay in sport.
“My mother and my swimming teacher always encouraged me,” said Rebeca. “Their support made all the difference. When this support doesn’t [come], feelings of helplessness often become greater than the dream itself, because often, girls not only lack encouragement, but they are also actively discouraged [from pursuing a career in sport].”
‘No more barriers and prejudices, girls have safe spaces and support to play’
The number of sponsorship deals in women’s professional sports has increased more than 22 per cent year on year, according to Sports United’s latest data. Despite these gains, major gaps remain. Women athletes continue to struggle with fewer professional opportunities, a massive pay gap, fewer sponsorships, less airtime, and unequal playing conditions.
Over a period of two months, with support of local NGO Empodera, the participants of OWLA Participate in Rio learned communication and advocacy skills, shared experiences, learned about the current laws to advance girls’ and women’s participation in sport, and met with key decision-makers in the government and sports ecosystem, including representatives from the Brazilian Olympic Committee, the Municipal Secretariat for Women’s Policies and Promotion in Rio (SPM-Rio), the Municipal Secretariat for Sport and Leisure (SMEL), the Ministry of Women, and the Ministry of Sport.
They identified three main challenges: low representation of women in sport management positions, lack of safe spaces for girls and women in sport, and racism.
Brazil’s sports law stipulates that organizations that receive money from the sports lottery must have 30 per cent women in leadership positions, however, only 2.7 per cent of management positions in Brazilian football clubs are held by women.
The participants stressed on the importance of creating physically and emotionally safe spaces for girls to access and remain in sport through safe sport projects in Olympic Villages and other public facilities.
“The lack of safe spaces where we can practice sport even as leisure, contributes to the high rate of sedentary lifestyles among girls in Brazil, and racial [discrimination] makes it even worse,” explained Maria.
In 2022, at least 111 cases of racial offences were recorded in Brazilian football.
The proposals made by the girls called upon sport organizations to create awareness-raising and educational campaigns to tackle racism in sport.
“The girls focused on these problems and solutions because they felt these were among the most urgent priorities based on what they have experienced first-hand. Turns out that their proposals also align with UN Women’s Sport for Generation Equality Principles, which outline measures for advancing gender equality in and through sport,” said Ana Carolina Querino, Acting Representative of UN Women Brazil. “It’s time to finally break the pattern of gender inequality and demand investment, equal opportunities, more visibility for women’s sports, and an end to harassment and abuse.”
During the 2024 Olympic Games, UN Women will reiterate its call to members of the global sport ecosystem to become partners in accelerating progress for women and girls, in and through sport. By joining the Sport for Generation Equality principles, organizations and decision-makers can level the playing field for girls and women everywhere, deliver on the Sustainable Development Agenda and fulfill the vision of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action – the internationally agreed blueprint on women’s rights, which will mark its 30th year in 2025.
