Women in sport – know your role

Larry Nassar’s 300-year jail sentence works out at roughly one year per victim.

If you don’t know the story, the short version doesn’t do it justice. Nonetheless, former USA Gymnastics doctor, Nassar, was jailed in 2018 for sexually abusing hundreds of young athletes, many underage, over two decades as a practitioner.

Despite apologies and a £165m compensation plan, USA Gymnastics remains thoroughly toxic. Victims have accused the institution of everything from wilful ignorance to cover-ups during Nassar’s tenure. The organisation is yet to give a satisfying account of its (in)actions.

No surprise then that Simone Biles, a US gymnast and a four-time gold medallist at Rio 2016, this week shut down any prospect of allowing her daughters anywhere near USA Gymnastics in future. “We bring them medals,” Biles said. “We do our part. And they haven’t assured us that it’s never going to happen again.”

Isolated incident?

At first glance, there’s a microscopic amount of comfort in the fact that this story is contained to one sport and one institution in one country. And that the perpetrator is behind bars. But you know where this is heading …

Just two months ago, in December 2020, a group of British athletes and campaigners established Gymnasts for Change in the wake of allegations about abusive coaching and institutionalised mistreatment in the sport.

A telephone hotline set-up by British Athletes Commission and the NSPCC to record accusations of abuse in UK Gymnastics took more than 20 calls per week in its first month.

Last week, several Olympians joined a 350-strong group calling on UK Athletics to issue lifetime bans for coaches found guilty of abuse. The current policy sees cases dealt with ‘on an individual basis’.

The heavyweight group, which includes Marilyn Okoro, Helen Clitheroe, Laura Weightman and Beth Potter, wants to bring an end to short-term bans and fines and see permanent expulsion for coaches found guilty in cases of “physical or sexual misconduct, harassment or abuse.”

On one hand, it’s hugely positive that athletes are banding together for change. On the other, it’s shocking they have to. In 2021 official policy still states that some abusive coaches can re-join the ranks after merely serving some time.

The scale of the problem

In 2017, following widespread child sexual abuse in the academies of professional football clubs, national coaches in several British sports, from bobsleigh to swimming, cycling and canoeing, were under investigation for bullying, sexual assault and racism.

At the same time, UK women’s football was marred in a slew of individual scandals, made worse by claims being dismissed at the highest levels as “fluff”.

In late 2018, a study commissioned by the International Working Group on Women and Sport (IWG), found that more than a third (37%) of organisations surveyed hadn’t taken any action whatsoever to ‘prevent gender-based violence in sport’ since 2013 – when the topic was last researched.

Of that one third, 50% said they either ‘hadn’t considered’ taking action, or that the topic ‘wasn’t relevant’ to them. On its face the latter’s hard to imagine with or without the inevitable under-reporting that comes with the territory.

The trickle-down effect

The above serves as depressing reading. In the UK, it’s not hard to research abuse and mistreatment – in any sport – and uncover examples. This isn’t a UK thing, it’s other geographies too. Here’s Germany.

We can really only guess at the volume of abuses and perhaps micro-abuses that don’t make it to the authorities, headlines or research papers. And unfortunately, the damage caused by mistreatment in sport doesn’t last for only the duration of a court case. The damage is national.

Any instance of mistreatment – ranging from the unimaginable to more subtle instances of entrenched gender bias – has a trickle-down effect. At The Well, we know scores of examples of women who’ve experienced in sport the kind of bias or mistreatment that, like Simone Biles, would discourage them from sending sons and daughters down the same path.

Experiences carry forward and impact participation for years to come. That hurts all of us.

Solutions in motion

It’d be defeatist to focus on the bad and label the whole thing a lost cause. It’s not. We use examples mostly from 2017-2018 because that timeframe seemed to mark a tide-change.

Recent calls for more meaningful punishments for those who subvert that goal and abuse positions of power point at progress which parallels female sport’s rising star in the media and the mainstream.

The last UK Sport survey showed a clear reduction in instances of athletes witnessing or experiencing “unacceptable behaviour” and athletes are now more likely than in 2017 to report abuses.

Of course there’s work to do. In 2019 just 22% of survey respondents who reported abuse said their complaints were “dealt with satisfactorily.” Double that (43%) said they didn’t know if their complaints were adequately dealt with or not.

But momentum is on-side. The sport and physical activity sectors are making more noise about driving up standards in care and people-development. In this, improving the female experience is a stated objective.

Sport England and the Chartered Institute for the Management of Sport and Physical Activity have moved towards more inclusive recruitment. The Women’s Sport Trust was established in 2012, dedicated to “Making women’s sport visible, viable and unstoppable.” High-profile campaigns such as #ThisGirlCan and #WeAreUndefeatable have given these issues visibility.

There’s grassroots action in play too. Girls’ Rugby Club has tabled an idea for a specific coaching qualification for working with young women. For parents and athletes, that’s peace-of-mind that coaches are vetted to a new standard. This kind of uprising speaks to a new sense of empowerment.

Knowing our role

To truly make sport a safe space, the solutions are simple … but not easy. We’re fighting against legacy biases and patterns of conduct that, in some cases and contexts, run deep.

Women’s role in competitive sport is, on one level, pretty simple. We’re here to perform, develop and win. As Simone Biles said up top: women want to win medals and it’s institutions’ job to facilitate that with care and pride.

So the remedy really does start in setting the bar for what’s right and wrong. In empowering women of all ages to know their role and speak up. Now, not later. It’s in enshrining zero-tolerance for abuses; no matter your age and stage.

Much of this begins in women having more confidence, autonomy and power over their bodies. In having a vocabulary and being unafraid to use it. It’s continuing to carve out and keep our rightful place in sport …

Not as second-class citizens, eye-candy or prey, but as athletes, professionals, champions and flag-bearers. In sport and beyond.