Women in the Olympic and Paralympic Movements: Framing, Bureaucracy, and Advocacy in Periods of Change
Madeleine Pape Department of Sociology University of Wisconsin-Madison, United States of America [email protected]
Final report for the IOC Olympic Studies Centre PhD Students Research Grant Programme 2016 Award
March 2017
CONTENTS
Abstract ………………………………………………………….….… 3 Keywords ………………………………………………………..….… 3 Executive Summary ………………………………………………… 4 Research Report …………………………………………………….. 5 Introduction ……………………………………………….…… 5 Research Objectives …………………………………..…...… 7 Academic Significance …………………………………..…… 7 Impact on the Olympic Movement …………………….….… 8 Methodology …………………………………………………... 9 Findings ………………………………………………………... 11 Part I: The IOC and Women in the Olympic Movement ...... 11 Framing: Embodying Gender Equality, Leading with Best Practices …………………………………………. 11 Reconfiguring a Gendered Olympic Bureaucracy … 18 Advocates for Women’s Olympic Participation ……. 27 Part II: The IPC and Women in the Paralympic Movement 31 Framing: Gender and Elitism in the Paralympic Movement ……………………………………………... 31 Reconfiguring A Gendered Paralympic Bureaucracy 37 Advocates for Women’s Paralympic Participation … 43 Conclusion …………………………..………………………..……… 45 References …………………………..…………………..…………… 46 Appendices …………………………..……………….……...………. 49
2
ABSTRACT
The participation of women as athletes and leaders in the Olympic and Paralympic Movements is characterized by varying degrees of representation. In this historical, comparative, and sociological study I examine why this is the case. Drawing on archival material collected at three sites and interviews with past and present leaders and employees in the two Movements, I consider the role of the peak governing bodies – the International Olympic Committee and International Paralympic Committee – in shaping trajectories of women’s participation as athletes and leaders. Taking gender as embedded in the discourses, practices, actions and relationships that comprise organizations, I find key differences across the two Movements in terms of how the two forms of women’s participation were situated and addressed. In the Olympic Movement, women’s representation among Movement leaders was depoliticized relative to their participation as athletes, which in turn shaped the framing, bureaucratic location, and advocacy of the issue. While similar patterns were visible in the Paralympic Movement, women’s participation here was further shaped by the presence of disability as an axis of difference that stratifies sport and produces additional barriers for women, particularly athletes, but with implications for leadership as well.
KEYWORDS
gender; sport; governance; bureaucracy; disability; organizations
3 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
This report compares the historical trajectories of women’s participation as athletes and leaders in the Olympic and Paralympic Movements. Through a historical, comparative, and sociological analysis of women’s participation in the two Movements, focused in particular on the actions of the IOC and IPC, I seek to provide explanations for why women’s representation among Olympic leaders continues to lag behind rates of women’s participation in Olympic sports, and to consider why these dynamics of representation and inclusion are different again in the Paralympic Movement. More broadly, this report contributes a new perspective to the literature on women’s representation in political and corporate leadership, extending academic understanding of the divergence between women’s base-level participation and their representation in positions of leadership and decision-making. In this report I draw primarily on archival materials held at the Olympic Studies Centre in Lausanne, Switzerland, the IPC Documentation Centre in Bonn, Germany, and the Stoke Mandeville Games collection in Aylesbury, United Kingdom (UK). In addition, I incorporate material from interviews with 14 individuals formerly or currently involved in the Olympic and Paralympic Movements. The time periods investigated in the present study are, loosely, 1967-1995 for the Olympic Movement, and 1980-2003 for the Paralympic Movement. These two periods represent eras of change in which the activities and actions of the IOC and IPC (and its predecessors) led to key actions and policies related to women’s participation as either athletes or leaders. Based on the above data and methods, I identify three areas where key differences arose: framing, bureaucracy, and advocacy. Under the theme of “framing” I address how women’s participation emerged as an organizational issue, including how it was framed in relation to the global gender equality and women’s movement. Under “bureaucracy” I consider how the rules and practices of the IOC and IPC developed over time and impacted the two forms of women’s participation. Finally, under advocacy I examine the role of key individuals and organizations, including IFs and female athletes themselves, in shaping how women’s participation developed over time. In sum, I find that across the Olympic and Paralympic Movements, women athletes and leaders were differently framed, differently situated relative to organizational rules and procedures, and advocated for by different groups and individuals. In the Olympic Movement, women’s leadership was depoliticized relative to women’s athletic participation, with the latter framed more strongly in terms of gender equality and anti-discrimination, addressed more explicitly through IOC rules and procedures, and supported through both grassroots and top-down collective advocacy. In the Paralympic Movement, the intersection of gender and disability led to specific bureaucratic and framing challenges for women, which were exacerbated by pressures on the Movement to professionalize. As a result, women’s leadership emerged as key to women’s greater athletic participation and to a much greater extent than in the Olympic Movement. Taken together, these historical insights provide explanations for the contemporary variation visible across these four forms of women’s participation and may inform policy and advocacy efforts to address remaining imbalances.
4 WOMEN IN THE OLYMPIC AND PARALYMPIC MOVEMENTS: FRAMING, BUREAUCRACY, AND ADVOCACY IN PERIODS OF CHANGE
INTRODUCTION
“It would seem that misogynism is endowed with longevity and a high ability to adapt itself to the circumstances. Having been beaten flat on the stadium, it has entrenched itself into another point of the front line, into a place less noisy and less spectacular. It has fled to the headquarters.” – Lia Manoliu, Varna Congress, 1973.
At the 2016 Rio Olympic Games, women for the first time represented over 45% of “able-bodied” athletes, signalling the progress made by the IOC and other organizations in the Olympic Movement towards achieving parity of participation among men and women (IOC, 2016). Yet amidst the celebrations, a glimpse of a more complex account of gender in international sport can be seen. In the Paralympic Games that followed, a considerably lower proportion of athletes were women.1 Men continue to dominate the governance of the Olympic and Paralympic Movements, with women comprising 23% of IOC and 20% of IPC members in 2015. Rather than gender parity, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) has been committed to the target of 20% for women’s participation in governance, which was only revised in 2016 to 30% and brought in line with the parallel target of the International Paralympic Committee (IPC). In short, women’s participation and representation in the Olympic and Paralympic Movements – as athletes and as leaders – has followed four distinct trajectories, each varying in its distance from gender parity. This project asks how this unevenness of women’s inclusion is the product of the particular histories of the Olympic and Paralympic Movements. Representing two separate yet related transnational institutional configurations, there are likely both similarities and differences in the gendered histories of these two movements, yet the two Movements have not yet been subjected to a historical and comparative gender analysis. Moreover, questions remain within each Movement about the systematic character of gender inequalities, how they express themselves at multiple organizational levels, and how have they have been contested and reconfigured over time. This project seeks to uncover the historical foundations for the four trajectories of women’s participation outlined above, and consider how these emerged historically through the actions and decisions of the peak governing bodies in each Movement, the IOC and IPC. Drawing on archival and interview material, this historical project builds on existing scholarship by bringing a sociological, comparative, and organizational perspective to the history of women’s inclusion in the Olympic and Paralympic Movements. Addressing the institutionalization of gender inequality within individual organizations requires attention to complex processes and sources of power and
1 At 38%, this was the highest proportion of women athletes seen at the Paralympic Games, improving on the 35% achieved in the previous Summer Games of 2012 (IPC, 2017).
5 inequality (Connell, 2005, 2009; Martin, 1994). As argued by Joan Acker (1990; 1992; 2000), gender relations are constructed in and through organizations in complex ways, operating at the levels of ideology, symbols, and organizational composition. In other words, an organization is gendered not only because of the way it differentially incorporates men and women, leading to horizontal and vertical gender segregation across organizational structures and hierarchies. More subtly, gender is also embedded in processes for decision- and rule-making, discourses employed to rationalize existing inequalities, gendered images of the ideal worker and leader, the use of gendered language and symbols, and the differential attribution of value to work characterized as feminine or masculine (see Britton, 2000). Feminist scholars have similarly turned to the concept of “bureaucracy” to describe the complex mechanisms that reproduce the gendered structures of organizations (Bird, 2011; Martin, 2013; Morimoto et al., 2013). These scholars have argued that bureaucracies are not a neutral organizational form and instead reflect and reproduce the gender relations found elsewhere in society (Miller and McTavish, 2014). Because of the historical association between bureaucracy and male dominance, some scholars have argued that bureaucratic organizations are inherently bad for women since they favor men and the characteristics associated with them, such as rationality and authority (Bird 2011; Ferguson, 1984; Ferree and Hess, 2000). At the very least, men are likely to be advantaged within bureaucratic organizations that were originally constructed by men, since the historical foundations of such organizations are difficult to build out entirely (see Duerst-Lahti and Kelly, 1995). Given the above insights, achieving gender equality requires more than simply recruiting women decision-makers and participants (athletes, voters, or employees): the power structures and processes that reward men and masculinity must also be transformed (Britton, 2000, 2010; Martin, 2003; Morimoto et al., 2013). Moreover, the complexity of gender as a system that structures organizations is such that its dynamics may vary across different levels and areas of an organization (Acker, 2000). In the case of leaders and athletes within the Olympic and Paralympic Movements, and within the policies and actions of the IOC and IPC in particular, different historical forces may have shaped the varying degrees of gender inequality observable today. Against this theoretical backdrop, I undertake a multi-level, comparative, and historical analysis of women’s participation in the Olympic and Paralympic Movements, demonstrating how the organizational and bureaucratic structures and practices of the two Movements, and of their lead governing bodies in particular, have contributed to different outcomes for women athletes and leaders. This report proceeds as follows. First, I outline the specific research objectives and questions guiding the project. Second, I address the project’s academic significance and its contributions to the Olympic Movement. After describing the project’s methodology, I present my empirical findings, grouped around three themes: framing, bureaucracy, and advocacy. By demonstrating how the four areas of women’s participation outlined above varied along these three thematic dimensions, this project uncovers not only how women’s athletic participation and leadership were differently politicized, but also why women faced distinct challenges within each of the Olympic and Paralympic Movements.
6
RESEARCH OBJECTIVES
This study aims to generate comparative historical insights about women’s inclusion in the Olympic and Paralympic Movements, and particularly at the level of the IOC and IPC, assessing the extent to which the challenges associated with including women as athletes and leaders are unique to each governing body or the product of shared organizational, social, and transnational factors. The following three research questions guide the study: (1) What are the historical origins of policies for women’s inclusion as athletes and leaders in the Olympic and Paralympic Movements? (2) How can differences in the participation rates of women as athletes and leaders be explained? In particular, how do ideological, political, organizational, and transnational factors differently shape women’s participation as athletes and leaders in the two Movements? (3) How does gender interact with disability to produce different gender dynamics in the two Movements? A key overarching objective of research project is to identify the historical factors that underpin contemporary gender dynamics within each Movement, in order to better understand why women’s representation among Olympic leaders continues to lag behind rates of women’s participation in Olympic sports, and to consider why these dynamics of representation and inclusion are different again in the Paralympic Movement. Ultimately, this paper aims to read these two global sporting bodies through one another, with the purpose of identifying where how their actions and strategies have been convergent or divergent, and considering what this then reveals about the character of women’s inclusion in international sport and the politics of gendered institutional change more broadly.
ACADEMIC SIGNIFICANCE
A growing body of scholarship within the field of sports studies concerns women’s participation beyond the sporting field (see Acosta and Carpenter, 2014; Adriaanse and Claringbould, 2016; Burton, 2015; Claringbould, 2008; Henry and Robinson, 2010; Pfister, 2006; White and Henry, 2004). In addition to the barriers posed by social expectations of women’s caregiving responsibilities, and the electoral practices of sports organizations, scholars have pointed to the role of gendered organizational characteristics in perpetuating the under-representation of women in sports leadership and administration (see Claringbould and Knoppers, 2012; Dixon and Bruening, 2007; Schull et al., 2013). This research project builds on and contributes to this scholarship in a number of ways. First, it compares women’s participation as athletes and leaders to consider why, in the context of international sport, these two forms of participation have unfolded in different ways. Second, it provides an in-depth comparison of two peak governing bodies in international sport in terms of their actions and policies for women’s inclusion as athletes and leaders, thus contributing detailed comparative
7 insights at the international level to existing scholarship. Third, the project adopts a historical approach, deepening existing knowledge of gender inequality in sports leadership and administration by documenting the historical trajectories of these dynamics. Indeed the role of historical factors is often overlooked and under-theorized within the organizational literature on women’s representation. Beyond sports scholarship, this project contributes to broader feminist concern with the under-representation of women in positions of decision-making power. The divergence between leadership and athletic participation for women in the Olympic and Paralympic Movements resembles broader international trends in women’s representation within both corporate organizations and state governance or elective office. As in Olympic sport where men preceded women on the sporting field, women have almost universally gained the right to vote later than men. Also resembling trends in the Olympic and Paralympic Movements, women’s representation in political and corporate leadership has lagged significantly behind their participation as voters or employees (see Deloitte, 2017; Inter-Parliamentary Union, 2017). This study contributes a new perspective to the literature on women’s representation in political and corporate leadership, taking the case of international sport as a means of extending academic understanding of the divergence between women’s base-level participation and their representation in positions of leadership and decision-making. This research project also extends existing scholarship on disability, a key axis of difference and inequality structuring contemporary societies that has often been overlooked by feminist and sport scholars (Erevelles, 2011). As stated by Ian Brittain, “paralympic and disability sport is a seriously under researched area with a dearth of academic material” (2009, p. 1). Like gender, “disability” is both a lived experience and a social process embedded within institutional structures and practices (Erevelles, 2011; Oliver, 1996). Because disability interacts with gender and other forms of inequality, the experiences of men and women with physical impairments can differ (Gerschick, 2000). Within the Paralympic Movement, female athletes have experienced particular forms of marginalization because of the interaction between social constructions of disability and the gendering of sport as a predominantly masculine practice (Brittain, 2009; Huang and Brittain, 2006). In this project I attend not only to gender but also to the role of disability in structuring international sport and, within it, women’s access to organizational power and participation opportunities.
IMPACT ON THE OLYMPIC MOVEMENT
This study contributes a historical and comparative perspective that can inform the Olympic Movement’s development and implementation of gender equality strategies. The Olympic Charter states the commitment of the IOC to “the principle of equality of men and women” (Olympic Charter, 2015, p. 18). Similarly, the Paralympic Charter states the IPC’s commitment to removing gender-based discrimination (IPC, 2003). Both the IOC and IPC have established a specific Commission or Committee charged with the task of advancing women’s inclusion, and both are key partners in the UN’s Sport for Development and Peace movement, which recognizes sport as a central means of achieving the Millennium Development Goal of gender equality (SDP IWG,
8 2008). By extending existing knowledge of the distinct challenges associated with integrating women as athletes and leaders, particularly through a historical and comparative approach, this research project provides new perspectives on the institutional and organizational factors that have shaped gender relations in the Olympic Movement. There exists a considerable body of scholarship in this area. However, most has focused on either women athletes or women leaders without a systematic comparison. For example, Miragaya’s 2006 study provides a detailed historical account of the place of women’s sport in the deliberations of IOC members and the IOC executive board over the twentieth century. Henry and Robinson’s (2010) contemporary survey of women in Olympic governance, including International Federations (IFs) and National Olympic Committees (NOCs), demonstrates that organizational culture and electoral procedures often marginalize women and impede their further incorporation, but does not address the historical development of these practices (see also White and Henry, 2004). In addition, comparisons of the Olympic and Paralympic Movements are rare. Smith and Wrynn’s recent studies (2010, 2013) find that there is considerable variation in the inclusion of women in the Olympic and Paralympic Movements. Such accounts point to the complex and multidimensional character of gender within the two Movements, to which this study contributes a historical perspective. In sum, this study provides the two Movements with an account of the specific histories and organizational challenges associated with two different forms of women’s participation (athletes and leaders). It extends existing historical analyses (e.g. Brittain, 2012; Hargreaves, 2000; Miragaya, 2006) by documenting where and how women’s inclusion has been addressed by key decision-making bodies within the IOC and IPC, and within IOC and IPC interactions with NOCs, NPCs, IFs, and external organizations. In doing so, this study provides each Movement with a deeper understanding of the organizational factors that have led to women’s participation proceeding unevenly and hence how it might be addressed in the present, while also facilitating cross-Movement learning and collaboration.
METHODOLOGY
Sociologists and other social scientists understand gender as a multidimensional system of inequality and difference that can be “read” historically through analyses of organizational practices, material relations, and discursive representations (Acker, 1990; Connell, 1987; Lorber, 1994). The analysis presented in this paper draws on two sources of historical data: documentation from key decision-making bodies within the IOC and IPC, and semi-structured interviews with key individuals. My methodological approach draws on process-tracing methods in seeking to identify the causal processes, chains and mechanisms that led to certain outcomes for women in the Olympic and Paralympic Movements at particular moments in time (George and Bennett, 2005, p. 206). Specifically, I analyse the “processes, sequences, and conjunctures of evidence” within historical materials that reveal specific causal
9 explanations, and which can then inform theories of gender and organizational change (Bennett and Checkel, 2015, p. 7; see also Beach and Pedersen, 2013). The time periods investigated in the present study are, loosely, 1967-1995 for the Olympic Movement, and 1980-2003 for the Paralympic Movement. These two periods represent eras of change in which the activities and actions of the IOC and IPC (and its predecessors) led to key actions and policies related to women’s participation as either athletes or leaders.
Archival Sources This paper draws primarily on archival materials held at the Olympic Studies Centre in Lausanne, Switzerland, the IPC Documentation Centre in Bonn, Germany, and the Stoke Mandeville Games collection in Aylesbury, United Kingdom (UK) (See appendices 1-3). These included unpublished materials such as correspondence, statements, policy documents, reports, and meeting minutes. The specific IOC decision-making bodies of interest were the IOC Sessions, Executive Board, Programme Commission, and Women in Sport Commission. Materials from the 1970 and 1981 Olympic Congresses are also included in the proceeding analysis. For the IPC, I consulted materials connected to the Governing Board, Sports Council, Women in Sport Committee, International Coordinating Committee (ICC), and International Stoke Mandeville Games Federation (ISMGF). The relevant archival materials were typed and nearly all were in English, although some French-language documents were also selected. All materials were scanned on-site or copied from existing digitized collections. The content was subsequently analysed using process-tracing methods combined with grounded theory coding techniques. I read and re-read the materials to identify emergent themes, in the process extracting and annotating relevant passages (Charmaz, 2006; Strauss and Corbin, 1990). Following these initial coding efforts, I summarized relevant passages in the form of analytic narratives, which I then examined further using Nvivo software with the aim of identifying specific causal processes and mechanisms.
Interview Data Since the archival materials consulted for the IPC were fewer in number and breadth in comparison with the IOC, I conducted interviews with key individuals who have been involved in the Paralympic Movement. Twelve such interviews were conducted, which were semi-structured and lasted between 50 minutes and three hours. Three additional interviews were conducted with individuals from the Olympic Movement. All interviews were recorded and later transcribed. The majority of interviewees agreed to be identified by name, however some interviews preferred to participate confidentially and are described in this report in ways that will not make them identifiable to others. As with the archival material, the interview transcripts were read and re-read to identify emergent themes that were further analysed with the aid of Nvivo software (Charmaz, 2006; Strauss and Corbin, 1990).
10
FINDINGS
The findings of the study are presented in two parts: the first presenting material on the progression of IOC strategies and action (approximately 1967-1995), and the second addressing the IPC (1980-2003). Each part is structured into three sections, organized around the following themes: framing, bureaucracy, and advocacy. Under the theme of “framing” I address how women’s participation emerged as an organizational issue, including how it was framed in relation to the global gender equality and women’s movement. Under “bureaucracy” I address how the rules and practices of the IOC and IPC developed over time and impacted the two forms of women’s participation. Finally, under advocacy I consider the role of key individuals and organizations, including IFs and female athletes themselves, in shaping how women’s participation developed over time.
Part I: The IOC and Women in the Olympic Movement
1.1 Framing: Embodying Gender Equality, Leading with Best Practices In this section I show that women’s leadership and women’s athletic participation were often discussed simultaneously and framed in similar ways over the 1970s. However, a gender equality framing emerged most clearly in relation to women athletes. Included in this framing were women’s bodies, which became a key site of contestation. By contrast, women’s leadership became framed over time as a “best practice,” with non-binding targets and an emphasis on gradual organizational change through awareness campaigns and training workshops.
Emergence of a Gender Equality Frame Archival materials reveal a gradual awareness of gender equality as an issue for the Olympic Movement as early as the late 1950s and 1960s, particularly in relation to women’s athletic participation. At the 1959 IOC Session, for example, the Marquess of Exeter requested the addition of the women’s 800m in Athletics programme, stating that the IOC “must go with the time.” 2 Similarly, at the 1964 Session in Tokyo, IOC member General Stoytchev stated declared the under-representation of women athletes “a shortcoming at the present stage of development of the Olympic Movement.” 3 In 1967 IOC Vice President Constantin Andrianov made a stronger case, noting that although the IOC had declared “the principle of equality for men and women in sport, the IOC, at the same time, restrict[ed] women’s participation in the Olympic Games.”4 Andrianov similarly argued at an Executive Board meeting that same year that in the interests of eliminating “discrimination in every respect,” the IOC must “allow more women to take part.”5 Describing women’s under-representation as
2 Minutes of the IOC Session (May 25, 1959), p. 8. 3 Minutes of the IOC Session (October 7-9, 1964), p. 9 and p. 27 (Annex 7). 4 Minutes of the IOC Session (May 3-9, 1967), p. 27 (Annex 2). 5 Minutes of the Meeting of the IOC Executive Board (May 2-8, 1967), p. 4.
11 the “unconsequence” of IOC action,6 Andrianov drew parallels with the IOC’s stated commitment to fighting political and racial discrimination in the Olympic Charter, which he believed had similarly failed to translate into action.7 Awareness of women’s under-representation in Olympic leadership, and particularly among IOC members, emerged alongside this discrimination framing. For example, when Andrianov invoked the “principle of equality for men and women in sport” in 1967, he also noted that “by the way, up till now, there [are] no women among the IOC members.”8 In Mexico City in 1968 when the issue of women in leadership again surfaced in the IOC Session, it was stated by Comte de Beaumont, then President of the French NOC, “that there should be at least one female member of the IOC.”9 However, women athletes constituted the main focus of the emergent anti-discrimination framing at this time. By 1970 the term “rights” had entered the discourse. Again the emphasis was women’s athletic participation, and Andrianov the instigator, with it stated that the Olympic Programme should include all events “in which [women] compete at the official international Championships.”10 Framing it as a matter of “equal rights,” Andrianov argued that it was “high time” the IOC adjust the program to reflect “the social importance of participation of women in sports generally and the great influence of their participation in the Olympic Games on the development of the women’s sports all over the world.”11 As in the late 1960s, the IOC’s position on women’s athletic participation continued to be framed as backward, slow, or lagging. For example, IOC member Willi Daume noted in his address to the 1972 Session that “women’s participation had to be furthered, in keeping with the times.”12 In sum, the early 1970s were characterized by an emergent gender equality frame, which was focused primarily on women’s athletic participation but included women leaders, and which would be solidified during the Varna Olympic Congress of 1973.
Varna Olympic Congress, 1973 The Varna Congress saw considerable attention to both women athletes and leaders and increasing awareness of global shifts in women’s rights. For example, referring to women’s athletic participation, representative of the Polish NOC, Mrs Zofia Zukowska, noted that “the gradual participation of women in the sports movement is due to the modern epoch’s violent transformations which changed the social division into the sphere of men’s and women’s duties” and that “the campaign of equal rights for women is conducted at many levels simultaneously and the sports movement is within its scope.13 Zukowska also drew attention to women’s bodies as part of her speech, noting that physiologists had found “no health contra-indications in so far as women’s
6 Minutes of the IOC Session (May 3-9, 1967), p. 27 (Annex 2). 7 Op cit., p. 2. 8 Minutes of the IOC Session (May 3-9, 1967), p. 27 (Annex 2). 9 Minutes of the IOC Session (October 7-11, 1968), p. 11. 10 Namely basketball, cycling, shooting, handball and rowing. 11 Minutes of the Meeting of the IOC Executive Board (March 13-14, 1970), pp. 72-73 (Annex 21). 12 Minutes of the IOC Session (August 21-24, September 5, 1972), p. 29. 13 Op cit., p. 144.
12 sports practice is concerned.”14 This emphasis on proving the physical capabilities of women athletes would continue into the 1980s and became central to the gender equality framing of women’s athletic participation. Other speeches during Baden-Baden focused on women’s leadership alongside athletic participation. For example, President Killanin used “discrimination” in relation to both forms of women’s participation, stating his strong feelings “that whilst there can be no discrimination as regards politics, religion, or race, also there should be no discrimination against women where a sport is practiced widely by them and is suitable.”15 Killanin noted similarly that “there should be no discrimination against women in the National Olympic Committees, International Federations and indeed the International Olympic Committee.”16 Mr Zacharie Firsov, President of the FINA Medical Commission, similarly linked the two forms of women’s participation through a discrimination framing:
Women are absent from the executive boards of international sport. There are no women in the IOC. They are rare in the National Olympic Committees and in the federations. This unpardonable absence from the directorship has an unquestionable influence on the development of international women’s sport. There are more women in the world than men but in the programme of the Olympic Games, there are almost twice as many men’s as women’s events. This unjust disproportion - it is discrimination.17
Mr Trendafil, Vice President of the Bulgarian Olympic Committee, called for the inclusion of “a greater number of leading sports workers (including women) in the composition of the IOC.”18 Representative of the Romanian NOC, Lia Manoliu, gave a bolder critique of the gender imbalance in IOC leadership, calling attention to the stark absence of women in the IOC leadership as follows:
The presence of women, where? … Practically everywhere. That is, everywhere except at the control levels of the eternal cycle from preparation to competition. It would seem that misogynism is endowed with longevity and a high ability to adapt itself to the circumstances. Having been beaten flat on the stadium, it has entrenched itself into another point of the front line, into a place less noisy and less spectacular, but definitely more important: the chiefs of staff. It has fled to the headquarters. … There is not one single female member with the seventy-four male members of the IOC.19
14 Op cit., pp. 144-145. 15 Op cit., p. 23. 16 Ibid. 17 Op cit., p. 139. 18 Op cit., p. 29 19 Op cit., pp. 148-149; Also drawn from Report of the Thirtieth Session of the International Olympic Academy (June 20-July 5, 1990), p. 125.
13 Manoliu called for the IOC to establish a women’s commission such that women would be given a say in the terms of their own participation.20 This proposal was echoed by Mr Paul Libaud, President of the International Volleyball Federation, who urged “that a study be undertaken to determine on what basis a commission strictly for women could be formed within the IOC for the promotion of women’s sports.”21 Firsov similarly stated that as part of “the doors [being] opened widely to women, so that they can become part of the directorship of sport, the IOC must form a ‘Committee for the development of women’s sport.’”22 However, the final statement of the Congress would fall short of a binding requirement or commitment to incorporating women into Olympic leadership. It was stated only that “the IOC, the International Federations and the National Olympic Committees should consider the inclusion of women in their membership and commissions.”23 As described below, the proposed women’s committee also came to be rejected.
Between Congress Period Following Varna and leading up to the Baden-Baden Congress in 1981, the gender equality framing gathered speed in relation to women’s athletic participation, but lagged in the area of leadership. Indeed in a reconfiguration of previous usages of discrimination terminology, the proposed women’s commission came to be viewed as reverse discrimination rather than an antidote to the IOC’s gender imbalance. When the Executive Board reviewed the matter in May 1975, it was resolved that “both men and women should be treated equally, and there was [therefore] no need for a special commission consisting of women only.”24 It was similarly reported to the IOC Session in 1975 that “the Executive Board had felt this would be a form of discrimination.25 With IOC leaders actively framing leadership as earned through ability and experience, women’s inclusion among Olympic leadership was seen as “reverse discrimination” if it could not be justified on the basis of women’s qualifications. For example, when the Executive Board met with the NOCs in 1975, IOC President Lord Killanin stated that “although he agreed that women should be included in IOC membership, it should not be because of their sex, but because of their ability.”26 In a 1977 letter to IOC Member Mr Maurice Herzog, President Killanin reiterated that “we do not wish to elect a woman simply for the sake of her sex, as this is a complete Uncle Tom approach such as has been done in certain areas with token coloured people on committees.”27 Similarly, Mr Wajid Ali stated at the 1977 Session that “he was in favour of the election of women provided that they were chosen on merit and not just in order to have women members.” 28 Reflecting on this stance, Lia Manoliu later recalled “the time in the ‘70s when Lord Killanin responded to the
20 Final Report of the Varna Olympic Congress, 1973, pp. 148-149. 21 Op cit., p. 80. 22 Op cit., p. 139. 23 Op cit., p. 163. 24 Minutes of the Meeting of the IOC Executive Board (May 19-23, 1975), p. 5. 25 Minutes of the IOC Session (May 21-23, 1975), p. 3. 26 Minutes of the Meeting of the IOC Executive Board and NOCs (May 16, 1975), p. 1. 27 Draft Letter, Killanin to Herzog (September 22, 1977). 28 Minutes of the IOC Session (June 15-18, 1977), p. 19.
14 attacks of journalists in Bucharest by saying on this matter that the IOC would not be introducing reverse discrimination and elect a woman to the IOC simply because she was a woman!”29 The “reverse discrimination” approach to women’s leadership, combined with an emphasis on skills and qualifications, depoliticized this form of women’s participation and weakened its ties to a gender equality framing. By contrast, at a 1977 Executive Board meeting the frame of “equal rights” for women athletes surfaced forcefully. Mr Palmer from the International Judo Federation brought the attention of the Executive Board to the potentially discriminatory language of Rule 32, which specified the sports that women were permitted to compete in at the Olympic Games. Referring to “the ever increasing amount of legislation which is being enacted throughout the world on the subject of sexual discrimination,” Mr Palmer advised that the IOC cease to specify a list of sports for women, and instead adopt the more flexible language of women being “allowed to compete according to the rules of the International Federations concerned.”30 He felt this change would be particularly important should upcoming Games be held in Great Britain or the United States. The Executive Board resolved to propose the suggested change in terminology for Rule 32 at the next IOC Session, where President Killanin recommended “deleting the names of sports, as it would ensure that if there were any discrimination against women’s participation, it would be on the part of the International Federations and not the IOC.”31 In sum, the between congress period was characterized by a depoliticization of women in leadership, and an intensification of the gender equality and rights framing of women’s athletic participation.
Baden-Baden and Beyond The under-representation of women among Olympic leaders was stark by the Baden- Baden Congress, with Robert Helmick, Secretary General of FINA, stating in his Congress address “that we need women not only in athletic events but we need them as an integral part of our national governing bodies, a part of our ranks of officials, part of our IFs and part of the IOC.”32 Mr Mario Vazquez Rana, President of ANOC, extended an equal rights framing to leadership, stating that “in view of the tendency to recognise the right of women to have equal opportunities to men to fulfil themselves as human beings, we must search for an effective way to increase their participation, not only as competitors, but also in technical, administrative and managerial aspects of sports and Olympism.”33 However, just as had been the case in Varna, the Final Statement of the Baden-Baden Congress fell short of a firm position on women’s leadership. It was resolved only that “greater possibilities should be made available to women in the administration of sport by the organisations concerned.”34 Nevertheless, the Baden-Baden Congress was a moment of celebration for the IOC, having recently admitted two women to IOC membership. Consistent with an
29 Report of the Thirtieth Session of the International Olympic Academy (June 20-July 5, 1990), p. 125. 30 Minutes of the Meeting of the IOC Executive Board (June 13-14, 1977), p. 15, p. 52. 31 Minutes of the IOC Session (June 15-18, 1977), p. 55. 32 Final Report of the Baden-Baden Congress, 1981, Part I, p. 45. 33 Final Report of the Baden-Baden Congress, 1981, Part III, p. 95. 34 Final Report of the Baden-Baden Congress, 1981, Part I, p. 109.
15 emerging “best practice” framing, this was held up as an example to other organizations in the Olympic Movement. For example, in his 1981 address to the GAISF, President Samaranch emphasized that “the IOC has elected in Baden-Baden the first two members in its history. This revolution should incite all the other members of the Olympic family to consider the question of women’s participation and I am convinced this will form a powerful invitation to those International Federations which have not yet given a place to female sports administrators.”35 Similarly, in 1983 the IOC Working Group for the Study of the Congress stated that “the IOC has set the example” for providing greater opportunities to women in sports administration by electing three women to the IOC in the years following Baden-Baden.36 Distinct from a gender equality framing, the emphasis shifted to including women (in any number) as a signal of organizational change. Following Baden-Baden and into the 1980s, the IOC membership would see several women added to its ranks, including Anita DeFrantz in 1985, who would also serve on the Executive Committee from 1992. In 1990, for instance, six of the IOC’s 90 members were women (equivalent to 7%). Still, the under-representation of women continued to be articulated as a key problem, articulated by women such as Programme Commission member Nadia Lekarska, who referenced the ongoing disconnect between women’s athletic participation and their representation among Olympic leaders in her presentation to the 30th Session of International Olympic Academy in 1990:
If, from a sporting point of view, the participation of women in the Olympic Games is encouraging, their share in the Movement is proportionally very poor. It was rightfully expected that the belated enlightenment as regards women’s social equality would extend to the Movement too. … It is superfluous, I believe, to formulate arguments in favour of women’s right to equality in all walks of life. Nothing has been left to add to all comments made throughout the years. No arguments have been spared to convince those who, apparently, are unconvinced.37
Elsewhere in her speech, Lekarska noted the following:
The usual argument is that [women] do not seem to be interested in the management of sports and that consequently qualified women for leading posts are just not available. If that were not the case, they could, of course, hold them, why not? Such explanations sound unconvincing given their superficial nature. The matter boils down basically to legal equality, or lack of it, between women and men in society and the conditions for acquiring the necessary qualifications.38
35 Speech of the IOC President to the GAISF meeting (October 1981). 36 Minutes of the Meeting of the IOC Executive Board (March 23-24, 1983), p. 123. 37 Report of the Thirtieth Session of the International Olympic Academy (June 20-July 5, 1990), pp. 106-107. 38 Ibid.
16 The role of women such as Lekarska is explored further in the third part of this empirical section. However, notable in the above passages are the references to the failure of a gender equality framing, and the need to address the factors prohibiting skill development among women leaders. The latter emphasis would be built into the strategies of the emergent IOC Women in Sport Commission several years later.
A New Era of Gender Policy In the early 1990s, global events in women’s rights led the IOC to revisit the idea of a women’s commission. An IOC employee recalled the importance of this global movement:
I mean the IOC is not functioning in a vacuum. The international context at the time was also putting sport and gender equality pretty much at the top of the international agenda. You had UN conferences on this subject, you had the Brighton declaration in 1994, there were a number of international initiatives which also reminded all of us … that gender equality was an issue that needed to be tackled from different angles, and the sport community was not immune to that call.
Fekrou Kidané, then Director of the Executive Office of the IOC President and a former staffer at the United Nations, similarly recalled the influence of the 1995 Fourth World Conference on Women, held in Beijing:
When the United Nations organized the conference on women in Beijing in 1995, I suggested to President Samaranch that we should go. The IOC should send a delegation.
Following the conference, and at the 1st IOC World Conference on Women and Sport in 1996, the IOC moved quickly to establish a Women and Sport Commission, initially a working group (until 2004) to be chaired by Anita DeFrantz. Similarly, international trends influenced the development of targets for women’s inclusion in leadership as part of the IOC’s gender policies. As noted by one IOC employee, “there was a whole debate internationally about gender representation and female representation in decision-making bodies. You had a number of organizations that had also looked at increasing the percentage of representation … the Council of Europe, to name a few.” As the Women and Sport Commission began to implement strategies for action, a “best practice” discourse emerged focusing on a combination of awareness- raising and capacity-building to encourage other organizations within the Olympic Movement to invest in the development of women’s leadership.39 One IOC employee recalled the early work of the working group:
The Commission … started to work to empower National Olympic Committees, build their capacity to understand the issue of gender equality and how sport
39 Although not addressed in this report, it was also at around this time that a more intersectional approach to women’s participation emerged, with awareness of differences across nations and regions.
17 was contributing to that, and also how the sporting community had to mainstream gender equality in its own governance. So we started to develop a number of programs that helped national Olympic committees … seminars, workshops, at national and regional and continental levels, which we were running throughout the year, in addition to the world conferences which were more advocacy events.
… A lot of the sports leaders at the time did not necessarily understand what a gender balanced organization meant, or didn’t have even a lot of representation among their own organizations in terms of women, so we had to combine a top-down approach in terms of policy with certain [targets] for sports organizations decision-making bodies. … And at the same time we were doing the bottom up approach, helping NOCs and national federations to expand their knowledge and capacity to actually mainstream gender in their organization. (emphasis added)
In sum, both athletic participation and leadership emerged as part of a broad gender equality framing emphasizing rights and anti-discrimination, consistent with global shifts in gender governance and the women’s movement. However, while the gender equality framing proved compelling and influential for women athletes, with the physical capacity of women’s bodies a central part of that framing, women’s leadership was reframed as a “best practice” with a weaker link to discourses of rights and discrimination. As I explore in the next section, this had implications at the level of IOC bureaucracy in terms of how organizational rules and practices intersected with demands for women’s participation.
1.2 Reconfiguring A Gendered Olympic Bureaucracy In this section I consider the ways in which aspects of IOC bureaucracy – and particularly organizational structure, rules, procedures and practices – shaped trajectories of women’s participation. I suggest that women athletes benefited from the existence of the Programme Commission, which was mandated to address their participation and therefore ensured that such concerns were afforded an organizational space within the IOC.40 The lack of an equivalent body for women leaders slowed IOC progress in that area. Nevertheless, the rules and procedures for the addition of new events and sports, as specified in the Olympic Charter, consistently served as a barrier to women’s greater athletic participation. There is also evidence that these rules were not always clear-cut, and were sometimes interpreted in ways that allowed for the addition of new events, such as the women’s marathon. The situation for women leaders was quite different: while there were no formal rules against their inclusion in IOC membership, unwritten rules and other informal bureaucratic factors impeded their participation. In contrast with women athletes, the
40 Not discussed in this report though relevant to the theme of bureaucracy and women’s athletic participation are the IOC Medical Commission’s policies for gender verification or “femininity control.” For a comprehensive review of their history, see Henne (2014) and Erikainen (2017).
18 absence of formal rules determining how women could gain access as leaders made their under-representation in this area more difficult to challenge.
A Bureaucratic Home In 1967, the establishment of the joint IOC-NOC Commission to advise the Executive Board and IOC Sessions on matters concerning the Olympic Programme (referred to hereon as the Programme Commission), a new space was established within the organization of the IOC for the question of women’s participation to be systematically addressed. Immediately the issue became a fixture amongst the new commission’s concerns, which proposed to examine the participation of women in the Olympic movement and request “from the IOC and the delegates of the NOCs their careful consideration to resolve without delay a situation with little justification.41 In 1970, members of the newly established commission reported their position that “the participation of women in the Olympic Games is a matter which deserves most serious consideration. The moment is more than ripe to pass from a theoretical acknowledgement of the necessity to encourage the participation of women in sports and in the Olympic Games in particular – to the realization of this urgent problem.”42 Amongst the seven Programme Commission members was Nadia Lekarska, who would become a key figure pushing this research agenda and area of discussion. As soon as early 1969, Lekarska presented the findings of her survey of the Olympic programme to the Executive Board and gave special attention in her report to the question of women’s participation. Lekarska recommended “that no severe rules limit the admission of sports for women and that any plan for reducing the size and volume of the present program should not be initiated by further limiting women’s sports and events.”43 However, the Programme Commission’s concern for expanding women’s athletic participation was not consistently translated into action, and archival materials reveal many instances over the 1970s and into the 1980s where principles, rules and standards were evoked by Commission members to argue against the greater participation of women athletes.
Gendered Principles, Rules and Standards As the question of women’s participation on the sporting field gathered speed in the 1970s, it came more visibly into conflict with the issue of “gigantism” that had been plaguing the IOC for a number of years. The Programme Commission and other IOC leaders were faced with two priorities that were at times in tension: a reduction in or stabilization of the programme, and a “balanced” programme. A 1971 report stated the goal of the Programme Commission “to find a better balance regarding the participation of women in the Olympic Games,” in addition to addressing other imbalances such as variation in the number of medal opportunities across different sports.44 Some IOC leaders claimed that women’s participation was not necessarily incompatible with a reduced programme. For example, in the Programme
41 Minutes of the Meeting of the IOC Executive Board and NOCs (October 3-5, 1968), p. 49. 42 Minutes of the Meeting of the IOC Programme Commission (May 12-16, 1970), p. 76 (Annex 23). 43 Report of the IOC Programme Commission (1969), p. 13. 44 Report of the Meeting of the IOC Programme Commission (May 28, 1971), p. 1-2.
19 Commission’s 1976 reflections on the Varna Congress, Smirnov stated that “the principle against any increase in the number of participants permits a larger participation of women in the Olympic games.”45 Similarly, in 1977 Lekarska proposed that a numerical limit of events be established for each Olympic individual sport, but “with priority given to an increase of women’s events where possible.”46 Nevertheless, the tension between women’s increased participation and the overall size of the programme was at times visible.”47 In sum, stated commitments to expanding the women’s programme were in tension with the organizational preoccupation with gigantism, leading to extensive bureaucratic hurdles for proposed sports and events for women. Indeed despite the call of the Programme Commission in their 1977 report to “adopt a firm policy in favour of the increase of sports and events for women wherever possible,”48 opportunities to extend the women’s programme were frequently characterized by decisions to the contrary. As summarized in a 1979 meeting of the Programme Commission, it was important to encourage “the inclusion of women’s sports in the programme, but nevertheless it was [also] essential to stick to the existing criteria and rules.”49 Sometimes IF’s failed to meet the deadline to request additions to the programme. For example, in 1976 Dr Csanadi pointed out that the IAAF’s request for a women’s 3000m in Moscow had not been considered because it had only been received following the Montreal Games.50 Similarly, when women’s judo was first requested in 1976, the President of the International Judo Federation (IJF) was informed that “there would be no possibility of introducing women’s Judo into the 1980 programme as this had already been finalized.”51 At other times, the Programme Commission sought to avoid having the Olympic Games serve as a developmental space for women’s sports. For example, at an Executive Board meeting in May 1972, Dr Csanadi reported that “most IFs were in favour of [women’s participation] when the standard of performance was high.” 52 The imperative to demonstrate elite depth and popularity morphed into the unwritten requirement that sports and events should be contested at a World Championships before being eligible for admission to the Olympic programme. Although officially the Commission was not authorized to “insist on the organisation of world championships in order to consider a sport,” statistics from World Championships participation were taken to indicate “whether or not a sport was well-established and suitable for the Games, which could not be used as an experimental field.”53 Over the late 1970s and into the 1980s, a lack of world
45 Minutes of the IOC Session (February 2-3, 1976), p. 70 (Annex 2). 46 Minutes of the Meeting of the IOC Programme Commission (May 10-11, 1977), p. 6. 47 Minutes of the IOC Session (July 13-19, 1976), p. 44. 48 Report of the IOC Programme Commission to the 79th Session of the IOC (June 1977), pp. 9-10. 49 Minutes of the Meeting of the IOC Programme Commission (March 7, 1979), p. 5. 50 Minutes of the Meeting of the IOC Executive Board and IFs (October 15-16, 1976), p. 19. 51 Minutes of the Meeting of the Inner Commission of the IOC Programme Commission (October 10, 1976), p. 4. 52 Minutes of the Meeting of the IOC Executive Board (May 27-30, 1972), p. 53. Emphasis added. 53 Minutes of the Meeting of the Inner Commission of the IOC Programme Commission (September 25-26, 1979), pp. 15-16.
20 championship data was regularly invoked as a reason to postpone the addition of a women’s event.54 This was not without resistance from other decision-makers within the IOC. For example, in 1980 the issue of world championships was again raised for the second time in relation to women’s judo, with Mr Csanadi stressing that “the experience of the first world championships was required in conformity with the criteria.” President Killanin critiqued this interpretation, remarking that “there were no world championships in athletics.” IOC Director, Monique Berlioux, similarly commented that “on the basis of the Commission’s policy, athletics ought to be deleted” and that “a sport could be widely practiced without a national federation necessarily sending competitors to world championships.”55 Nevertheless, Csanadi’s position on women’s judo was carried forward. The distinction between “sport” and “event” was also particularly problematic for women. The position of the Programme Commission was that, in accordance with the Olympic Charter, when a women’s competition was added to an event that was already practiced by men, it counted as a new sport and not simply a new event. As such, it was subject to a longer wait period before it could be added to the programme and IFs needed to demonstrate higher participation rates in comparison with a new event for women. However, IFs, and even IOC leaders, often misunderstood or disagreed with this distinction between sport and event. For example, in 1979 representatives of the IJF expressed their dismay that women’s judo could not be added until at least 1988, stating “deception” and their belief that “a separate sport meant a separate IF.”56 IOC leaders, too, contested the definition of new sports for women. Also with respect to women’s judo, in 1979 IOC President Killanin argued that women’s judo should be considered an event and could therefore be included in the programme for 1984.57 Again in 1980 President Killanin raised the issue, stating that “IOC Rules specified that sports could comprise men and women, and thus women’s judo and women’s cycling were not new sports.” The President maintained that women’s judo and cycling could be considered new events under the present rules. 58 The same issue arose in 1984 in relation to modern pentathlon for women. Here President Samaranch argued that although he didn’t necessarily support its addition to the Olympic programme, he felt it should be considered an event and not a sport.59 As I explore in further detail below, the situation was the opposite in the IPC, where the technical distinction between sport and event was interpreted in ways that were expedient to expanding women’s athletic participation.
54 For example, see discussions of women’s athletics, judo, and cycling. Minutes of the Meeting of the IOC Executive Board (June 13-14, 1977), p. 18; Minutes of the Meeting of the IOC Programme Commission (March 7, 1979), p. 5; Minutes of the Meeting of the IOC Executive Board (March 9-10, 1979), p. 71. 55 Minutes of the Meeting of the IOC Executive Board (July 11-13 & 21-25, 1980), p. 15. 56 Minutes of the Meeting of the Inner Commission of the IOC Programme Commission (September 25-26, 1979), pp. 15-16. 57 Minutes of the Meeting of the IOC Executive Board (October 23-25, 1979), pp. 9-10. Nagoya. 58 Minutes of the Meeting of the IOC Executive Board (July 11-13 & 21-25, 1980), p. 14. 59 Minutes of the Meeting of the IOC Executive Board (July 21-30, August 2-13, 1984), p. 10.
21 Exception to the Rule: Women’s Marathon The IAAF’s successful push to have the women’s marathon added to the 1984 Olympic programme in Los Angeles represented a significant break with IOC procedure and is therefore worth examining in detail. In 1979, Mr Holt, Secretary General of the IAAF, raised the topic of the women’s marathon at a Programme Commission. He informed the meeting “that women’s marathon was in expansion,” presenting a newspaper article about a recent international marathon where 400 women from 27 countries had competed.60 Holt stated “he had been asked to raise the general question on an eventual participation of women” in the marathon, possibly with the men but with separate classification.61 In 1980, the IAAF again made a presentation to the Programme Commission, noting that “the explosion of women’s marathon and long distance running had surprised even [them].”62 The IAAF Women’s committee had established from a questionnaire that women’s marathon was practised in 50 countries. Women’s participation in the event was described by IAAF representatives as a “Movement” that had steadily grown since the 1960s, and by Lekarska as “the growing movement of women’s marathon.”63 By 1980, pressure was indeed increasing on the IOC to admit the women’s marathon to the Olympic programme. At a February Executive Board meeting, and during a discussion of the Programme Commission’s report, the President noted that “women’s marathon was becoming very popular” and Director Monique Berlioux added “that quantities of letters had been received at Vidy pressing for this event’s inclusion.”64 Similarly, the American Athletics Union (AAU), then the peak national body for track-and-field in the US, had written to the LAOOC to advocate for the women’s marathon. The LAOOC had in turn agreed to support the addition of the event to the 1984 Games programme. IOC leaders were critical with this break with protocol. At an Executive Board meeting in 1980, President Killanin stated that “the AAU had been wrong to write to the LAOOC about the matter. The programme was the responsibility of the IOC and the IAAF. The LAOOC would be reminded of this fact.”65 Mr Csanadi similarly noted that “the LAOOC had no business to dictate whether an event was to be admitted or not.” 66 Nevertheless, the LAOOC continued to push the issue. In early 1981, the report of the LAOOC to the Executive Board stated that the addition of a women’s marathon in 1984 was “of growing interest throughout the track and field world” and that “from the onset, the LAOOC has hailed the event as an important advance in the progress of women’s athletics.” The report urged the IOC to “reach an affirmative determination on this mater as soon as possible” so that athletes around the world could plan their preparation.67 The LAOOC also submitted an official request for a women’s marathon to be included in the 1984 Games, stating that “such a positive
60 Minutes of the Meeting of the Inner Commission of the IOC Programme Commission (September 25-26, 1979), p. 8. 61 Ibid. 62 Minutes of the Meeting of the IOC Programme Commission (April 15-16, 1980), pp. 8-10. 63 Ibid. 64 Minutes of the Meeting of the IOC Executive Board (February 8-15, 1980), p. 23. 65 Minutes of the Meeting of the IOC Executive Board (July 11-13 & 21-25, 1980), pp. 21-22. 66 Ibid. 67 Minutes of the Meeting of the IOC Executive Board (February 23-24, 1981), p. 4 (Annex 2).
22 action will achieve great strides in the progress of women’s athletics and will reflect well on all concerned.”68 The request also drew on a paper by the LAOOC medical Director, stating that “women appear to have a better tolerance for heat and altitude and are more adaptable to longer distances. there is also increasing evidence that women outlast and outrun men in events of 50 miles or longer.”69 Peter Ueberroth concluded that “the facts supporting inclusion of this event in the 1984 programme are extensive” with the LAOOC believing “the time is now for positive action.”70 Again in February 1981, IOC President Samaranch noted the desire of the LAOOC to see the event approved “in view of its popularity in California.” The notion that the marathon would have damaging physiological effects for women served as a key justification for delaying the event’s admission to the programme.71 In January 1980, for instance, Andrianov noted to the Programme Commission that the women’s marathon “was an unknown quantity from a physiological and medical point of view.”72 When the IAAF appeared before the Programme Commission in April 1980 to argue for the addition of the women’s marathon, they noted “it had been ascertained from doctors that women were well suited to long distance running” and that the 85 women who had recently completed the Tokyo marathon had “all had finished the race in perfect condition.”73 Still, Andrianov considered “the inclusion of women’s marathon a grave step as women would undergo great pressure,” noting he would support the event if “the FIMS produced a conclusive, positive report on the medical aspects.” Mrs Lekarska noted that she had seen “a report by physiologists who declared the vent was not a hazard to health.” Nevertheless, the Commission resolved to seek “substantial results on medical aspects” from the FIMS as well as the opinion of the IOC Medical Commission.74 Additionally, some members of the Programme Commission emphasized the importance of not breaking with protocol by admitting the women’s marathon for 1984. In 1980, whereas Mr Tuony argued that the Commission should “not hesitate to make an exception,” and Mr Keller called for the Commission to be “more progressive,” other members suggested that “principles would be broken by accepting a non- established event and would create a precedent.” Chairman Csanadi similarly “felt that to accept the marathon without further serious examination and experience would be a dangerous precedent.” 75 Later that year, Nadia Lekarska stated that “she was not in favour of going against the principles as once they were broken, they could be
68 Op cit., p. 40 (Annex 6). 69 Op cit., p. 41 (Annex 6). 70 Ibid. 71 In December 1980, Chairman Csanadi gave the following explanation for resistance to the women’s marathon: “Firstly, there were medical reservations but since then the IOC Medical Commission had expressed no objection against women's marathon. Secondly, women's marathon had not yet attained some of the criteria of the IOC.” Emphasis added. Minutes of the Meeting of the IOC Programme Commission (December 18-19, 1980), p. 5. 72 Minutes of the Meeting of the Inner Commission of the IOC Programme Commission (January 8-9, 1980), pp. 2-3. 73 Minutes of the Meeting of the IOC Programme Commission (April 15-16, 1980), pp. 8-10. 74 Ibid. 75 Minutes of the Meeting of the IOC Programme Commission (April 15-16, 1980), pp. 8-10.
23 broken again.”76 Furthermore, resistance from the Programme Commission emerged on the basis that too little was known about the event’s popularity and depth. In 1980, for example, Csanadi noted to IAAF representatives that the event “had not yet been included in continental games,” and stressed that “the Olympic Games could not be used in this regard as an experimental field.” In response, Mr. Paulen “emphasised that women's marathon would not be an experiment in view of the unofficial world championships in 1979 and the number of countries in which it was practised.” 77 Indeed even when the marathon was finally approved by the Executive Board in February 1981, overruling the position of the Programme Commission, Csanadi noted that “accepting women’s marathon [was] contrary to the rules and criteria laid down by the Programme Commission” as it meant the event would be “experimental” in 1984.78 He maintained that the Commission was “not against women’s marathon” but had been “awaiting additional data regarding the popularity of the sport on not only an international but also a national level.”79 However, although the combination of political pressure from various stakeholders, including women athletes themselves, was sufficient to tip the scales in favour of the women’s marathon, the decision did not fundamentally alter IOC bureaucracy. Into the 1980s, rules and standards continued to be evoked as reasons not to incorporate additional women’s events. This was despite both the Programme Commission and the Executive Board acknowledging that one of the main outcomes of the Baden-Baden Congress in 1981 was the consensus that opportunities for women athletes needed to be increased.80 Such a consensus continued to be contradicted, most prominently by decisions taken in relation to three proposed sports and events for women: women’s judo, women’s tennis, and the women’s 5,000 and 10,000m in athletics. The addition of women’s judo was delayed until 1992 because of a combination of procedural issues, and despite arguably meeting the requirements demanded by the Programme Commission in time for the 1988 Olympic Games.81 The programme for women’s tennis was only half the size of the men’s when the sport was reintroduced to the Olympic programme in 1988, despite consistent appeals by the International Tennis Federation (ITF).82 In athletics, the women’s 5,000m and 10,000m were denied in 1984, even though women athletes took legal action in the US with support from the Civil Liberties Union and despite the support for their cause from ANOC and other governing bodies.83
76 Minutes of the Meeting of the IOC Programme Commission (December 18-19, 1980), p. 5. 77 Minutes of the Meeting of the IOC Programme Commission (April 15-16, 1980), pp. 8-10. 78 Minutes of the Meeting of the IOC Executive Board (February 23-24, 1981), pp. 5-7. 79 Ibid. 80 Minutes of the Meeting of the IOC Executive Board (May 31 to June 2, 1983), p. 28. 81 Minutes of the Meeting of the IOC Programme Commission (29-30 May, 1983), p. 6; Minutes of the Meeting of the IOC Executive Board (November 24 and 25, 1983), p. 16. 82 Minutes of the Meeting of the IOC Executive Board (January 18-21, 1983), pp. 20-21; Minutes of the Meeting of the IOC Executive Board (May 28-29 and June 1, 1984), pp. 20-21. 83 Minutes of the Meeting of the IOC Executive Board (November 24 and 25, 1983), p. 12, p. 16.
24 Bureaucratic Invisibility Bureaucratic hurdles to women’s participation existed in the realm of leadership, but in ways that were often less explicit than in the case of women’s sport. As noted by author Geoffrey Miller in 1979, the absence of women in IOC membership at the time was “largely because of the restrictive rules [the IOC] has fashioned for itself, choosing one member from each country and two from an Olympic host country and allowing them to serve as long as they please” (Miller, 1979, p. 37). Miller noted also that the existing rules and procedures for joining the membership of the IOC were insufficient to justify the exclusion of women, since the IOC “is an autonomous body that does not hesitate to bend its own rules when it wants to … [and] it could surely manage a little more rule-stretching for the sake of a few badly needed women in its ranks” (p. 38). At the same time, however, just as the IOC governing structure in the 1970s and 1980s included no clear bureaucratic home for the issue of women leadership, there were similarly no clear rules against women’s participation as leaders against which women and other stakeholders could lobby. For example, when “the question of electing women to the IOC” was raised by Arpad Csanadi at an Executive Board meeting in 1970, the response from the board at this time was that the matter had been taken into consideration and “there is no rule against women” in IOC membership.84 To make this point clear, in 1973 it was decided at the IOC Session that “when pro formas were completed for election to the IOC, women’s names could be recommended,” suggesting that even if there had not previously been an explicit rule against women membership, it had been the case in practice.85 Reflecting on this topic in 1980, Nadia Lekarska noted the absence of a rule against women’s participation in IOC leadership, stating that “the statutes contain no provision barring women from membership, nor is it stated that their presence is undesirable” (Lekarska, 1985, p. 140). However, Lekarska noted that in practice the exclusion of women occurred via more informal channels, and specifically through the underlying expectation – or “tradition” in Lekarska’s terms – that sports leadership was the domain of men. Size of IOC membership served as another bureaucratic hurdle for women leaders. Similar to concerns over the size of the Olympic Games in terms of athletic participation, IOC leaders were wary of expanding the number of IOC members. As on the sporting field, at the level of leadership there appeared to be a conflict between these two imperatives. For example, in the 1977 Session Herzog stated his opinion “that women should be represented and that there should be only one member per country so that the maximum number of countries could be represented.”86 By 1976 it was evident that this principle against the expansion of IOC membership, though not explicitly gendered, was making it difficult to include qualified women candidates. For example, noting the keen desire to introduce women to IOC membership, Killanin asked the IOC Session if they were willing to amend the rules “to enable a woman to be elected even if there was already a member in her country.”87 The Session rejected
84 Minutes of the Meeting of the IOC Executive Board (May 8-16, 1970), p. 28. 85 Minutes of the IOC Session (October 5-7, 1973), p. 6. 86 Minutes of the IOC Session (June 15-18, 1977), p. 3. Emphasis added. 87 Minutes of the IOC Session (July 13-19, 1976), p. 5.
25 this proposal. They did so again in 1977, when Dr Csanadi argued that qualified women should be elected independently from any member in the same country. At the same time, however, the Board established unanimously that it was indeed necessary to increase the number of IOC members.88 In other words, the IOC membership was not against increasing their numbers per se, but they were certainly against doing so to create opportunities for qualified women from countries with no vacancies. At times responsibility was passed to the IFs and NOCs. For example, at the IOC Session in 1973 following the Olympic Congress in Varna where it was established that more women ought to be included in the membership and commissions of the IOC, IFs and NOCs, President Killanin reported at the IOC Session that he “was in favour of women being elected IOC members,” but “pointed out that the IFs and NOCs ought to have more women on their boards as a first step.”89 Similarly, in 1975 Lord Killanin noted in a meeting between the Executive Board and the NOCs that even among the latter there was “a predominance of men.”90 In 1977, Killanin justified the ongoing absence of women in IOC membership by stating that “in fact, there were relatively few women altogether involved in sports administration.” 91 As a result of this externalization of responsibility, IOC bureaucracy was insulated from critique. Summarizing the above points during the Olympic Congress of 1981 in Baden- Baden, President Killanin stated as follows:
During my term of presidency I failed to have a woman elected to membership of the IOC, although our chief executive is a woman and another lady was a member of an IOC Commission. … The IOC has not been alone in this fault, although one International Federation had a woman president, I know of no women presidents or secretaries general of National Olympic Committees at the moment, although in both IFs and NOCs women are included as members. Suggestions have been made to have special commissions of women for women’s matters but I have always opposed this as I felt men and women should be on parity for any administrative position, which might exist due to the lack of women in the higher echelons, especially of the NOCs, but we do have, and I handed on a list of very suitable candidates for as and when vacancies occur. It was simply that it was not possible to find the vacancies for the candidates, and that is why I failed before my term of office came to an end in Moscow.92
To summarize, the conditions for including women leaders were left unspecified within the rules and procedures of the IOC, making it more difficult to hold IOC decision- makers to account. As part of the bureaucratic invisibility of women’s leadership, decisions were taken in relation to when and how to expand IOC membership that, although not explicitly gendered, had gendered implications.
88 Minutes of the IOC Session (June 15-18, 1977), p. 22. 89 Minutes of the IOC Session (October 5-7, 1973), p. 6. 90 Minutes of the Meeting of the IOC Executive Board and NOCs (May 16, 1975), p. 1. 91 Minutes of the IOC Session (June 15-18, 1977), p. 54. 92 Final Report of the Baden-Baden Congress, 1981, Part I, p. 41.
26 1.3 Advocates for Women’s Olympic Participation In this section I consider how the depoliticized framing and bureaucratically vague position of women’s leadership was in turn related to who within the Movement was willing to advocate for this form of women’s participation in comparison with women athletes. I find that both forms of participation benefited from individual “champions” with a leadership position within the IOC. In addition, there was considerable external support for the expansion of women’s athletic participation, and this support was often collective and at times “bottom-up”: coming from IFs, female athletes themselves, and other organizations in the Movement such as the LAOOC, ANOC, and the AAU. By contrast, there was considerably less external or collective advocacy for women’s leadership. Rather, isolated individuals within the IOC and NOCs emerged as the key advocates for women leaders during the 1970s and 1980s, with their efforts bolstered in the 1990s by “top-down” pressure from the UN and related international shifts.
Collective Advocacy for Athletes Archival materials show that IFs served as major advocates of new sports and events for female athletes. In the early 1980s especially, as in the cases noted above, the IAAF, ITF and IJF repeatedly approached the IOC Executive Board and Programme Commission to push for sports and events for women. This is likely due in part to pressure from federation membership. In 1977, for instance, IAAF President Adriaan Paulen noted that “each federation had to report back to its members on all proposals and in the case of rejection, the members always demanded the reasons.”93 Also in the case of the IAAF, a women’s committee within the organization was instrumental in demanding the IAAF push for such events as the marathon, as well as the 10,000m run and 10,000m walk. As noted by the IAAF President in a meeting with the Programme Commission in 1984, “the two [10,000m] requests had been put forward by a special women’s commission within the IAAF. … The women’s commission was very strong and had accepted a compromise in only requesting the two new events submitted.”94 In the case of the IJF, the federation saw itself as responsible for supporting the development of women’s judo, arguing in 1979 that “admission to the Olympic movement would make a great contribution” to growing the sport.95 The IAAF expressed a similar sense of responsibility in the case of the women’s marathon, stating it was their “duty to encourage this movement which would certainly grow within the next three years.”96 Moreover, and as recognized by IOC leaders, the IFs themselves had something to gain by pushing for increased women’s participation. For example, at the 1972 IOC Session the Programme Commission reported no doubt that the IFs “normally tend to defend their own particular interests.” 97 When representatives of IFs lobbied the Executive Board for greater women’s participation in May 1972, President Brundage stated it was expected that IFs would push for an expansion of the
93 Minutes of the Meeting of the IOC Executive Board and IFs (October 21-22, 1977), p. 6. 94 Minutes of the Meeting of the IOC Programme Commission (July 20, 1984), p. 6. 95 Minutes of the Meeting of the Inner Commission of the IOC Programme Commission (September 25-26, 1979), pp. 15-16. 96 Minutes of the Meeting of the IOC Programme Commission (April 15-16, 1980), pp. 8-10. 97 Minutes of the IOC Session (August 21-24, September 5, 1972), p. 113 (Annex 11).
27 programme, especially with respect to their own sport, since they were “a little prejudiced” in wanting to be “represented on the Programme with as many events as possible.” He noted that NOCs might be less enthusiastic since they are ultimately responsible for organising the national teams.98 However, there is evidence that representatives of certain NOCs at this time, and particularly those involved in organizing the 1973 Olympic Congress in Varna, were key to ensuring the issue of women’s athletic participation became an official topic on the Congress agenda. The Bulgarian Olympic Committee in particular requested that the Varna Congress address both “the emancipation of women and their larger integration in the sporting movement” and the “enlarged participation of women” on the sporting field.99 The same occurred ahead of the 1981 Congress in Baden-Baden, where in 1977 a representative from Bulgaria declared at a joint meeting of the Executive Board and NOCs that the next Congress would have to address women’s participation as one of the main problems currently facing the Olympic Movement.100 The topic was similarly requested by representatives of the NOCs in a report submitted jointly to the Tripartite Commission in 1977.101 The NOCs were also collectively active outside of the Olympic Congresses, reporting to a joint meeting of the Executive Board and NOCs in 1975 that “a resolution taken by the NOCs in their meetings concerning the inclusion of women's sports had been unanimously adopted.”102 In addition to advocacy by official organizations within the Olympic Movement, women athletes themselves were pushing for greater participation opportunities. This was particularly visible in the sport of athletics where, as noted above in the case of the marathon, a “movement” was visible in the late 1970s and early 1980s. In 1980 IAAF officials stated that “the movement had started in the late 60s and in 1969 29 women had taken part in a competition in the USA. There were now over 8000 women athletes - not just joggers - who had recorded marathon times."103 As has been documented elsewhere, women in the US in particular were publicly campaigning and lobbying their national federation and elected officials to demand the inclusion of a women’s marathon in 1984, with support from large corporate interests such as Nike (see Hansen, 2013; Schultz, 2015; Switzer, 2007). Female athletes in the International Runners Committee also led the 1984 lawsuit demanding the inclusion of the women’s 5,000m and 10,000m in the Los Angeles Olympic Games in 1984. Although unsuccessful in the short term, the lawsuit was recognized to have shown “the general strength of feeling for the increase of women’s events.”104 In sum, advocacy for greater women’s athletic participation came from a variety of sources, both grassroots and institutionalized within the Olympic Movement, in turn shaping the framing and bureaucratic position of women athletes within the IOC.
98 Minutes of the Meeting of the IOC Executive Board and IFs (May 29. 1972), p. 5. 99 Proposals from the NOCs regarding the subjects to be dealt with by the Olympic Congress. (November 15, 1971). 100 Minutes of the Meeting of the IOC Executive Board and NOCs (March 31 and April 1, 1977), p. 9. 101 Report of the NOCs to the Tripartite Commission, 4 November 1977. 102 Minutes of the Meeting of the IOC Executive Board and NOCs (May 16, 1975), p. 6. 103 Minutes of the Meeting of the IOC Programme Commission (April 15-16, 1980), pp. 8-10. 104 Minutes of the Meeting of the IOC Programme Commission (July 20, 1984), p. 6.
28
Individual Champions for Women Leaders In comparison with women athletes, considerably less noise was made in relation to women’s leadership. First, grassroots collective action was absent. Writing on the IOC in 1979, author Geoffrey Miller noted that given the absurdity of the all-male IOC leadership, “it [was] surprising that militants in the cause of sex equality have not picketed IOC meetings or joined the ranks of demonstrators at opening ceremonies of the Games” (Miller, 1979, p. 37). Second, while leaders of IFs at times referenced women’s representation in leadership, such as during the Olympic Congresses of 1972 and 1981, they were not leading a sustained push in this area. One IOC employee reflected on this discrepancy:
There’s a huge difference between participation at the grassroots level or field of play and then where you actually have the spheres of power in the organization. That’s true for federations or for any other organization. And definitely some federations were maybe very forward thinking in terms of allowing athletes, female athletes, to compete back in the 70s. But their leadership structure was not necessarily reflecting that balance up there.
Thus advocacy for women’s leadership took a different form to that of women’s athletic participation. Rather than coming from collective grassroots or institutional power, much of this advocacy was led by individuals with positions of influence within the Olympic Movement, many of them women, and mostly located within the IOC. One such individual was Monique Berlioux, Director of the IOC from 1971 until 1985. Berlioux gave public addresses on numerous occasions on the topic of women in sport, addressing in particular their under-representation among sports administrators.105 Following the Varna Congress in 1973, where the absence of women in Olympic leadership had been highlighted, Berlioux conducted a study of women in international sports administration, the results of which were published in the Olympic Review (Berlioux, 1974). Behind the scenes, Berlioux raised the issue of women in sports leadership in various settings, including in meetings with UNESCO in the late 1970s as the IOC developed their relationship with the organization. When UNESCO Director, Monsieur Amadou-Mahtar M’Bow, attended a meeting of the Tripartite Commission in December 1979, Berlioux “referred to the participation of women in sports administration” and suggested it was something that UNESCO could help with.106 Following the meeting, Berlioux wrote to the UNESCO Director regarding the development of women in physical education and sport, emphasizing her desire to improve the current situation.107 Another example is Nadia Lekarska, long-time member of the Programme Commission. Lekarska’s presence on the Programme Commission may also explain why, in 1970, the Chair of the Programme Commission Arpad Csanadi raised “the
105 These included the 1985 Philip Noel-Baker Lecture at Loughborough University and presentations to the International Olympic Academy. 106 Minutes of the Meeting of the Tripartite Commission (December 12-13, 1978), p. 10. 107 Letter, Berlioux to Amadou-Mahtar M’bow (January 8, 1979).
29 question of electing women to the IOC” at an Executive Board meeting.108 When Lekarska presented her study of the Olympic Programme to the Executive Board in 1969, she expanded the concept of women’s participation to include leadership, stressing “the importance of women participating in the Olympic Movement and [underlining] that it would be desirable to have more women appointed by the NOCs.” When presenting on the topic at the National Conference on Women, Sport and Physical Recreation in Australia, in 1980, Lekarska highlighted the absence of women leaders in the ranks of NOCs, IFs, and the IOC, stating that “their absence on the leading bodies of international sports is a clear sign of weakness. In no other field of social life are women so poorly represented on international institutions as in the sports movement” (Lekarska, 1985, p. 140). Lekarska also referenced women’s leadership during her presentation to the 30th Session of International Olympic Academy, held in Athens in 1990, where the special theme was “Women in the Olympic Movement.” At the level of NOCs, a clear champion for women leaders was Lia Manoliu, who became the President of the Romanian NOC in 1990. On various occasions she addressed leaders in the Olympic Movement regarding the discriminatory exclusion or under-representation of women in Olympic leadership ranks. At both the Varna and Baden-Baden Olympic Congresses, as described above, Manoliu firmly demanded the establishment of a women’s commission within the IOC. As she stated in Baden- Baden, “the truths of 1973 are still valid in 1981: there are no women amongst the members of the IOC, their participation in the International Federations is almost the same, and the quota of women in the National Olympic Committees remains at a low level. … Let us give to woman the possibility of proving that she can assert herself in administration and in management with the same success shown in high performance sport, and other sectors of society.109 In 1987, in an effort to reach a broader audience within the Olympic Movement, Manoliu published an article on women’s leadership in the November 18th issue of the Olympic Message. Addressing the audience at the 1990 International Olympic Academy in Athens, Manoliu stated that she had “tried, in every possible way, to fight against misogynist prejudice, in sport as in every other field of social life, and to show the best and most effective ways to promote women to positions that correspond to their competence, which is sometimes ignored.”110 In the early 1990s, as momentum grew to establish policies for women’s leadership, women with decision-making positions within the IOC became advocates of deeper change:
Several members of the [IOC] were clearly committed to moving the agenda of gender equality in sports forward … Floria Fonseca and Pija Hackman and Anita DeFrantz … [who] were then joined by a number of other women who were very outspoken in terms of gender equality in sport and through sport… but you also had a number of men on board at the time, who still are very supportive of the gender equality approach. (IOC employee)
108 Minutes of the Meeting of the IOC Executive Board (May 8-16, 1970), p. 28. 109 Final Report of the Baden-Baden Congress, 1981, Part I, p. 106. 110 Report of the Thirtieth Session of the International Olympic Academy (June 20-July 5, 1990), p. 125.
30
During this time period, male leaders within the IOC were also instrumental, including Csanadi as described in section 3.1. In the 1990s, leadership from Juan Antonio Samaranch in particular was key to supporting the growth of women’s participation in leadership, from the addition of women members of the IOC through to the establishment of the Women and Sport Commission in 1995. As recalled by one IOC employee:
We had a leader at the time, Juan Antonio Samaranch, who had very a proactive view of where this was moving and should be going, and as part of that he had a clear vision of where women should be in that new sports world and what their roles should be. Clearly he wanted more women to be part of the decision-making processes of the IOC, and wanted to actually promote that idea throughout the Olympic Movement. In a sense he was very much a visionary and he was pushing for that top-down, which helped us in the organization to put in place the Commission … but also a whole range of supporting programs that … were actually leading to concrete actions on the ground, at the advocacy level and at grassroots participation level. … It was very much his own personal commitment to gender equality that made the difference.
To summarize, advocacy for women in Olympic leadership came from key individuals located within the Movement with a platform from which to advance their agenda. While top-down support from international shifts in women’s politics was forthcoming in the 1990s, external advocacy, including from feminist or women’s organizations, was for the most part absent in the area of women’s leadership.
Part II: The IPC and Women in the Paralympic Movement
2.1 Framing: Gender and Elitism in the Paralympic Movement In this section I show that in the Paralympic Movement over the 1980s and 1990s, framing issues arose that were not directly connected to gender but which ultimately had gendered effects. In particular, the effort to reconfigure the Paralympic Games as an elite sporting event – and hence one that was financially viable – had the effect of eliminating many opportunities for female athletic participation. This was in large part influenced by a contractual agreement between the IOC and IPC, which helped to financially stabilize the Paralympic Games but also required a smaller, more elite programme. Compounding this was a perception that women were under-represented in key disability categories relative to men, making it a challenge to articulate gender equality as a legitimate concern. As in the case of the IOC, women’s representation in Paralympic leadership developed as a best practice, but also as a precursor to women’s increased athletic participation.
Inclusive vs Elite Games
31 The 1980s represented a period of considerable institutional change for the Paralympic Movement. The decade began under the stewardship of the International Coordination Committee of World Sports Organizations (ICC), established in 1982, and ended with the establishment of the IPC in 1989. Considerable organizational development followed. As noted in an interview by former Technical Officer, Carol Mushett, “the structure of the IPC now is very different to what it was when we started … Paralympic sport really began as a grassroots movement. IPC didn’t exist, and gradually we formed these organizations which you would know as IOSDs [International Organizations of Sport for the Disabled] … [but] it emerged on the grassroots level.” Historical records reveal a tension between the values of elitism and inclusive participation throughout this period, not only within the IPC but also its predecessors, including the ICC and related International Organizations of Sport for the Disabled (IOSDs). At the 1976 meeting of the International Stoke Mandeville Games Federation (ISMGF) Executive Committee, where the extension of novice classes was discussed, the President reminded the Committee that their “Games were not just for champions but also for beginners and intermediates,” and that this was particularly important for ensuring representation of athletes from less resource-rich countries.111 An emphasis on elitism emerged during the tussle over naming rights when the ICC pushed the IOC for permission to use the term “Olympics” in the title of their Games. Writing to President Samaranch in 1983 to request use of the term “Olympics for the disabled,” representatives of the ICC described the organization as providing “top-level international competition for those human beings in the world who, because of a disability, cannot compete in sports with able bodied on equal terms … [but] have developed a high level of competitiveness, quality and standards… [and] are worthy of the highest possible status of amateur sports i.e. to be “Olympic sports.””112 The tension between inclusion and elitism was also evident at the national level during this period. For example, Carol Mushett, former Technical Officer of the IPC, described her experience as Chef de Mission for the US team at the 1984 Paralympic Games:
We wanted to have a balance in the total number … and also to have a balance in terms of our athlete coaches, our coaches and trainers, things like that. And we did get a lot of pushback, because in doing so, it didn’t really leave out male athletes but we did include some female athletes who maybe hadn’t been training as many years or who people perceived as not being as serious an athlete.
In 1986 it was agreed that the Paralympic Games programme should be limited to elite athletes. 113 Corresponding with this decision was the Games’ increasing professionalization, beginning with the Seoul Paralympic Games, which Mushett described as “the first games of the modern era, where there was big money backing it, where we weren’t having to do bake sales and such to raise money for the
111 Minutes of the Meeting of the ISMGF Executive Committee (October 23, 1976), p. 7. 112 Draft letter, Scruton and Lindstrom on behalf of ICC to the IOC (May 5, 1983), p. 1. 113 Minutes of the Annual Meeting of the ISMGF Council (August 2, 1986), p. 3 (Appendix II).
32 Paralympic Games.” Paired with the Barcelona Games in 1992, this four-year period represented a pivotal moment in the history of the Paralympic Movement: [‘88] was also a change in the sense that it was funded by the government, spectacular ceremonies, opening and closing and so forth, and lots and lots of spectators like we’d never seen before. … But ‘92 was really the turning point where we went from being sort of a grassroots movement and had a little bit more of a participatory slant to really recognizing that the role of IPC was on specifically elite high performance, comparable to the IOC. (Interview, Carol Mushett)
However, as described in further detail below, the professionalization of the Games corresponded with the elimination of events with low numbers of competitors, many of them for women or athletes with severe disabilities. The IPC emerged in this historical moment of transition, formally taking over from the ICC at the Paralympic Games in Barcelona in 1992. Mushett described the gender fallout of the transition to the IPC and a more professional Paralympic Movement and Games as follows:
There was a passing of the flag in Barcelona… and then there was of course this dramatic reduction in the number of events on the Paralympic programme, and that’s when, you know it’s hard because they would say “well, women’s sport is not as deep as men’s sport,” or “the women aren’t as good as the men.” … [It] was actually true, that women weren’t maybe being trained as seriously as some of the men. But there were [also] a lot of champions out there.
In sum, the transformation of the Paralympic Games in the 1980s and into the 1990s involved a process of professionalization in which the Movement was reframed as elite, which in turn reduced opportunities for women’s athletic participation.
Emergent Gender Frames As with the Olympic Movement, global currents in gender politics were shaping gender dynamics in the Paralympic Movement. As described by Mushett, “much of this [was] really influenced by society and the social context and what’s going on not only in individual nations but across the globe … it all weaves together with what’s going on in the rest of the world … outside of sport.” Furthermore, the IPC’s approach towards gender was shaped in significant ways by what was happening in the Olympic Movement. Yet in contrast with the IOC, attention to women’s participation appears to have emerged much later in the Paralympic Movement. This is likely due to the early period of inclusivity followed by the battle to establish the Paralympic Games as a viable and elite event, which occurred alongside significant organizational shifts in the bureaucratic structure of Paralympic governance. Moreover, as part of this effort to establish the Paralympic Games, disability itself often served as the dominant human rights framing, to which gender and other forms of difference were secondary. As stated by Paralympian and IPC Governing Board member Ann Cody, “[when] we’re dealing with disability advocacy and disability rights and legislation …
33 it’s like we’re all lumped together … we’re so marginalized and have so few opportunities that … we do it in the name of people with disabilities broadly, meaning all disabilities, all genders, sexual orientation, race, religion and everything.” Nevertheless, minutes and other materials from the 1990s reveal increasing attention to the issue of women’s participation as well as athletes with severe disabilities. For example, in 1994 Colin Rains, President of CPISRA, presented a paper to the IPC Executive Committee on trends in Paralympic and world sports for disabled people, expressing concern regarding the participation of women and the severely disabled, as well as the term “elitism.” Resembling debates over responsibility in the Olympic Movement, it was noted by the Medical Officer at the time that “the responsibility to start developing more opportunities for severely disabled and women lays with the national federations.”114 Still, the IPC President agreed that the IPC should address these issues and referred Rains’ paper to the planning committee for the 1995 Congress in Tokyo. Also at this time, and consistent with shifts in the Olympic Movement, the gender politics of the IPC were being shaped by the international women in sport movement. As recalled by Ann Cody, “the Brighton Declaration provided an impetus for [Carol Mushett] to bring the issue [of women in leadership] to the Executive Board.” In 1995, the IPC General Assembly formally endorsed the scope and aims of the Brighton Declaration of 1994, and especially a commitment to pursuing “a sporting culture that enables the full involvement of women in every aspect of sports.”115 The Brighton Declaration would continue to be evoked in subsequent years, such as at a 1997 meeting of the Executive Committee, where in a discussion of women’s participation one member “referred to the Brighton declaration and stressed the need to interact with the International Women and Sport group.”116 Thus by the mid 1990s, women’s participation was being readily identified as a priority for the Movement. For example, in 1996 the IPC held an Extraordinary General Assembly with several decisions made concerning the future of the disabled sports movement. One motion was carried unanimously: "The IPC affirms its commitment to include in the Summer and Winter Paralympic Programmes, sports and events with more severe disability and female athletes."117 At around this time, the issue of women in leadership clearly entered the frame. For example, at the Paralympic Congress in 1996, the IPC Sports Science Committee identified general research areas for the future, one of which was to look for “ways to increase the number of women in specific sports as athletes, coaches, and leaders.”118In contrast with the Olympic Movement, where women athletes were often sufficiently numerous that supply outstripped demand, in the Paralympic Movement the under- representation of women athletes in Paralympic sport at all levels was a key problem. During the mid-1990s, women’s leadership began to be framed as part of the solution,
114 Minutes of the Meeting of the IPC Executive Committee (March 7-10, 1994), p. 16. 115 Minutes of the IPC General Assembly (November 8-9, 1995), p. 16. 116 Minutes of the Meeting of the IPC Executive Committee (May 19-25, 1997), p. 11-12. 117 Report of the IPC Technical Officer to the Meeting of the IPC Executive Committee (May 19-25, 1997), p. 9. 118 Summary of the Reports of the IPC Sports Science Committee, 1996 Paralympic Congress, p. 3.
34 much more so than had been the case in the Olympic Movement. For example, when Mushett presented a study of women and sport to the Sports Council Executive Committee (SCEC) in March of 1997, women’s athletic participation and leadership were described as hand-in-hand.119 Mushett noted that programmes were needed to “encourage practice among women and that there is a need to increase the number of women in the decision making process.”120 Similar to the IOC, it was remarked at this time that “abstract philosophical statements are not sufficient [and] there is a need for a concrete action plan.”121 In the late 1990s, with the IPC also being shaped by events in the Olympic Movement, a “best practice” framing emerged in relation to women’s leadership. Recommendations of the IOC Working Group on Women and Sports, recently adopted by the IOC, were presented to the IPC Sports Council Executive Committee in 1997, with one such recommendation being the establishment of a decision-making body to address women’s participation.122 Cody reflected on the influence of the IOC here, stating that “we were drawing on other areas of society to help solidify that that was an important area to focus on.” Once established, the IPC Women in Sport Commission (WSIC) continued to draw on the expertise of the IOC, and especially Irena Szewinska, who was invited to serve as a commission member. As recalled by Cody, “[Szewinska] was on that first IOC commission on women so she had a lot of expertise that she passed on, and that was another way that we ended up replicating some of what the IOC has done. So she was invaluable to those conversations and to ultimately getting [leadership targets established].” The emergence of the WISC is discussed in further detail below. Notable here, however, is the approach of the IPC to increasing women in leadership. Just as was seen in the IOC, the IPC framed women’s leadership as an organizational issue, to be resolved through non-binding targets, the establishment of a bureaucratic space for women, and investment in workshops and conferences as a means of spreading the message of gender inclusion and developing skills and connections among prospective women leaders. As articulated most clearly in an interview with present WISC chairperson, Tine Teilmann:
I’ve learned in recent years that a 30/70 balance is an ok gender balance. So if we reach the target that we have of 30% female in all decision-making bodies, I mean, I will be happy, if we can reach that. The number 30/70 comes from the big report that the big finance companies are doing … McKenzie Millions, the McKenzie report, they made some research saying that if you have a board with 30/70 gender balance, between male and female, you make more profit on the bottom line. … A board would take better decisions, be more nuanced in your decisions if you can be the mirror of more people in your organization. …
119 Report of the IPC Technical Officer to the Meeting of the IPC Executive Committee (May 19-25, 1997), p. 4; This was also the first instance of discussion regarding the proportion of women participants in the Paralympic Games, that being 24% in Atlanta in 1996. 120 Ibid. 121 Ibid. 122 Report of the IPC Technical Officer to the Meeting of the IPC Executive Committee (May 19-25, 1997), p. 4.
35 If you look at the McKenzie research in that way … I think that really fits [the IPC]. … We’ll have a better organization, better decisions, more opportunities for everybody if we have a balanced board.
In other words, like the Olympic Movement, the framing of women in Paralympic leadership was in many ways depoliticized and developed in a “best practice” direction. However, in contrast with the Olympic Movement, there was a weaker gender equality or anti-discrimination framing of women’s athletic participation.
Gender and Disability: An Intersectional Frame This points to an additional framing issue that is specific to the Paralympic Movement, concerning the issue of disability rates among men and women. Whereas women are known to represent roughly half of the able-bodied population, thereby justifying the demand for Olympic sports to adequately mirror that gender balance, Paralympic sports have at times been characterized by the belief that women are present in fewer numbers among individuals with disabilities across the world, making the goal of a 50/50 gender balance among athletes less compelling. For instance, at a 1997 meeting of the Sports Council Executive Committee, it was stated that there is a “higher percentage of disabled men in the world because of different lifestyles,” although statistics also showed that the number of disabled men and women below the age of 18 were equal.123 Several interviews described battling this perception. Carol Mushett encountered such resistance as part of her efforts to understand the under- participation of women in disability sport relative to men:
Initially, every time we would bring up women, people would say well more men than women have disabilities, and this was like the way out. And yes, it is true that more men than women have traumatic brain injuries between the ages of 18 and 25, because they tend to be risk-takers … but overall it was not valid. You know, when we look at blindness and visual impairment or we look at cerebral palsy or we look at many, many… You can’t just say well there’s not as many women with disabilities as there are men. But that was the way out.
As an emerging IPC leader in the early 2000s, and head of the IPC’s Women in Sport Committee from 2002 until 2006, Cody similarly sought to dispel the myth of gender differences in disability rates:
There was a lot of … pushback about providing women athletes more opportunities and more slots, more competition opportunities in the Paralympic Games and sport. And that was primarily coming from wheelchair users and wheelchair sport. So I basically did research particularly on the population of people with disabilities in the US to understand if there was a difference in terms of the number of women who had disabilities by disability … to really
123 Report of the IPC Technical Officer to the Meeting of the IPC Executive Committee (May 19-25, 1997), p. 4.
36 understand if more men were experiencing these than women. And indeed what I found was that the only population where men were over-represented was in the area of spinal cord injury in particular, and some amputee related accidents and things. But in all other areas, girls and boys, women and men, were pretty equal … and in some conditions there were more girls and women represented. … I gathered that information to demonstrate that indeed that perception was wrong … [but] it still comes up, even today.
Nevertheless, the lower participation rates of women in disability sport were indisputable, which interviewees put down to their double disadvantage relative to men. Describing “the double stigma of disability and gender,” Cody recalled feeling “frustrated about the lack of opportunity, the lack of understanding, about girls and women with disabilities. So many barriers and challenges that sport just was not a priority at all [for women with disabilities], because living and then eating, sleeping, having a roof over your head and hopefully getting an education, the education rates and the literacy rates are 1% for women with disabilities and 3% for all people with disabilities throughout the world.” As a leader with a disability, Cody described having “to work very hard just to even be in the same room with the rest of the people … it just seems like it’s never enough.” Similarly, recalling the disadvantages faced by a blind female leader within the IPC, Carol Mushett stated “I think it’s just harder for women in general.” In sum, in contrast with the Olympic Movement, women in the Paralympic Movement – and athletes in particular – faced the challenge of articulating gender equality as a legitimate priority, since women with disabilities were less likely to be participating in sport at any level. Here it was necessary to make an intersectional framing of gender and disability compelling. As described in further detail below, the IPC ultimately embraced its responsibility to develop women’s sport, with the addition of events and sports in the Paralympic Games one such strategy for doing so.
2.2 Reconfiguring A Gendered Paralympic Bureaucracy In this section I examine two aspects of IPC bureaucracy related to women’s participation. First, I consider how the professionalization of the Paralympic Games outlined above was visible in the rules and standards for adding new disciplines, events and sports for women during the 1980s and 1990s. Second, I elaborate on how the IPC integrated the Women in Sport Committee (WISC) into its organizational structure in the late 1990s and early 2000s, and how and why particular policies and strategies emerged in relation to women and leadership.
Gendered Collateral Damage As noted above, the 1980s represented a period of redefinition of the Paralympic Movement as it aligned with the IOC and the Olympic Movement, and this in turn had consequences for the rules and procedures of the ICC and, later, the IPC. Whereas the IOC’s problem of gigantism has been articulated since at least the early 1970s, size became a problem for Paralympic sport in the late 1980s at the time when the IOC and Paralympic leaders negotiated the concurrent holding of Olympic and
37 Paralympic Games. Changes to the Paralympic programme followed ICC negotiations with the IOC regarding financial support, which also prevented the ICC’s use of the term “Olympic” for their games.124 It was reported additionally following a meeting with the IOC that “the problem of the number of competitions and the resulting number of medals required was discussed. There is general agreement that some method of reduction of these numbers must be decided upon. … That of the number of competitors was [also] discussed.”125 In 1986, ahead of the 1988 Paralympic Games in Seoul, It was agreed that the ICC should seek to reduce the classes and experiment “with integrated classification in order to achieve reduction of classes and improve the sports.” 126 The proposed programme for Seoul was indeed large, a product of the integration of multiple international disability sport organizations under the Paralympic banner. This breadth of competition categories was difficult to sustain. As described by Mushett:
We had so many events on the programme in Seoul … What they did was take all the disability specific organizations, so they took CPISRA and Stoke … [and] just put them all on the programme. Then there were so many events that a lot of events didn’t fill up… that would [usually] fill up at IOSD [events] or world championships. … Going to the Paralympic Games the countries were having to raise the money to get their athletes there, their way was not paid like Olympic athletes. And so the sizes of the teams were smaller, and many women’s events did not have enough athletes for them to run in ‘88 in Seoul, and so they were taken off the programme only a couple of weeks before… so that of course was traumatic for everyone, especially the athletes.
Mushett described the programme cuts and their heavy toll on women and athletes with severe disabilities as “a huge setback” but also “a rallying call, it was a wake-up call for us that we had to make some hard decisions and make sure that never happened again.” In the lead-up to the Barcelona Games, Mushett describes the Sports Council having “to fight like crazy to preserve events for women, because they were coming in with a very professional structure.” Nevertheless, difficult decisions had to be taken. In 1993, the IPC Sports Council Executive Committee, led by Hans Lindstrom, assessed the existing programme to determine which events should be deleted, in accordance with approved criteria, since there had been too few entries in Seoul and Barcelona. In athletics, 22 events were recommended for deletion. Twenty of them were women’s events. In cycling, ten events were recommended for deletion, seven of which included both men’s and women’s categories deleted, and three for women only.127 When the Sports Council released its proposed quota system in 1995, “based on the
124 Op cit., p. 2. 125 Report from the ISMGF to the meeting of the ICC (post January 1985, date unspecified), p. 3. 126 Minutes of the Meeting of the ISMGF Annual Council (August 2, 1986), p. 1 (Appendix II). 127 Minutes of the Meeting of the IPC Sports Council Executive Committee (December 13-14, 1993), p. 2.
38 IOC selection process,” it was intended to “allow only the best athletes to compete” but with “sufficient recognition for the elite performances of women and severely disabled athletes on the condition that there are enough such athletes in the world who participate in competition.”128 However, gender imbalances were evident in the events and sports to be added to the 1996 programme. For instance, women’s powerlifting was not accepted, while ten powerlifting events would continue to be on the programme for men.129 As noted by Colin Rains at the 1995 IPC Congress, the Atlanta Games would represent “a clear diminution in opportunities for [women] to compete.”130 Recognizing the gendered impact of the new approach to the Paralympic programme, decision-makers within the IPC sought ways to expand opportunities for women’s participation within existing rules and standards. In contrast with the IOC, for instance, in 1996 it was decided by the IPC Sports Council that women’s sports should be treated as events, since this would promote opportunities for their participation.131 One example was wheelchair rugby. Mushett described how the sport came to be defined as co-ed, rather than a men’s sport:
When they submitted their application to be a Paralympic sport, it didn’t say men, it just said wheelchair rugby … it didn’t say men’s wheelchair rugby. … [I] said, look, we’re very committed to balancing out the Paralympic programme so that there are opportunities for women. … You haven’t specifically said men so can I assume that this is co-ed? And he talked to his committee and said absolutely it’s co-ed, and I wrote it down.
A similar case occurred during the review of the Paralympic Programme in 1995, when all sports were reviewed to determine whether they met the criteria to feature in the Games. As recounted by Mushett, women’s wheelchair basketball was found to have too few countries participating:
We find this dilemma, and this is only one example, where women’s wheelchair basketball did not qualify as a sport or a discipline, because there were only ten nations. … So this as you could imagine was just heart wrenching because there was no way on god’s green earth we could allow women’s basketball to be taken off the programme. It was contrary to everything intuitive on developing opportunities for women. … We discovered that in the handbook there was no clear definition with regard to men and women in the handbook [and] whether [something] was a discipline … and Brian Scoby … said ‘well I believe that women’s wheelchair basketball is an event of wheelchair basketball, just like women’s 100m for T5s is an event.’ And we only had to have six nations to keep an event on the programme. And so we were able to maintain [women’s wheelchair basketball] on the programme in order to give it the chance to grow and thrive.
128 Minutes of the Meeting of the IPC Executive Committee (April 28-30, 1995), p. 5. 129 Op cit., p. 3. 130 Programme of the IPC Congress (November 6-7, 1995), page unspecified. 131 Minutes of the Meeting of the IPC Sports Council (December 3-4, 2001), p. 15.
39
In other cases, however, rules were prioritized ahead of increasing opportunities for women’s participation, as in the case of women’s sitting volleyball ahead of the Sydney Paralympic Games in 2000. In 1997, Mushett reported to the Executive Committee that the application for women’s sitting volleyball had been submitted on time but without the required evidence. In the absence of this evidence, the Ad Hoc Paralympic Programme Committee expressed feeling “an obligation to strictly follow the regulations and criteria for all disciplines and events in order to give fair and equal chances to all applicants.” Despite the meeting being reminded of the IPC’s policy to increase women’s participation, it was ultimately voted to “follow the rules established” and not include women’s sitting volleyball in the 2000 Games.132 Thus even in the late 1990s and into the 2000s, the vulnerability of competition slots for women athletes persisted. For example, in the lead-up to the 2000 Paralympic Games in Sydney, the IPC Management Committee noted the events most at risk of being cancelled were those for women and the severely disabled. In order to mitigate these cancellations as much as possible, the expected numbers of competitors in these events informed the allocation of country wildcards.133 Moreover, in around 2001 the IPC and its Sports Council in particular released an updated policy protecting competition opportunities for women and athletes with severe disabilities, the new formula for which was described by Mushett as “taking into account the protection of events for severely disabled athletes and women.”134 As a result, even though the alignment of the IPC with the IOC and the Olympic Games was continuing to “influence the Paralympic Games programme” in that the IPC needed to “keep the Games manageable and comply with the contractual numbers,”135 policies were introduced that mitigated the impact on women athletes.
Negotiating Movement-Level Change In the late 1990s, changes to the organizational structure of the IPC to allow the greater integration of women into leadership positions developed alongside policies for women’s participation. As discussed in further detail below, Carol Mushett was particularly influential in her role as Technical Officer. In March of 1997, as part of her presentation on women and sport to the SCEC, Mushett recommended that the IPC establish a sub-committee to interact with the IOC Working Group on Women and Sports. The SCEC approved a motion to recommend to the Executive Committee that a working group on women and sport be appointed, with the task of conducting a comprehensive study on the status of women in Paralympic sports and the IPC and developing and implementing an action plan.136 When such a working group was not forthcoming, the Sports Council resolved to appoint their own sub-committee, “where the remit would be monitoring the participation of women in sport and all the individual sports at different levels, not just at Paralympic Games and world championships”
132 Minutes of the Meeting of the IPC Executive Committee (May 19-25, 1997), p. 11. 133 Minutes of the Meeting of the IPC Management Committee (February 25-26, 2000), p. 7. 134 Minutes of the Meeting of the IPC Management Committee (August 25-26, 2001), p. 1. 135 Op cit., p. 10. 136 Report of the IPC Technical Officer to the Meeting of the IPC Executive Committee (May 19-25, 1997), p. 4.
40 (Carol Mushett, interview). During a discussion of strategic initiatives at the November 1999 meeting of the Sports Council, it was moved that the proposed sub-committee “be responsible for the development of an organizational strategy to enhance opportunities for the full involvement of Women in Paralympic Sport and in IPC.” 137 With six abstentions (of 27 voting members), the sub-committee motion was carried.138 The notion of establishing a women’s committee independent from the Sports Council was also gathering speed at this time. Addressing the IPC General Assembly in 1999, the IPC President noted that “we must take a more definitive and practical approach with action. We must create [a] Commission to specifically focus on [this issue], as decisive action is essential.”139 At an Executive Committee meeting following the 1999 General Assembly, with the IPC moving closer to establishing a women’s committee, Colin Rains referred to “repeated requests for initiatives for Women and Severely Disabled and welcomed the fact that promises would now be put into practice.”140 In this same meeting, the IPC Sports Department presented six motions for ratification, the sixth of which was entitled “Women in Paralympic Sport” and concerned the establishment of a women and sport commission or standing committee. It was stated that the proposed committee/commission would “be responsible for the development of an organizational strategy to enhance opportunities for the full involvement of Women in Paralympic Sport and in IPC.”141 Finally, at a meeting of the Executive Council in October 2000, the Women in Sport commission was formerly established. Consistent with the “best practice” framing described in relation to women’s leadership in the Olympic Movement, the commission pursued non-binding action in the form of awareness campaigns and skill development, often combined under Women and Paralympic Sport conferences. Separate from the commission, and in an effort to spread responsibility to other areas of the IPC, Carol Mushett led a mentoring initiative involving individual Executive Committee members, each of whom were asked to identify one person among emerging women leaders and make a personal commitment to coach the individual and identify opportunities for her development.142 In 2003 when Women in Sport was formerly established as a Standing Committee at the IPC General Assembly, targets were adopted for women in Paralympic leadership. The motion emerged in the November 2003 meeting of the Women in Sport Committee.143 As recalled by Ann Cody, “that enabled us to [access] more resources, and it also assumed that this was an issue that was in the IPC’s best interests to be a longer term issue.” As part of the motion it was proposed that the Paralympic Movement immediately establish a goal of 15% for women’s representation in Paralympic decision-making structures by 2005, “with the intent of achieving 30%
137 Minutes of the Meeting of the IPC Sports Council (November 14-15, 1999), p. 12. 138 Op cit., p. 13. 139 Minutes of the IPC General Assembly (November 19-20, 1999), p. 2. 140 Minutes of the Meeting of the IPC Executive Committee (May 12-13, 2000), p. 1. 141 Op cit., p. 12. 142 Minutes of the Meeting of the IPC Executive Committee (October 11-1, 2002), p. 30. 143 Minutes of the Meeting of the IPC Women in Sport Committee (November 20-21, 2003), p. 2.
41 representation by 2009.” The motion carried with 52 votes in favor, 30 against and 7 abstentions. Like the IOC, whose policies were cited, the targets would be non-binding. Also like the IOC, it was emphasized that “women [should be] elected into positions because they are efficient and the best choice for the job, not because they are women.”144 But as noted by Cody in an interview, concerns that women would be elevated to positions they weren’t qualified for were unfounded:
People were concerned about having the quotas as I just said, and having to … put people in positions, and we had to educate them about how and why that wouldn’t be the case, and about the fact that actually there are a lot of women who have the expertise and qualifications … they [just] don’t see any opportunities.
Cody also reflected on why the IPC departed from the IOC in adopting a higher target for women in leadership (30% as opposed to 20%):
Of course we [the WISC] wanted it to be 50% but we were advised, and probably wisely, not to put that stake in the ground just yet. So I guess we caved a little bit, but at the time this was pushing the envelope, but we were able to get IPC leadership to support the idea of putting the stake in the ground at 30% representation because we did not want to settle for 20% like the IOC had. And we viewed our movement as much more inclusive, recognizing the value in differences, because of what we are, that we should absolutely have policies that promote greater diversity in our leadership.
However, interview data also suggested that the IPC had limited capacity to impose higher targets or more binding quotas onto other constituent parts of the Paralympic Movement. For example, Xavier Gonzalez, Chief Executive Officer of the IPC since 2004, described the preference for targets over quotas as follows:
[In comparison with a quota] a target comes from the bottom rather than from the top… it’s something that comes from the bottom of the organization up, that is embedded in the practices and the behaviours of the organization, instead of leadership trying to [impose it].
Gonzalez went on to describe how, at the time, the IPC was seen by some organizations in the Movement as being too authoritarian, as “dictating direction instead of … interpreting what the Movement wanted.” The development of women leaders was to be a negotiation between the IPC and other constituent organizations of the Paralympic Movement, with the IPC often restricted to playing a supporting role in the form of initiatives promoting awareness and capacity building.
144 Minutes of the IPC General Assembly (November 21-22, 2003), pp. 17-18.
42 2.3 Advocates for Women’s Paralympic Participation In this final empirical section I consider how advocacy for women’s participation unfolded in the context of the Paralympic Movement. In comparison with the Olympic Movement, the distinction between leaders and athletes in terms of advocacy was less clear. Another difference in the case of the Paralympic Movement is that there was no role to be played by IFs, since the IPC itself is in effect the federation for many disability sports, and advocacy by representatives of the organizations who participated in the Sports Council (including IOSDs) appeared to be less defined along the lines of individual sports. Overall, individual advocacy appeared to have been most significant to women’s participation as either athletes or leaders. As noted in relation to women’s leadership by IPC CEO Xavier Gonzalez in an interview, “it is in some way a little bit depending who is where, and who is leading what, for why [the IPC has] been successful in some places more than others.” Somewhat distinct from individual advocacy was the effort to expand women’s representation in Paralympic leadership, seen strategically as a platform from which to advocate for women’s greater athletic participation. In this section I consider each form of advocacy in turn. Mushett’s personal trajectory to becoming Technical Officer is an example of how individual advocacy was at times significant in expanding women’s leadership opportunities. As noted by Mushett, the position of Technical Officer “was probably the second most powerful [position in Paralympic sport] to the President, even though there were vice presidents and so forth.” Behind-the-scenes work by Hans Lindstrom, Technical Officer for the IPC until 1997, was critical to ensuring that Mushett succeeded him. Mushett described the subtle ways that Lindstrom prepared her to become the Technical Officer of the IPC:
We [were making] recommendations that sport A should be taken off the programme, sport B added to the programme, these are the ones remaining… And so, when Hans was going to present that to the Executive Board of IPC, he literally had me come into the meeting and do the presentation. … I later sort of figured out that what he was doing was really mentoring me, because this was an organization that was totally dominated by men. And the CPISRA President was a woman, but other than that you didn’t see women in there. And so, he was already beginning to groom me. … Later he told me that he had to test me, first of all, to see if I could do the work and then to see if I could take the heat. And later … he convinced me to run when he decided to retire from being Technical Officer.
Mushett reflected further on the importance of support from empowered men:
You’ve got to have the Hans Lindstroms … because if Hans Lindstrom had not opened the door for Carol Mushett, I never would have been elected. … I would have never run to begin with, but Hans also very discretely worked behind the scenes … I know that he worked like crazy to drum up votes for me. … . If men are – and they are in many of our nations – the primary gatekeepers, then they’ve got to be the ones that open the doors, open the gates that create the opportunities.
43
Also significant was support from other women in the Movement, and particularly Jean Stone, who had served the Movement since 1959. In Carol’s words:
[Stone] always had every woman’s back. I mean she was there literally if I got slam dunked, she was pulling me into the office and drying my tearful eyes and [putting vising in and] putting lipstick on me and pushing me back out into the ring. I mean literally, literally. I can’t even begin to tell you and likewise I can’t begin to tell you how many women during this time have dried each other’s eyes and slapped on some lip gloss and pushed them right back out there to go toe-to-toe.
With support from Lindstrom and Stone, Mushett would ultimately be able to use her position as Technical Officer to pursue initiatives for the development of women’s sports, ensure that gender-related policies were being implemented, and to advance the aforementioned mentoring initiative with the governing board. Mushett’s election to the position of Technical Officer also ensured that attention to women’s participation and leadership in the Movement gathered speed. For example, in 2002 when the strategic review of the IPC was announced, it was determined that the activities of the new IPC commissions, including Women in Sport, would be suspended until the review was complete.145 However, at Mushett’s urging, it was agreed that the Commission for Women in Sport would not have its activities suspended during the review, “in order to not lose the momentum to promote opportunities for women.”146 Individual leaders within the IPC, such as current President Phil Craven and CEO Xavier Gonzalez, were often at the forefront of efforts to integrate women athletes and leaders, particularly in the late 1990s and early 2000s. However, at a more collective level, advocacy for women’s athletic participation was linked specifically to women’s representation in leadership, and this relationship was far more visible in the Paralympic than the Olympic Movement. For instance, Mushett emphasized in an interview the importance of having “women not just on the fields of play but women in the boardroom, and that they have to be both places, [because] we’re really not going to get our fair share of women on the field of play if we don’t have women in the boardroom.” Ann Cody mirrored this sentiment, stating that from its early years onwards the WISC prioritized women’s leadership as a mean’s of addressing women’s underrepresentation on the sporting field, believing that “if we invested part of our time and energy into that, then it would yield a much greater ripple effect of results.” In sum, advocacy for women in the Paralympic Movement bore some resemblance to that in the Olympic Movement, although there was overall less archival and interview material in which accounts of advocacy were visible. Based on the material that was available, it was evident that key individuals within the IPC were critical to expanding women’s participation as athletes and leaders. Unlike the Olympic Movement, there was little evidence of collective advocacy from external
145 Minutes of the Meeting of the IPC Management Committee (January 26-27, 2002), p. 8. 146 Minutes of the Meeting of the IPC Executive Committee (March 4-5, 2002), p. 11.
44 sources or other organizations within the Paralympic Movement. Perhaps because of this, the women with a leadership platform within the IPC played a more significant advocacy role than was visible in the case of the IOC and the broader Olympic Movement.
CONCLUSIONS
This study has investigated how four distinct trajectories of women’s participation emerged historically across the two Movements: women athletes and leaders in the Olympic Movement, compared with women athletes and leaders in the Paralympic Movement. As suggested by Woodward (2012), the Olympic Games are the product of complex “social, cultural, economic and political” forces, which interact to empower women in uneven ways. Through a historical, comparative, and sociological analysis of women’s participation in the Olympic and Paralympic Movements, focused in particular on the actions of the IOC and IPC, this report has illustrated the historical development of this complexity, highlighting three areas where key differences arose along the axes of athletes/leaders and Olympic/Paralympic. In concluding this report, I summarize my findings in these three areas and consider the broader implications. In relation to framing, I find that although women’s athletic participation and leadership both emerged in the Olympic Movement as part of a gender equality and anti-discrimination frame during the 1970s, women’s leadership was ultimately depoliticized and developed instead in the direction of a “best practice” frame, emphasizing gradual organizational change and skill development as opposed to participation in leadership as a democratic or human right. While the same “best practice” frame was visible for women’s leadership in the Paralympic Movement, particularly over the 1990s and into the 2000s, the gender equality and anti- discrimination framing of women’s athletic participation was weaker than in the Olympic Movement, because of the primacy of disability as the basis of claims-making in the Movement coupled with the more severe under-representation of women athletes in disability sport more generally. In sum, the strongest case for anti- discrimination and gender equality emerged in relation to women athletes in the Olympic Movement, and this was in turn reflected in bureaucratic responses to women’s participation. The rules, standards, practices and procedures that comprise the bureaucratic structure of the IOC and IPC influenced women’s participation as athletes and leaders in different ways. Whereas there were (mostly) clear rules for expanding women’s athletic participation in the Olympic Games, and a decision-making body within the organization charged with the responsibility of overseeing it, the bureaucratic position of women’s leadership was more vague, with no clear rules that could be challenged or leveraged to hold the IOC to account. This bureaucratic invisibility complemented the depoliticized framing of women in leadership. In the Paralympic Movement, the bureaucratic response that most directly impacted women’s athletic participation was the reduction and increasing elitism of the Paralympic Games programme, which came about as a result of the increasing professionalization of the Movement in tandem with the greater collaboration with (and financial dependence on) the IOC.
45 In terms of advocacy, the participation of women athletes in the Olympic Movement was characterized by the greatest breadth and depth of political pressure both internal and external to the Movement. This included grassroots collective action led in large part by female athletes, advocacy from IFs with a direct line of communication to IOC decision-makers, and support from other organizations within Olympic sport. By contrast, little external pressure was put on the IOC to reform its approach to women in leadership, other than the top-down influence of organizations like the UN, which peaked in the mid to late 1990s. In both the Olympic and Paralympic Movement, the most important advocates were “champions” with an internal platform from which to push the issue of women in leadership, who were often but not always women. In the Paralympic Movement, the representation of women in leadership was seen as a strategy to increase opportunities for women’s athletic participation, to a far greater extent than was visible in the Olympic Movement, reflecting the intersection of gender and disability and its specific effects on grassroots sports participation. However, although not addressed in this report, this strategy was relevant to efforts in the Olympic Movement to address women’s participation in less resource-rich countries. Overall, while the IPC appeared to be more committed to developing women’s athletic participation, this may be a result of the different historical period under analysis and the specific culture of disability sport, which in general is characterized by a commitment to bringing all marginalized peoples along, rather than leaving behind those needing additional support. Nevertheless, the contrast between women athletes and leaders in both Movements points to larger considerations for feminist engagement with governance in and beyond sport. The depoliticization of women’s leadership relative to their athletic participation echoes the relative depoliticization of women’s under-representation in elective office and in corporate boardrooms, suggesting that feminist activism has been less successful in articulating an anti- discrimination or gender equality case at the higher levels of hierarchical organizations. The issue certainly remains relevant in the Olympic and Paralympic Movements today (see Adriaanse and Claringbould, 2016; Henry and Robinson, 2010). By examining where and how women’s participation as athletes and leaders has differed, including across different organizational settings, this study has provided historical insights that both extend understanding of contemporary gender dynamics in Olympic and Paralympic sport and inform policy and advocacy efforts to address remaining imbalances.
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APPENDICES
Appendix 1: Collections consulted at the OSC Women and Sport F-A02-PS-FEMSP/009. Women and sport: correspondence. F-A02-PS-FEMSP/015. Women and sport: questionnaire on the part of the women in the sports administration. F-A02-PS-FEMSP/019. Women and sport: session of International Olympic Academy. F-A02-PS-FEMSP/020-021. Women and sport. Programme Commission B-ID04-PROOL/001-021. Olympic Programme Commission: correspondence. B-ID04-PROOL/032. Olympic Programme Commission:
49 reports and minutes of meetings between the commission, the IOC technical director and several IFs. IAAF D-RM02-ATHLE/001-007. International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF): Correspondence, 1970- 1988. ITF CIO FI-TENNI-ITF-CORR. Correspondence of the International Tennis Federation (ITF), 1976-1986. Monique Berlioux F-A01-DS/056. Director, Berlioux Monique, activities: correspondence on her lectures and speeches. F-A01-DS/057. Director, Berlioux Monique, activities: lectures and speeches. F-A01-DS/058. Director, Berlioux Monique, activities: speeches at the International Olympic Academy. Olympic Congresses 1973 Varna Congress. Tripartite Commission. Correspondence 1970-1974. Digitized collection. 1973 Varna Congress. Official Report. Digitized collection. 1981 Baden-Baden Congress. Tripartite Commission. Reports 1979-1981. Digitized collection. 1981 Baden-Baden Congress. Official Reports 1-3. Digitized collection. IOC Sessions Minutes. 1950-1985. Digitized collection. Executive Board Minutes. 1950-1985. Digitized collection. Programme Commission Minutes and reports. 1970-1984. Digitized collection. Executive Board and Minutes. 1952-1984. Digitized collection. NOCs Executive Board and IFs Minutes. 1950-1985. Digitized collection. Tripartite Commission Minutes. 1970-1981. Digitized collection.
Appendix 2: Collections consulted at the IPC Documentation Centre Executive Committee 53. EC-Meeting. Dec ’98. Bonn Copies. Executive Committee Meetings. General Assembly Box A3. Assembly Gen 1995/1996. IPC GA 2001. Minutes. General Assembly and Minutes. 1989-2000. Executive Committee. Development Department LDMR #128. Women in Paralympic Sport Leadership
50 Summits. Reports and correspondence. Women in Sport #130. IPC Commission for Women in Sport. 04.2003 - Committee 08.03.2004 #129. IPC Commission for Women in Sport. General Correspondence. March 2004- LDMR #133. Women & Leadership Sports Science Sports Science Committee Meetings & Reports Committee Executive Committee Minutes. 1999-2005. Digitized collection. Sports Council Minutes. 1999-2005. Digitized collection. Women in Sport Minutes. 2003-2005. Digitized collection. Committee Management Committee Minutes. 2003. Digitized collection. Doctoral theses Lisa Olenik. Women in Elite Disability Sport: Multidimensional Perspectives. Doctoral Thesis. Fall 1998.
Appendix 3: Collections consulted at the Centre for Buckingham Shire Studies ISMGC AR 14/2015/Box 1/1. International Stoke Mandeville Games Committee Minutes. 1960-1972. ISMGF AR 14/2015/Box 1/2. International Stoke Mandeville Games Federation Council Minutes. 1969-1982. AR 14/2015/Box 1/3. International Stoke Mandeville Games Federation Council Minutes. 1983-1988. AR 14/2015/Box 2/1. International Stoke Mandeville Games Federation Executive Committee Minutes. 1973-1976. AR 14/2015/Box 2/2. International Stoke Mandeville Games Federation Executive Committee Minutes. 1976-1981. AR 14/2015/Box 2/3. International Stoke Mandeville Games Federation Executive Committee Minutes. 1981-1985. Joan Scruton AR 14/2015/Box 57. Joan Scruton: programmes, newsletters, and correspondence. 1955-1988. ICC AR 14/2015/Box 76. ICC Archive. AR 14/2015/Box 77. ICC Archive. The Cord (Newsletter) AR 14/2015/Box 181. 1947-1971. AR 14/2015/Box 182. 1950-1982.
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