Renaming and reshaping the challenge of improving gender equity in sport coaching

A global, age-old issue in sport remains: the underrepresentation of women in our coaching workforces. We are all eager, as researchers, to put an end to the maleness of our coaching profession. This forms the focus of this chapter: to introduce myself as a researcher, to summarise the approaches I adopt and to contextualise these within the wider research on this topic, and to present some of the impact of our work. The reasons for the lack of women in our coaching ranks run deeper than women unable to balance work/life, not having the playing ‘kudos’ to make credible coaches, or women not having the confidence. These are narratives that have become ‘truths’ in our workplaces. To have long-lasting change, we need to approach this not just through a ‘diversity and inclusion’ angle. Instead, we should adopt a social justice lens that focuses on equity, action and systemic change.