Masculinities in Practice: The Invisible Dynamics in Sports Leadership

Contexts such as sport can shed light on cultural constraints and contested spaces. New Zealand (NZ) is a small, geographically isolated country where the presence of sport is difficult to avoid. In particular, the imagery of male dominated team sports is exceedingly visible in a nation that advocates it is ‘passionate about sport’ (Obel et al, 2008: i). In saying this, localized gender regimes in sport have rendered gender invisible because of the overpowering presence of a dominant form of masculinity as hegemonic discourse (Shaw and Cameron, 2008). The privileged position given to institutionalized sport conceals continuing gender based disadvantage and is underpinned by ideologies that link men to power and political leadership. Women are largely absent from positions of power in these contexts. In a recent audit, initiated by the New Zealand Olympic Committee (NZOC) to quantify the extent of gender imbalance in leadership and decision-making roles at national level sports organizations, the invisibility of women was confirmed (see Cockburn et al, 2007; NZOC, 2008). Men hold 81% of national sport organization (NSO) full time CEO positions (NZOC, 2008), two-thirds of high performance coaching personnel working with senior women’s teams are male as are 77% of national governance boards, a figure that has not changed since 1994 (Cockburn et al, 2007).