Gender equality in sports has been a major challenge since the early 1900s when women began to organise clubs and establish a presence on the athletics and other professional levels. But even after Title IX and other federal laws prohibited discrimination on the basis of sex, women continued to face adversity in sport. They were not broadcast as often, paid less and were pitted against each other in a disparaging manner. This is an international problem and needs to be addressed from a holistic point of view. Policymakers must take into account a variety of factors that influence attitudes, including economic priorities, media narratives and grassroots activism. Moreover, gender policies must not be seen as partisan issues or viewed as an affront to cultural and national identities.
The results of this study show large regional and socio-political differences in attitudes towards gender equality in sport. High scores in Finland and Sweden are in line with previous research, which associates these countries with strong welfare policies and progressive gender norms. By contrast, Austria, Romania and the Czech Republic score low, mainly due to traditional norms and a lack of interest in women’s sports.
This article fills in a quantitative gap in the field and provides new insights into the determinants of European attitudes towards gender equality in sport by using data from the Special Eurobarometer 525 (2022). It applies Fuzzy-Hybrid TOPSIS to generate a synthetic indicator of Europeans’ Attitudes Towards Gender Equality in Sports, followed by Latent Profile Analysis and Multinomial Logistic Regression.