Feminist sports scholars have offered diverse explanations for the continued overrepresentation of men in sports governance (Burton, 2015; Evans & Pfister, 2021; Henry & Robinson, 2010). These encompass stereotypical and biased organizational norms around “the ideal leader” that tend to favor (white, heterosexual, cisgender) men (Hovden, 2010; Knoppers & Anthonissen, 2008; Shaw, 2007). Scholars have documented greater opportunities for men to accumulate, convert, and maintain power than women (Piggott & Pike, 2020)—particularly through empowered male-dominated networks, through which men tend to access and retain their leadership positions (Schull et al., 2013). Various interventions have attempted to improve the representation of women in sports governance, including quotas, mentoring programs, and Gender Equality Committees (GECs). However, except for quotas (e.g., Adriaanse, 2017; Hovden et al., 2020; Valiente, 2022), these interventions have received limited evaluation from researchers. Indeed, Evans and Pfister (2021) conclude in their systematic review of existing women in sports leadership literature, “[w]e know what prevents progress—we know less about what works” (p. 20).
This study focuses on one such intervention: GECs.1 Despite their widespread adoption within the Olympic Movement, little is known about their ability to meaningfully address gender inequality and drive change in the culture and practices of international sport. Topic-focused committees and/or commissions2 have been extensively adopted by International Federations (IFs) and other international sports bodies (e.g., the International Olympic Committee [IOC]). Separate from the operational structure (i.e., paid staff), they are political bodies that form part of the governance structure of international sports organizations, typically serving as an advisory voice providing input in key areas such as scientific and/or medical matters, legal considerations, technical rule changes, and athletes’ voices. The purpose of GECs is to institutionalize an advisory voice on decisions related to women and/or gender equality3 in sport (Matthews & Piggott, 2021). Research on the committee structure of sports organizations is lacking,4 and very few studies have considered the efficacy of GECs in advancing gender equality (for exceptions, see Krech et al., 2022; Matthews, 2021a). This is in spite of GECs being among the most widely adopted gender equality interventions in international sport (Henry & Robinson, 2010; Matthews & Piggott, 2021).
In this study, we examine the GECs of World Triathlon and the International Hockey Federation (FIH), which are the peak governing bodies for triathlon and hockey, respectively. Both IFs exhibit a longstanding progressive culture regarding gender equality, with strong records on the playing field (i.e., number of women athletes, equal prize money) as well as in the ranks of leadership, although increasing the number of women in both elected and staff leadership roles remains a priority area. Thus, we characterize these IFs as gender-progressive, although not gender-equal, sports organizations. In contrast to studies of sports organizations characterized by pronounced patterns of male dominance (e.g., Bryan et al., 2021), we chose these two gender-progressive IFs to shed light on the more subtle organizational and institutional processes that can persist even when an organization has sought to meaningfully address gender inequality.
In contrast to the literature on gendered change in sporting bodies, which has predominantly conceptualized change at the individual organization level (e.g., Claringbould & Knoppers, 2012; Hoeber, 2007; Piggott & Pike, 2020), we approach IFs as enmeshed within and influenced by a nebulous field of actors. Building on Fligstein and McAdam’s conceptual work on Strategic Action Fields (SAFs; 2011), we consider that key actors surrounding the individual sports organization—particularly the IOC, national sports federations (NFs), and continental sports federations (CFs) in the case of an IF—are crucial to whether and how it realizes meaningful change. This shift from organization to field as the site of intervention has implications for how scholars understand the GECs’ role: When combating gender inequality in leadership roles within an IF, GECs must pursue not only organizational change but also a field-wide transformation. This can be achieved, for example, by strategizing to influence how other actors—most notably NFs and CFs—nominate and elect women candidates. In addition, GECs may need to exert influence indirectly. For instance, if implementing a quota for the executive board requires a vote to be held during the IF’s annual Congress, the IF’s executive leadership must persuade the broader voting membership of the initiative’s benefits in order to secure their votes. Against this background, we ask how and to what extent GECs can drive gender transformation and act as a vehicle of change in the broader gendered field context, necessary to reshape IF governance.
Based on semistructured interviews with key individuals, we found that the work of both GECs was inhibited because the committee structure was ill-adapted to the pursuit of field change. We introduce the concept of “field containment” to demonstrate how the political and material contexts within which GECs operate limit their capacity to effect significant change across the broader field, thereby leading to their containment. To demonstrate this concept, we first explain the conditions underpinning the establishment of the two GECs, which have shaped the relationship between these GECS and their surrounding fields over the long term. We then analyze how the selection of members and the limited resources, capacity, and expertise allocated to GECs contribute to their field containment. Finally, we show that GECs face challenges in formulating a comprehensive strategic framework for gender equality and effectively addressing emerging issues within the field. We conclude by considering structural changes that could increase the GECs’ impact.
Background: GECs in Sports Governance
Historical Development of Commissions in the Olympic Movement
Exploring the historical development of commissions within the IOC offers a valuable context for understanding their emergence within the broader Olympic Movement because the IOC is significant in shaping the governance structure of other actors, particularly IFs and National Olympic Committees. Within the IOC, key committees/commissions were formed in response to the Olympic Movement’s challenges. The first permanent body, the IOC Medical Commission, was formed in 1967 after doping-linked deaths in cycling. The Athletes’ Commission, a notable entity, was established in 1981 to recognize athlete voices. Both commissions have faced criticism for their failure to implement significant reforms to the current governance structure (Kidd, 2018; Wensing, 2004). Concerns have also been raised regarding the lack of transparency in member selection (Kidd, 2018), highlighting the political nature of such commissions and their potential limitations as change agents.
Under the IOC example, the committee structure has become a popular mechanism in the Olympic Movement for channeling input and representation on key governance topics (Chappelet et al., 2020).5 In IFs, committees provide an expanded capacity to address key governance issues. Some of these committees are more technically oriented (e.g., ethics, finance, and marketing commissions), with members bringing a particular form of expertise (e.g., legal expertise). They may concentrate on well-defined, tangible tasks, such as modifications to the IF’s constitution or rule alterations for competition. By contrast, an Athletes’ Committee may merely require members to be current or former athletes. As we explore in the next section, however, GECs are not typically designed to be merely about “giving voice,” nor do they have focused technical tasks. Rather, they are charged with pursuing gender equality, which involves fundamental changes in the power structures that underpin international sport. We suggest that this distinguishes GECs from other committees, given their unique and particularly challenging roles.
Emergence of GECs in a Man’s World
The issue of women’s representation in sports leadership became a visible focus of feminist mobilization in the mid-1990s, driven by the women’s sports movement, culminating in the first World Conference on Women and Sport in Brighton in 1994 (Matthews, 2021b). The Sydney Scoreboard, a legacy of the fifth World Conference, tracks gender ratios on the boards of national sports organizations in 45 countries. The scoreboard showed that by 2012, just over 20 years after the Brighton conference, only a few national sporting systems had achieved a critical mass of women as board directors (global mean 19.7%), board chairs (10.8%), and chief executives (16.3%), with significant variations existing between countries (Adriaanse, 2016). These disparities underscore the challenges IFs face in navigating the diverse circumstances of women in sports across regions.
It is in this context of “a man’s world” that GECs are established, with 63% international sports organizations now having a gender-, equality-, diversity-, or inclusion-focused group (Matthews & Piggott, 2021).6 Nevertheless, research on the effectiveness of GECs in sport is limited and offers mixed insights. Matthews and Piggott (2021) showed that the existence of GECs correlates with a lower representation of women in the highest decision-making body of a sports organization. While the relationship might not be causal––it could be, for example, that sports organizations struggling to address higher levels of gender inequality are more likely to introduce a GEC—existing research shows that GECs face numerous challenges.
Until recently, GECs were typically defined as “women’s” or “women in sport” commissions (Henry & Robinson, 2010). Given this legacy, a central concern has been that women-specific bodies may hinder the pursuit of gender equality by reinforcing the gendered logic that positions women as essentially different from men (Travers, 2009). While this certainly leads to the question of whether, given their strong historical focus on (cisgender) women, GECs can be a vehicle for gender diversity and the incorporation of transgender, nonbinary, and other gender minorities into sport (Travers, 2009), scholars have also argued that organizational structures that reinforce binary differences disproportionately harm all women, both on and off the playing field, pointing to a conundrum around how to correct male dominance in sport settings effectively (Elling et al., 2020; Pape, 2020).
Fasting (2014) has referred to this as the “segregation versus integration” debate, where a segregationist or women-specific approach pursues affirmative action in the form of targeted initiatives that provide women (and girls) with a specific voice and opportunities, while an integrationist or mainstreaming approach would distribute the task of gender equality across an organization. Some researchers argue that GECs create a silo for both the topic of gender equality and women leaders, leading to the perception of gender-equality work as being solely or predominantly undertaken by women for women, which may reduce the buy-in and commitment of (male) decision makers (Henry & Robinson, 2010; Matthews, 2021a; Matthews & Piggott, 2021). Relatedly, scholarship outside of sport has shown that when organizations create a separate committee to address gender issues, women may be perceived as already being adequately represented within the organization and may then face greater difficulty in accessing committees with more decision-making power (Heath et al., 2005).
Against this background, GECs, typically under the leadership of women, face the challenge of convincing key decision makers—typically men—of the need to make significant changes to the power structure and organizational logics within their respective sports. A study of the Women’s Committee established at World Athletics between 1990 and 2005 revealed that its ability to bring about meaningful progress toward gender equality was limited owing to the organization’s hierarchical governing structure (Krech et al., 2022). That is, the politics and priorities of the organization’s wider (male-dominated) leadership interfered with the committee’s efforts to promote gender equality initiatives. For example, members of the World Athletics Council frequently prioritized the views and decisions of other committees over those of the Women’s Committee, even on matters directly related to women’s athletics. Constrained by these existing power dynamics, the committee leader needed to work strategically to flatter the male leaders’ egos to gain their support, while not openly challenging the male-dominated status quo. Overall, studies have highlighted the GECs’ impacts and challenges by situating them within their respective organizations. In contrast, we consider the field level at which these GECs operate and are intended to have an impact.
Theoretical Framework: GECs as “Field Containment”
In explaining the factors that hinder efforts to overhaul male dominance in sports leadership, many scholars have drawn upon feminist organizational theory to explain how, in sports governing bodies, prevailing practices continue to reinforce a fundamental (and unequal) concept of gender difference that associates the “ideal” leader with men and masculinity (Adriaanse & Schofield, 2014; Hoeber, 2007; Schull et al., 2013). Studies have shown that aspiring women leaders in sport encounter various organizational practices that reinforce this relationship while devaluing women’s contributions around the boardroom table (Burton et al., 2011; Claringbould & Knoppers, 2007; Knoppers et al., 2021).
GECs must navigate and reconfigure these gendered organizational logics at the level of an individual IF, but they must also do so within a broader field context where no single actor or organizational entity operates autonomously and where legacies of male dominance and relations of masculinity are at stake (Pape & Schoch, 2023). As shown by governance scholars in sports studies, despite being the highest governing body and serving as umbrella organizations within their sport, IFs typically do not operate via a strictly top-down approach (Chappelet, 2016). Rather, they serve as a central node within a networked structure that includes CFs and NFs, as well as organizations such as the IOC, other IFs and organizations in the Olympic Movement, professional leagues, and player associations, all of which can influence the political dynamics of IFs (Chappelet, 2016).
One approach that is useful for conceptualizing this configuration of interdependent actors is SAF theory (Fligstein & McAdam, 2011), which can aid in examining how an IF governs, and consequently, how its GEC operates (Pape & Schoch, 2023). A mesolevel theory, SAFs, is conceptualized by Fligstein and McAdam (2011) as comprising a nebulous set of individual and collective actors who converge around (and contest) a shared understanding of the field’s rules and its distribution of power and resources. Given the hierarchical relationships among the actors, the configuration of the field typically reflects the interests of the most dominant actors, which they must defend through strategic actions and alliances. In the realm of international sport, IFs have the highest authority over the governance in the SAF of their sport, but they are also porous, with adjacent actors—particularly CFs and NFs—exerting a relatively direct influence on an IF’s policy agenda, particularly via nominating and electing individuals for specific roles, such as President and Executive Board members. The committee structure of IFs can, therefore, be conceptualized as a conduit for other actors—both individual and collective—to compete to improve their position within the field. Within the SAF context, GECs require skilled political actors with the capacity to interpret their field environment, frame a course of action related to gender equality, recruit other actors in the service of this frame, and engage in collective action (Fligstein, 2001).
Gender is a fundamental element in comprehending the dynamics within SAFs and relationships among actors (Pape & Schoch, 2023). It shapes field relations in at least three ways: First, a gender hierarchy is at stake in relations among prospective and current leaders as they jostle for power and influence in leadership roles. Second, stated commitments to gender equality actions can become a “frame” deployed by actors seeking to consolidate their positions within the field. For example, aspiring candidates for President may use their stated commitment to gender equality as a means to claim legitimacy and consolidate their position vis-à-vis competitors (Pape & Schoch, 2023). Third, these commitments may also occur in response to the gender equality agenda of other adjacent actors such as the IOC, whose interests and directives may also impact the strategic moves of field actors within a given Olympic Movement.
SAF theory is useful in illuminating how GECs become contained within these gendered fields. Building on this, we develop the concept of “field containment” to show how the political and material conditions of the GEC constrain its ability to perform impactful work and particularly to achieve field-wide change, ultimately resulting in the containment of the GEC. We propose that field containment should be understood as a gendered process in the sense that the power dynamics of the field and the organization of the field’s governance structure are rooted in a pattern of male dominance. Through the cases of World Triathlon and FIH, we outline three key mechanisms that underpin the process of (gendered) field containment. First, the extent to which membership of the GEC is a political process and is, therefore, subject to the strategic interests of other actors in the field who may approach the GEC as a means to exert influence over the IF. This relationship leads to difficulties in recruiting candidates with the expertise and experience required for gender equality. Second, the extent to which a gap exists between the allocated support and resources and the stated objectives of the GECs. Organizational decisions by the IF regarding the capacity of the GEC can not only inhibit the GEC’s impact but can also have implications for its members’ reputation. Third, the extent to which GECs can develop a strategic vision that outlines a comprehensive approach for acting upon the field is responsive to the evolving landscape of gender in sports.
Case Studies: World Triathlon and International Hockey Federation
We selected two gender-progressive Olympic IFs with a longstanding commitment to the equal treatment of athletes and the advancement of women in off-field roles. Triathlon is a relatively recent sport that emerged in the 1970s, with World Triathlon being established in 1989. The first president, Les McDonald, made gender equality a founding value for the organization. Triathlon is among the few sports where, from the outset, women and men compete over the same distances and receive equal prize money. However, only approximately 35% competitors in World Triathlon races worldwide are women.7 At the level of governance, World Triathlon is the only IF that has had women simultaneously in the roles of President and Secretary General (2012–2016), with a woman President, Marisol Casado, leading the organization since 2008 (elected until 2024). As of 2024, 40% Executive Board members were women. Thus, inequalities persist, particularly at the levels of participation, leadership, and coaching.8 World Triathlon was an early adopter of the GEC model, introducing a “Women’s Commission” in 1990 that evolved into a permanent Committee in 1992.
Hockey, which originated in the United Kingdom before spreading across the Commonwealth, has been played by women since the late 19th century in British universities and schools, leading to its swift institutionalization and growth in women’s participation. Historically, the FIH, founded in 1924, governed only men’s hockey, whereas women’s games were governed by the International Federation of Women’s Hockey Associations (founded in 1927). However, because the IOC would recognize only one IF per sport, the two IFs were merged in 1983. Since 2008, hockey has had the same number of teams in women’s and men’s competitions at the Olympic Games.9 At the governance level, the FIH has implemented various interventions to promote gender equality. Women made up 31% of Executive Board members at the time of writing, and FIH had only one woman among its six presidents.10 The FIH released its first gender equality policy in 2017, and since 2019, all committee nominations have been gender balanced. The FIH established the Women in Sport Committee in 2019, which changed to the Gender Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion Committee in 2023.
Data and Methods
We relied on 38 semistructured interviews conducted as part of a larger project that examined the efforts of four IFs to promote gender equality in governance. The interviews averaged approximately 1 hr in duration. We interviewed key individuals within each IF, such as members of the Executive Board, members of the GEC, women’s chairs of IF committees, relevant IF staff, and the president and secretary general of each IF. We conducted interviews with a total of 16 individuals from World Triathlon and 22 from FIH, including current or former employees (n = 4 and n = 6) and individuals involved in the governance structure (n = 12 and n = 17). Our sample includes a higher proportion of women, reflecting the current trend where gender equality issues are often championed by women in sports governance, with 13 women at World Triathlon and 15 at FIH. The sample also included eight members of World Triathlon’s GEC and six GEC members at FIH. While our sample had some geographical diversity, spanning the five continents that comprise each IF, White and European individuals were overrepresented, mirroring the current state of international governance in these two sports and the staff members’ composition.
Interviewees were asked a range of questions regarding their own trajectories, the challenges facing women in leadership roles, how and to what extent their IF could shape gender relations in the wider field, and the GEC’s role. The interviews were recorded, transcribed, and iteratively coded according to the principles of abductive analysis (Timmermans & Tavory, 2022) by both authors. We developed an initial codebook that was theoretically broad and conducted an initial round of coding, leading to the generation of inductive codes and updates to the codebook. Then, we coded the entire corpus using NVivo software (Lumivero). Afterward, we revisited the data in light of different theories to identify where the interview material presented opportunities for building new theories. We supplemented our analysis with material from World Triathlon and FIH, which aided in triangulating the insights from interviews. Finally, we compiled the coded data from both IFs and contrasted the two cases to identify how they became “field contained.”
Empirical Analysis: The Gendered Field Containment of GECs
Early Wins of Two Nascent GECs
In this section, we analyze the establishment of the two GECs to demonstrate how this occurred within the (gendered) field dynamics of their respective IFs, creating both opportunities and constraints for their work. In both cases, the chairs of the inaugural committees aimed to bestow legitimacy and ensure the committee’s influence on their respective sports. The timing was also strategic and utilized to showcase the IF’s commitment to gender equality within the broader field, especially in relation to the IOC. However, even if the initial stages of a GEC are marked by early wins, long-term success is not guaranteed if the conditions necessary to prevent containment in the longer term are not met.
World Triathlon’s GEC was integrated into the IF’s governance framework from its inception. Former President McDonald supported its establishment from the outset as part of his strong personal commitment to gender equality. In 1989, he approached Sarah Springman—a highly educated and recognized female voice who later held various high-level governance positions within the sport—to seek support in establishing the GEC. The GEC aimed to solidify gender equality as fundamental to the IF’s emerging identity, setting it apart as a progressive new “kid on the block” within the Olympic Movement. This was particularly crucial as World Triathlon courted the IOC for inclusion in the Olympic Program. This points to the IOC’s influence as the leader of the Olympic Movement, which can be considered an adjacent and overlapping field of strategic action (Pape & Schoch, 2023).
While the interviewees acknowledged the strategic dimension of establishing the GEC––they indeed recognized that World Triathlon’s commitment to gender equality was partly related to its desire to be included in the Olympic Program––they also viewed the GEC as a genuine means of strengthening gender equality as a fundamental value of the sport. This approach has contributed significantly to creating crucial and lasting momentum. As one former woman GEC member reflected, “There would have been no way that Marisol Casado would have become the president of [World Triathlon] in 2008 and still be there, if it had not been for that original work that we did.”
The establishment of the committee allowed the FIH to demonstrate its ongoing commitment to gender equality and its support of the recommendations made by the IOC. According to a woman staff member, “It is about visibility and a clear commitment to demonstrating that there is a focus on that part of our organization. It also speaks to the IOC strategy regarding our commitment to that as well.” Through the creation of a GEC, the FIH saw an opportunity to ensure that its progress to date was transparent to external actors, most notably the IOC.We had Thomas Bach visiting our board. He was always talking about gender equality. [ . . . ] and after that meeting, I phoned Dr. Batra, our president [to tell him] that we do not have a Women in Sport Committee. [ . . . ] and that was the start of the Women in Sport Committee.
Overall, for both IFs, the creation of a GEC demonstrates their commitment to improving their position vis-à-vis other actors in the wider field, particularly the IOC, which promotes gender equality and exercises influence over the SAFs of triathlon and hockey. As mid-sized IFs rely heavily on their Olympic sport status for exposure and revenue, being perceived as compliant with IOC recommendations regarding gender equality is essential. However, the IOC’s influence also has limitations. While the IOC has used its leverage to push IFs toward numerical gender parity on the playing field, at the leadership level, it has opted for nonbinding targets. This nonenforceable recommendation from the head of the Olympic movement may have actually limited the impact on IF leadership changes, suggesting the political nature of field relations can hinder actions on gender equality (Fasting et al., 2018). Nevertheless, the actions of IFs on gender equality, including establishing a GEC, can contribute to their strategic positioning within the Olympic movement. Whether a GEC also advances gender equality will depend on how the broader field dynamics shape its functioning.
Politics and “Women’s Work” in the Selection Process
An important consideration is how the membership of a GEC is influenced by NFs’ political agendas, as they seek representation within the governing structure of an IF. Regarding World Triathlon and FIH, although both GECs started with strong women in key leadership roles, the committee’s wider membership has not always been selected based on experience and skills. We found that these limitations hinder the GECs’ ability to perform impactful work and prevent field containment.
World Triathlon’s GEC consists of seven members who are elected at the Congress by the NFs. Like any other committee, the GEC provides an opportunity for NFs to be represented on a World Triathlon committee. There are no formalized procedures for the candidates presented to the IF, but the nominating NF is required to provide detailed information about the candidates, including their CVs and motivation letters. This election system tends to favor selecting individuals primarily based on their membership at the national or continental level, with these political dynamics and adjacent actors influencing the IF’s efforts. A former woman member of the GEC stated, “They were not completely devoted to women’s issues and wanted to influence the women’s agenda. Countries want to have representatives on as many committees as possible just to have influence over the international body.” The GEC also offers aspiring leaders an opportunity to establish themselves and progress as elected representatives. One former woman member of the GEC said, “Someone told us that you cannot run for the Board right away. You need to understand the organization . . . . So, that was a suggestion from the former president to put forward for the GEC.” Consequently, individuals (mostly women) may not necessarily be driven by gender equality as a primary motivation. The GEC had members with diverse levels of knowledge and interest in gender equality, resulting in a lack of the specific expertise required to promote field-wide change. It also created a challenging situation for strong leaders within the group to frame courses of action that resonated with members’ current interests and identities. A former woman chair of the GEC stated, “I think it is very important that they do not just choose to be part of the committee, but actually would like to work.”
The FIH utilizes an appointment system for the seven members of its committee. In the initial stage, every NF has the opportunity to present its nominees, and after evaluation by each CF, one man and one woman candidate are selected from each CF to be submitted to the FIH. The FIH Executive Board chooses committee members from the pool of nominees, reducing the extent to which political processes influence the GEC’s composition. Using appointments at the FIH may encourage member federations to nominate individuals with relevant skills for the GEC, while additional vetting at the continental level increases the likelihood of appointing individuals with appropriate experience and skills. However, this system does not prevent strategic nominations by NFs aiming to position members for other roles within the IF.
The appointment system of the FIH, combined with its age, enables the federation to more easily achieve their preferred 50/50 gender balance among committee members, ensuring that men are included in the vision of doing gender equality work. An elected woman member stated, “I think the realization that they did not want a group of women or a predominantly women’s committee was actually forward thinking and very positive.” This has not been the case at World Triathlon, which has long been composed almost exclusively of women. To address this issue, World Triathlon implemented a requirement in 2016 that both genders must be represented within the committee, mandating from 2019 that there be at least two members of each gender to hold a seat. Nevertheless, the GEC suffers from the historical legacy of being a committee run by and for women, which makes it challenging, even with the quota requirement in place, to include male members. This, in turn, has the potential to negatively impact the perception of the committee’s efforts both within and outside the single organization. It perpetuates the perception that the committee solely addresses women’s issues, which limits the involvement of men and––given their overrepresentation in key strategic roles––contributes to the committee’s field containment. As a male staff member said, “It is women for women and excludes men, and if you exclude men, they will exclude the whole thing.”
Thus, because of how the committee structure is intricately entangled with––and contained by––field actors and their interests, both IFs lack the ability to field candidates with the expertise and experience needed for the gender equality work that could potentially transform field relations. This issue is particularly pronounced in the case of World Triathlon, which employs an election system, whereas the appointment-based system of the FIH allows for greater consideration of candidates’ experience. The perception of who does gender equality work is also shaped by the GEC’s historical legacy, which is significant to whether it is perceived as “women’s work.” Particularly in the case of World Triathlon, this has also hampered the committee’s ability to recruit key (male) leaders in the field in collective action to transform the gender dynamics of the wider field.
Capacity and Resource Limitations for Enabling Field-Wide Change
As the GEC is distinct from other committees and is not responsible for technical decisions but rather for driving organizational and field-wide change, its impact is particularly dependent on staff capacity and other organizational resources. However, we observe an institutionalized lack of capacity, which poses the risk of undermining the GEC’s and its members’ reputations, both within the IF and in the wider field, and further containing it if a perception emerges that the committee does not contribute practical value to the sport and/or the cause of gender equality.
It is a challenging thing to do because you have a very different group of people. [ . . . So] what time commitment people can do and how they think about what access to resources they have could be quite varied.
Frequency of meetings poses a second challenge, particularly in the past when meetings were conducted in person. A former World Triathlon woman GEC member recalled, “We did not have video-based options in those days, and so we only met at the World Championships and then at the quadrennial congresses. It was the only time we would get together.” In contrast, the more recently established FIH’s GEC benefited from the introduction of online meetings, which facilitated the planning and frequency of exchanges between members.
So, at the board or upper levels, you stick your nose in and you see what is going on, but you do not get your fingers involved in the day-to-day. It is the operational personnel who do this. Well, we were volunteers; we were in a governance body, but we were expected to do operational functions, but it was not possible to do that.
At World Triathlon, the federation assigned one staff person to provide support for the GEC’s work in the mid-2010s. At the FIH, the GEC had staff support from the beginning; however, the need for additional support was highlighted by multiple interviewees. For example, one woman staff member stated, “I have that feeling that they need staff. That they need people helping out.”
The issue of staff support is interconnected with the additional challenge of accessing necessary financial resources for actions or programs. Significant disparities in financial, administrative, and technical capacity exist among IFs, with smaller-to-medium-sized federations, such as the two IFs analyzed, often lacking resources (both budget and staffing capacity) to establish costly structures and initiatives and allocate sufficient resources to their committees (Geeraert, 2019). According to a World Triathlon male-elected member, “One problem that happens often, I am sure this is not exclusive to triathlon, is that sports set up committees but they give them no resources.” For technical committees, the lack of resources may be less constraining; for GECs charged with the work of guiding field-wide change, resources take on particular importance, with their absence indicating committee structure limitations and its contributions to the GEC’s material containment.
To address this issue, the GEC of World Triathlon implemented a creative solution by partnering with the Development Department to establish an ambitious mentorship program. Launched in 2020, the program seeks to increase the presence of women and representatives of less developed NFs and parasports in triathlon leadership roles. With a mentee target of 66% women and developing countries, the program aligns with the IF’s strategic priorities for development and diversity more broadly. The partnership with another department enables the GEC to circumvent its structural containment, with support for staff capacity and a dedicated budget. However, evaluating this particular program’s field-wide impact remains challenging, notably because, as discussed further, it is not part of an overall gender equality strategy.
Interestingly, this mentorship program was spearheaded by men within the GEC. A woman board member recalls, “The women’s commission also wanted to do this mentorship program, mentor/mentee program . . . . And yeah, it was again driven by men.” This implies that some men acted as skilled strategic actors capable of building the necessary coalitions. In contrast, it has arguably been more difficult for women in the GEC to frame a line of action that worked in the gendered field, around which they could mobilize other, more powerful actors, often men. A former woman board member observes, “But it is interesting though, that the stronger women in that group did not find their way through to actually step forward and take initiative earlier.”
The challenges faced by the GEC regarding capacity and limited resources not only limit the GECs’ impact but also have the potential to adversely affect members’ reputations, particularly given wider stereotypes diminishing “women’s work.” This issue arose within World Triathlon, where the GEC members faced difficulties in breaking free from these constraints. Several interviewees expressed the view that the committee was not actively engaging in actions that would bring about meaningful change, going as far as saying that “the women’s committee is useless” (male World Triathlon Executive Board member). A former World Triathlon woman Executive Board member stated, “I am not seeing anything they do, apart from the prize.11 I do not see them putting forward any resolutions. I do not see them coming up with issues that women should worry about.” Several members of the GEC voiced their frustration with the committee’s work, for example, “We tried, but I have to admit, I do not know if we accomplished a great deal [ . . . ] we were not accomplishing anything as a committee and as volunteers.” With limited capacity and resources to undertake large-scale projects, as well as enduring challenges in finding support or coalitions within the surrounding field, the committee and its members have faced skepticism and criticism at World Triathlon. This points to the disconnect between the committee structure of IFs and the work of driving field-wide change, which requires not only resources but also, as discussed below, the capacity to build and implement an overarching strategic vision.
Strategic and Evolving Visions
When combined, the lack of qualified expertise and insufficient resources in both GECs affected their ability to develop a comprehensive, overarching strategic vision to structure their work and to recruit support from other field actors to varying degrees. Relatedly, particularly for World Triathlon, limited expertise and resources appear to have hindered the committee’s ability to adapt to broader trends, such as considering issues of intersectionality, diversity, and inclusion. This aspect is closely linked to the GEC’s history and its relationships with other actors in the Olympic movement, particularly the IOC, which promotes a new trend toward Gender Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion.
We are spreading the word. We are really talking about it. We are pushing for and we are raising awareness. [. . .] I think for the moment, for the past few years, they have been focusing on raising awareness.
Given their sole focus on awareness, the strategic visions of the two GECs lack a comprehensive definition, posing challenges in conceptualizing how isolated awareness-raising efforts will contribute to broader gendered change initiatives. Regarding World Triathlon, the mentoring program is a noteworthy intervention, but the measure appears not to be integrated into an overall strategy. Overall, this reflects the lack of necessary expertise among elected/appointed members and the tendency to assume that lived experience alone—as an athlete or leader, particularly as a woman—is sufficient for gender equality. This, in turn, points to the important distinction between an expert advisory group and a political committee of elected/appointed representatives from within the field, which may not have the expertise needed to drive a strategic vision of gender equality and prevent the GEC’s containment.
Another example illustrating the consequences of the (limited) resources and expertise available within the two GECs can be observed in their ability to address emerging challenges, most notably, the challenge of moving beyond a (White, Global North) “women in sport” paradigm. Although interviewees discussed transinclusion, a prominent topic during the research period, they demonstrated limited awareness of the intersectionality issue—except when they were themselves people of color from less wealthy regions of the world—indicating a prevailing adherence to a traditional approach to gender. This was further observed at World Triathlon when a proposal to transform the GEC into an Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion committee emerged in the latter half of the 2010s. It triggered “a big debate within the women [of the GEC],” who felt that “enough had not been done for women within the organization and, therefore, they did not want to dilute the attention being focused on women” (World Triathlon male board member). The proposal was initiated by a male member of the GEC and supported by the board, which made the final decision to establish a new Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion ad hoc committee while retaining the “Women’s Committee.” This decision was made in 2021 in a societal context in which diversity issues were prominent. A male Executive Board member recalls, “In the aftermath of the black lives matter . . . the Executive Board said, ‘It is time we got this thing moving.’” The women of the GEC, who had historically built a collective identity around “women,” rejected this reframing. Today, the federation has a dual structure with a potential overlap between the two bodies, risking further siloing of women’s issues within the GEC.
At the FIH, the GEC demonstrated greater adaptability in response to the challenge of moving toward a broader vision of gender equality. This young committee, less burdened by history, has recently (2023)13 undergone a name change to “Gender Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion Committee,” demonstrating a willingness to develop a more comprehensive perspective on the matter of gender equality, adopting an approach that considers intersectionality, diversity, and inclusion not only based on gender, but also on sexual orientation, social and ethnic identities, age, or disability. Fleuren’s close association with the IOC, which advocated for this change within the Olympic Movement, helped the FIH adapt to this new trend, illustrating the overlapping of the IOC in the field of international hockey. Aligning with the IOC may bring some strategic benefits to the FIH and its GEC but may not necessarily result in a transformation of the field relations of international hockey governance.
Conclusion
This study explored the conditions under which GECs, a common yet understudied intervention within international sports organizations aimed at addressing the persistent overrepresentation of men in sports governance, can potentially contribute to gender transformation and alter the gendered landscape of international sports governance.
Drawing from Fligstein and McAdam’s (2011) framework of SAFs, we conceptualized GECs as responsible for impacting change within gendered SAFs, rather than operating solely within a single organizational setting. This study of GECs reveals that gender serves as a fundamental logic within these SAFs, shaping relationships among actors not only regarding power dynamics and access to top leadership positions but also because commitments to gender equality can be strategically mobilized by actors to position themselves within the field.
Our investigation, focusing on two gender-progressive IFs—World Triathlon and the FIH—has gone beyond mere structural insights. We have delved into the broader constraints that GECs must navigate, demonstrating how they have emerged and evolved in context-specific ways. Our overarching conclusion is that, to date, neither of the two GECs has reconfigured the gendered fields of international sports governance that shape their respective sports. The political and material circumstances surrounding GECs restrict their capacity to enact significant initiatives, especially in effecting changes across the entire field, ultimately leading to GECs’ “containment.” GEC membership is specifically influenced by the strategic interests of other actors in the field, which hinders recruiting members who possess the necessary expertise and experience in gender equality. In addition, the gap between the allocated support and resources and the GECs’ stated objectives further constrains their ability to drive gendered change effectively. Relatedly, GECs encounter challenges of varying magnitudes in formulating a strategic vision to advance beyond awareness toward more diverse and tangible actions for gender equality. This involves broadening the organization’s vision to encompass diversity.
Therefore, the GECs’ lack of effectiveness should not be attributed to the GECs themselves, but to the international sports governance’s structure. While the committee structure might be well-suited to some topics and provide member federations with the opportunity to increase their ties to an IF, the GECs’ experience at FIH and World Triathlon implies that committees can face clear challenges when their objective is to drive change in field-wide entrenched practices and cultures of masculinity. The gender dynamics that influence World Triathlon and FIH GECs and lead to their containment cannot be assumed to be representative of other fields. IFs that are less gender-progressive may face greater challenges in reshaping the deeply ingrained patterns of male dominance within the field relations in their sports. Moreover, they may face even greater challenges in navigating the evolving landscape promoted by the IOC toward a more inclusive agenda when they are struggling to tackle the gender equality alone.
For practical recommendations, our study shows that GECs would benefit from greater reflexivity to ensure their ability to adapt to new challenges and identify the essential components of a strategic vision. This is further supported by developing alternative structures, particularly a hybrid body comprising well-connected representatives from the field alongside experts in gender equality issues who may not come from (specific) sports. While the sports sphere typically relies on political commissions, hybrid bodies like GECs would involve experts selected based on the commission’s needs, thus providing the necessary specialized expertise on gender issues. Through elected members, GECs would ensure connections to the broader field, favoring its ability to mobilize field actors in support of gender equality initiatives effectively. One cannot exclude the possibility that experts may use these committees for political purposes to enhance their own credibility and careers. This is especially relevant if the hybrid membership and strengthened composition system enhance the GECs’ legitimacy, making them politically attractive. Nevertheless, considering the challenges of promoting field-wide change in international sport, having these two types of members could bolster the GEC’s capacity to engage politically, undertake meaningful actions, and identify new directions and imperatives. Indeed, considering that the committee structure is by its very nature designed to strengthen ties within the field rather than overhaul the status quo, it is vital that efforts are made to increase the expertise and capacity required to drive field-wide change in alternative ways.
Notes
The term “Women’s Committee” has been critiqued by scholars for encouraging a narrow agenda and hampering the cause of gender equality (see e.g., Henry & Robinson, 2010; Travers, 2009). Some committees have adopted a broader framing, as in the International Olympic Committee’s (IOC) Gender Equality Diversity and Inclusion Commission. However, at the time of writing, the actual work of such committees tends not to address broader diversity and inclusion concerns. We thus use the term Gender Equality Committee as a compromise between these two positions.
In the governance of international sport, a committee is typically a long-term or permanent body, whereas commissions are generally appointed on an ad hoc or standing basis to offer expertise and advice on specific topics. However, significant heterogeneity exists in the usage of these terms among sports organizations, which occasionally employ them interchangeably.
The literature uses both gender equality—referring to equal access to resources and opportunities—and gender equity—referring to equality of outcomes (see particularly Sotiriadou et al., 2017). While we acknowledge the distinction between the two terms, in this study, we use the term gender equality as we primarily focus on the redistribution of leadership positions and as sport organizations themselves have largely privileged gender equality as their preferred terminology.
Research on the committee structure of sports organizations and their impacts on governance is scarce, and the few existing studies have primarily focused on the Athletes’ and Medical and Scientific Commission of the IOC (e.g., Kidd, 2018; Wensing, 2004).
Today, the IOC has 23 permanent commissions covering a wide range of areas including marketing, finance, and sustainability.
In contrast to some other committee types, GECs didn’t originate with the IOC but with certain IFs, such as World Rowing, which had already established such a committee back in 1969.
In 2019, among the 154 NFs with available data to World Triathlon, 68% had less than 30% women representation in their governance, while 72% had less than 30% women coaches (internal data, World Triathlon, 2019).
The sport has had mixed gender hockey matches at the international level since 1971.
Els van Breda Vriesman (2001–2008).
The World Triathlon Award of Excellence, established in 2012, annually recognizes individuals or organizations that have made substantial and impactful contributions to women’s involvement at all levels of the sports of triathlon and paratriathlon.
In 2020, the FIH GEC initiated a series of gender equality webinars accessible to representatives from all NFs.
As this change is recent and occurred subsequent to our investigation assessing how this change is reflected in the commission’s activities and scope is outside this study’s scope.
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