By Iva Wharton
By 2015 the University Of Guyana (UG) should have a working sports policy that addresses gender equity in sports, according to Assistant Registrar of Student Welfare, Daniella King.
King made this disclosure in an exclusive interview with Stabroek Sport on her participation in the first ever Conference of the Pan American Organisation of Sports (ODUPA) Gender and Equity Meeting held in Costa Rica about a week ago.
ODUPA is an arm of the International Federation of Sport Universities (FISU). UG, she said, is not a part of ODUPA as it does not have a National University Sports Federation (NUSF), but is still recognized and invited to participate in summer games organised by FISU.
“FISU has had just about twenty-five winter games and just about twenty-six summer games and we participated by invitation, all expenses paid in the 26th summer games in Schengen, China last year.” UG was represented last year by track and field athlete Stefan Josiah.
King said that steps will be taken to have a NUSF set up in Guyana, but first there has to be a meeting of all recognised tertiary institutions in the country to manage tertiary sports.
Once such a body is in place Guyana can apply to become a member of ODUPA and FISU.
According to King, universities across the Caribbean Region, Central America, Europe and North America were invited.
Each representative, she said, was expected to give a perspective on what gender equality means in their country and to say whether there are incentives for women participation in sports nationally and at their respective universities. Representatives were asked also to produce proposals for strengthening partnerships between men and women in advancing sports at their respective universities.
King said that her proposal was done in the context of the University of Guyana, “because we believe in discussing this matter with the Sports Coordinator, Lavern Fraser-Thomas and immediate supervisor, irrespective of the national environment if there is a deficiency at the national level in this particular subject area, being the national university we should be the bed for change and the catalyst where change is considered.”
She also said that in reporting her findings at the conference she indicated that gender equality and equity was addressed years ago and some aspects date back to the years of colonialism.
“We have made significant strides recognizing that there should not be discrimination amongst gender or peoples. We have signed on to a lot of international conventions for example CEDA, the Brighton Declaration which deals with women and sports and through the years we have enacted a number of laws and statutes that deal with equality, providing equal access to women and the disabled in Guyana.”
At the university she found no specific policy that spoke to gender equality in sports, “but the present sports organizer happens to be female, which is coincidental and not by design. But it is a good start.”
Notwithstanding the laws, statutes and conventions, the reality, she said, is that women still do not have equal access to sports. This, she said, was based on interviews done with UG’s sports organizer.
“She had said that the reality is that women are not by practice given equal opportunities, they are not given the support mechanism to access equal opportunities which is what equity is all about.”
King said that in her proposal which was read at the conference and discussed earlier with her superiors at UG, Guyana sought to have research conducted to ascertain the level of female participation in sports.
“We haven’t kept girls from doing anything or accessing any opportunities but it does not mean that we do not need to formalize it or to do more. So to start off anything I proposed that we have research to find out what are the hindrances, whether real or perceived in the female population where sport is concerned, what we can do to attract and sustain their interest in sports and what we can do more or less to bridge the gap between male and female participation in sports.”
Secondly the proposal dealt with the creation of a University of Guyana Policy on Gender Equity and Sports. “There we will spell out from playing on the field, participating in a particular sport, right up to the decision-making bodies, leadership and management.”
Such a document, she said, will serve as reference and it will set the framework for any programmes and activities that will be developed in the future as the university strives to consciously maintain the balance of the sexes in sport.
Finally the proposal addressed the implementation of such a policy, which seeks to raise awareness. According to her a lot of advocacy work has to be done if people are going to buy into the notion of gender equality on a whole but more so in sports.
King said her participation at the conference left her amazed when her European counterparts made their presentation. The presentations, she said, were filled with data on the level of male/female participation nationally and then broken down to disciplines, where there is equality and where there is no equality. That, she said, is what she wants to have done at the University of Guyana.
“The benefits will not be limited to sports; it will now reach out into other things that you were trying to tackle: women empowerment, getting them out of poverty or some other area. These are all real issues that lots of money was injected into.”
The research, King said, should start in the coming academic year.
Twelve countries participated in the conference and according to King the similarities were evident as each country made their presentation.
“They were similarities along the line of there being no absence of opportunities to male and female participation. In the other countries just like Guyana laws were enacted for various reasons to provide balance but this intangible practice that are linked to socio culture ideals, media representation of women, the family and the socialization of women are all things that irrespective of all the laws and conventions signed have maintained the status quo where women are concerned.”
Even though some of the countries are far ahead, there are still many similarities in a number of areas. “Also you are not finding a balance of women in leadership positions where sports is concerned as they have to work two times harder than a man to earn the position. It was reported that in the last two Olympics the male/female participation was equal, but by statistics in leadership capacity heads of certain committees, representation of women were very small.”
This, she said, is not just to have an increase in female participation in sporting disciplines but also to have them take up leadership positions in sports.
“If you would look at our country all the committees, federations, the national sports commission by virtue of the fact that it is sports there is some unwritten law that apparently states that a man has to be at be helm. These are barriers that are invisible, but are very real and in having this meeting recognized that we have to work to break them down.”
The limited coverage given to women in sports by the media was identified.
“If we look at West Indies cricket, the other day both men and women were playing with the men performing horribly while the women were having successes. In the newspapers and other sections of the media you found people had an opinion or were reporting on the West Indies male team and their performance as opposed to the women, who mind you were doing a lot better.”
The ODUPA and Gender Equity meeting will be held annually to assess the developments made by members and what assistance can be offered to aid in further development. ODUPA is headed by Rosaura Mendez.
