Why are there so few female sports coaches? Gender stereotypes and lack of role models fuel inequality
- Most sportspeople, men or women, have spent whole career without a single female coach
- Cycle continues without coaches to challenge stereotypes and act as role models
I have never had a female coach in any of my sports. And, if anecdotal evidence is any guidance, chances are that you haven’t, either.
Over the years, I’ve played football, badminton, golf, tennis, table tennis, Muay Thai, wushu and running in high school, university and now, but my coaches? All men.
Where are all the women? And what are we, as a sporting community and also the broader society, missing out on in our sporting experiences by not having women coach us?
For Kate Rutherford, who has a background in competitive swimming and has been coaching in Hong Kong for about a decade, the paucity of female counterparts in her profession means she invariably has had to deal with all sorts of barriers stemming from misinformed stereotypes.
Instances where she feels this most acutely include when she meets new clients for the first time, Rutherford said during in an episode of the Adventure Trail podcast.