The Gender Order as a Policy Issue in Sport: A Study of Norwegian Sports Organizations1

Abstract

The gender distribution in the upper echelons of Norwegian sport organizations shows significant gender differences. Women possess only 7% of the top positions. This article will address how male and female politicians are framing this gender order as a policy issue and the recommended solutions embedded in this framing. The theoretical framework draws on Bacchi's: “What's the problem?” approach as well as components of Bourdieu's micro‐theory of power. The empirical part is based on in‐depth interviews with influential sport leaders in Norwegian sport organizations. The analyses show that the gender order is defined and diagnosed in paradoxical ways. Two competing representations are identified. A dominant representation, mostly framed by middle‐aged and older males, interprets the gender order as an issue outside the political responsibility of sport organizations; as either an individual “woman problem” or a “time‐lag problem”. The competing representation talks about the gender order as mainly a consequence of male dominance inside sports, and hereby an important and relevant policy issue. The representations draw a picture of a gender political situation, in which the gender order, according to dominant perceptions and assessments, is mostly handled as a political “non‐issue” and male dominance as a power structure remains silenced. Most women, however, oppose and resist this hegemonic order and are occasionally able to bring gender issues on the political agenda. In this way they are able to cause critical breaks and visualize untenable political effects of male dominance. The crucial question is, however, if women's opposition and critique are sufficient to challenge the “most forbidden”; negotiations of men's power, where men in a similar way as women are visualized and constructed as a political category.

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