Why Female Athletes Prefer Male Coaches: Beyond Hegemonic Masculinity

• In Event: 4154 - Gender Relations in Contemporary Sport

Abstract

Drawing from a five year study of hyper-commercialized girls’ youth sports, this article presents disquieting evidence that female athletes of all ages increasingly prefer male coaches. This may be one of many factors contributing to the overall decline of women coaching in the world of female organized sport. To make sense of this phenomenon, I add an economic layer to existing analytical templates such as the “ecological intersectional” and “leadership labyrinth models. Economic phenomena such as labor market shifts, false consciousness, and deceptive marketing provide important additional clues about this troublesome empirical trend beyond our usual focus on gender norms and gender-based discrimination. These economic phenomena are usually justified with the culturally embedded beliefs that male sport, athletes, and coaches are not just different from but superior to female sport, athletes, and coaches. Thus, successfully addressing the gender bias in sport coaching might mean jettisoning the very idea that female sport can be “just as good” as male sport, and instead embracing the intrinsic value of female sport on its own terms.

Author

• Rick Eckstein, Villanova University