Abstract
Understanding how sport is a gendered entity and has thus impacted women in sport today is vital to discovering the factors influencing the underrepresentation of women in positions of power within sport. This study explores the underrepresentation of women head coaches in the Atlantic University Sport Conference (AUS), a division of USPORTS, Canada’s national governing body for university sport. Following Burton’s (2015) model, this research investigates the potential macro, meso, and micro level barriers causing the lack of women coaches in Canadian university sport. Six women participants, three coaches and three athletes, participated in semi-structured interviews sharing their experiences as women in the AUS conference. A narrative analysis was used to analyze interview transcripts and a storyteller approach was used to produce two fictional stories representative of the research findings. These stories are told through a digital story that highlights various themes including: the influence of a mentor (male vs. female), stereotypes (women as caregivers and the ideal body), barriers (roadblocks in career pathways and geographical implications), and an overall lack of respect toward women coaches and athletes (sexism and discrimination). This study builds on existing research and expands into an under-researched population of athletes and coaches within USPORTS. Additional research is needed to understand and compare the differences in experiences had by male athletes and coaches; as well as the geographical impacts on both women and men in various divisions across USPORTS.
