Women who play sports often face gender discrimination. Female athletes are subject to gender stereotypes that dictate what sport activities they should be involved in and what they should look like when playing those sports. Consequently, they may become victims of internalized sexism, which can limit their athletic career and professional development opportunities. In addition, the lack of investment and implementation of gender equality policies in sports exacerbates this inequality.
Gender inequality in sports can be combatted by educating the public and implementing effective gender equality policies. This can include raising awareness of gender equality in sport, fostering women’s leadership and developing mixed and inclusive sport projects. Moreover, it is necessary to promote gender equality in sports at a high level by ensuring that women are represented in decision-making bodies and are offered equal opportunities to participate in sport events.
In the context of addressing gender inequality in sports, this article presents new insights into Europeans’ attitudes toward gender equality in sport (ATGEQS) using a quantitative approach based on the Special Eurobarometer 525. Fuzzy-hybrid TOPSIS was used to provide a synthetic indicator of the ATGEQS, followed by latent profile analysis and multinomial logistic regression to explore the influence of socio-economic factors on these attitudes.
The results suggest that Europeans’ ATGEQS are significantly higher in countries where gender equality in sports is more widely supported. This finding supports previous research indicating that the opposition to gender equality in sport is influenced by a range of political, economic and cultural factors, such as religious conservatism and older socio-political structures. In contrast, Austria, the Czech Republic and Romania have very low ATGEQS scores, suggesting a high resistance to rapid social reforms, including those aimed at promoting gender equality in sport.