Gender & the Olympic Games

The upcoming Paris 2024 Olympics will achieve numerical gender parity among athletes, for the first time in the long history of the Games. With an equal representation of 5,250 male and female athletes, this milestone marks a significant step towards gender equality in the world of sports.

The painstaking journey towards gender equality within the Olympic movement began at the 1900 Paris Olympics, with the inclusion of female athletes. However, it wasn't until 1996 that the IOC officially embraced the promotion of women in sports. Tokyo 2020 saw a remarkable 48.7% of female athletes, a stark contrast to the mere 13% in Tokyo 1964. At the Tokyo Olympics 2022, Canoe, Rowing, Shooting, Judo, Sailing and Weightlifting International Federations achieved gender balance in terms of athlete quotas for the first time. The Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics reached a notable 45% female athlete participation, setting the stage for Paris 2024 to make history with complete numerical gender parity.

In various Olympic sports that were traditionally male dominated, there is a noteworthy increase in female participation.

In Swimming, introduction of the women's 1,500m freestyle in 2017 signified a breakthrough in dismantling longstanding gender biases in the sport. Women weren’t included in the inaugural 1896 Athens Games, and when they joined the Olympics program in 1912, there swam only 2 events. By 1904, men were swimming the 1,500 at the Olympics. Yet prior to the 1968 Mexico City Games, the longest race women could swim was the 400-meter freestyle. Now, Paris 2024 is the first time in history that men can compete at the Artistic Swimming team event, enabling full gender parity in the sport.

Wrestling is currently undergoing an era of unprecedented opportunities for women. With a commitment to achieving total gender equality, wrestling has set a vision for a 50-50 male/female participation ratio at the 2022 Youth Olympic Games in Dakar (now postponed to 2026). Additionally, marking a historic moment in wrestling, the 2022 Commonwealth Games witnessed most women as officiators, with 16 female referees posing for a photo after the competition in Birmingham.

Outside of the Games, currently, 83% of sports offer equal prize money for both men and women, although cricket, golf, and football still exhibit significant pay gaps. Gender pay inequality in sports is perhaps most obvious in the Football World Cup, which pays women much less than men. For example, in 2014 the U.S. Men’s National Team collected $9 million for finishing 11th in the World Cup. Whereas the U.S. Women’s National Team only took home $2 million for winning the 2015 Women’s World Cup. Over the past 12 years, two sports have made moves to establish equal pay for female athletes. In 2007, the Wimbledon tennis championship announced that it will provide equal prizes for male and female athletes, a move that all Grand Slam tennis events quickly replicated. Similarly, in 2012, the World Surf League a policy that men and women’s Championship Tour events would have equal prize money. Having said that, substantial differences persist in the media coverage of women's and men's sports.

Beyond achieving numerical parity, recognizing the broader impact on sports culture, Paris 2024 is renaming sports facilities after prominent women, addressing the existing disparity where only 1% of sports facilities in France are named after women. The IOC is urging National Olympic Committees to send at least one athlete of each gender to Paris 2024, emphasizing gender pairs for the opening ceremony flag bearers and advocating for a minimum of 30% female coaches in delegation management teams.

A persisting gender gap exists in leadership roles at the Olympic Games, with only 13% of coaches being women at Tokyo 2020 and 10% at Beijing 2022. Initiatives like the IOC’s WISH program aim to bridge this gap by providing training to 100 female coaches leading up to the Paris Games. While Paris 2024 marks a significant milestone that reflects a broader global movement towards equality and inclusivity, it’s only the beginning of the road for real gender parity at the Games and in sport.

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