The Cause

In the artifact parallel 3 the cause of a  is implied gender equality, which is the Sustainable Development Goal 5, according to the 17 Goals outlined in 2016 by UNESCO. Adopted by 193 UN Member States in 2015, and effective from 2016, UNESCO's ambitious 17 Sustainable Development Goals (which break down into 169 targets) are the shared global blueprint to end extreme poverty, reduce inequality and protect the planet by 2030. (Sustainable Development Goals) 

Objective 5 aims to achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls. Within it are several goals. The first on the list is “to end all forms of discrimination against all women and girls worldwide”. Among others, the guarantee of the “full and effective participation of women and equal opportunities for leadership, at all levels of decision-making, in political, economic and public life”.  (Sustainable Development Goal 5) 

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What is gender equality?
Gender equality implies equal rights for women and men, girls and boys, as well as the same visibility, empowerment, responsibility and participation, in all spheres of public and private life. It also implies equal access and distribution of resources between women and men. (Source: COE) 
 

Gender (In)equality in sport
Data from the final report on gender equality in sport in Portugal, presented at the end of January 2023, show that 79% of women between the ages of 25 and 39 rarely or even never practice sport, indicating “an increased difficulty in reconciling personal, family and professional life and making more visible the obstacles faced by women in the practice of physical activity and sport throughout their lives”.  (Working Group on Public Policies on Equality in Sport - Final Report, 2023) The same report also indicates that men dominate participation in federated sport: “the girls and women accounted for only 28% of the practitioners affiliated to sports federations with and without Olympic modalities”. (idem)

Wage inequality
Despite the increase in the number of female athletes participating in the Olympic Games,   according to the Council of Europe  There are clear pay gaps between men and women in top-level sport, including contractual earnings, sponsorships and cash prizes. 

Every year Forbes publishes a list of the highest paid athletes in the world. In 2019, Serena Williams is the only woman to make the list, still in 63rd place.
Another important aspect to bear in mind is the large discrepancies between professional and non-professional sports. Some sports federations do not recognize the status of professional sports for women. Here too, wage differences persist, with female athletes rarely entering national or international competitions.

Coaches, Coaching and Leadership
While there is a general lack of centralized gender-disaggregated data on coaches accredited at European level, it is generally recognized that there is a significant under-representation of female coaches across all fields and levels of sport. Women represent a small minority of coaches employed in top-level sport. Female coaches are more likely to coach athletes in typical 'female' sports than in traditional 'male' sports. They almost exclusively train women, young people or children.

Despite the gradual increase in female participation rates in sport, there are still few women in leadership positions in the Olympic and Paralympic Committees, in the governing bodies of European and national sport and in the national sports federations. Data from the International Olympic Committee show that women make up only 6.3% of National Olympic Committee (NOC) presidents (13 out of 205) and 15.2% of NOC general secretaries (31 out of 205). Out of 22 European countries, only Norway is leading the way and close to gender parity with women holding 43% of leadership roles, while in 13 countries out of 22 less than 30% of leadership roles are held by women.

Call attention to change
These data, combined with the particular difficulty of female athletes in the practice of sport, reinforce the need to draw attention and raise awareness of the cause of gender equality in the artefact.