In this month’s What’s up student column, our EUSA ESC volunteer, Milia Molinie, on the occasion of the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women, shares her research and viewpoint on this topic related to women athletes and women in sports.

November 25th, followed by the global 16 Days of Activism Against Gender-based Violence is a global call to action to raise awareness, amplify survivor voices, and accelerate efforts to end violence against women and girls in all its forms.

At the European scale, in 2011 the so-called Istanbul Convention was the first instrument in Europe to set legally binding standards specifically to prevent gender-based violence, protect victims of such violence and punish perpetrators. Ever since, the parties of the Convention took steps to prevent forms of violence in different spheres of public and private life.

In sports in particular, women and girls are faced with specific risks, combined with ineffective or nonexistent prevention and response mechanisms. Indeed, according to a recent UN Women report, 21% of women experienced a form of sexual abuse at least once as a child in sports. Reem Alsalem, the UN Special Rapporteur on Violence against Women and Girls, is sounding the alarm about the situation of women and girls in sport through the last Report on violence against women and girls in sport, published by the United Nations (A/79/325). Indeed, the world of sports is not just a platform for competition and results but a reflection of the societal dynamics that govern our lives. While sports have the potential to empower and elevate, they are not immune to the scourges of society, particularly violence against women and girls. Moreover, although women participation in sports is on the rise, we tend to forget that on a historical scale, it is a recent phenomenon. 

Indeed, on an international level, the International Olympic Committee instated the obligation of women participating in every sport through its Charta, only in 2007, and Paris2024 was the first event to reach the IOC’s agenda goal of gender parity in a sports competition. However, gender parity differs from gender equality. In fact, equality implies deconstructing the roots of inequality that underpin patterns of violence. The Council of Europe defines gender equality as “ the equal visibility, autonomy, responsibility and participation of both sexes in all spheres of public and private life”.

Through its paper “Strategies and recommendations for a Safer Playing Field”, UNESCO highlights the specificities of sports environments when it comes to violence: “(...) traditionally male-dominated environments, combined with ineffective governance structures, a lack of transparency, and the prioritization of sport profits over individual well-being contribute to deeply rooted power imbalances, negative gender stereotypes, and the normalization of abusive practices and cases of violence.” 

Furthermore, “violence” is an umbrella term that can affect different spheres of someone’s life: financial, emotional, physical, sexual and psychological. In this article, we will adopt an intersectional approach through three portraits of women athletes who fought and still fight for their rights and a better consideration of violence in sports. They truly embody the power of Speaking Out and their voices drive needed changes in the sports environment.

Financial barriers fading away : Nneka Ogwumike

Even though we may think that the WNBA league reached equality in terms of media coverage compared to the NBA, in particular with the rising star Indiana Fever player Caithleen Clark, the reality is different. The league has faced steep financial shortcomings, leaving its players well short of being compensated at the levels of their male counterparts.

Right now, WNBA players remain locked into the collective bargaining agreement, or CBA (Collective Bargaining Agreement), signed in 2020, which dictates their overall pay terms. Since the deal was signed, the revenue generated by the WNBA has grown — yet it still pales in comparison to those generated by the NBA. 

At the forefront of this milestone, there was Nneka Ogwunmike, president of the WNBA Players Association. Nneka Ogwunmike is an american basketball player, currently playing in the Seattle Storm WNBA team. She has an impressive resume : No. 1 overall pick in the 2012 WNBA draft, WNBA champion, MVP, Rookie of the Year, six-time All-Star, All-WNBA first team, four-time All-Defensive first team, World Cup champion, EuroLeague champion, even a Polish League champion. 

She led the renegotiation of the WNBA’s Collective Bargaining Agreement. This ground-breaking deal resulted in a 53 percent salary and bonus increase; and better travel and childcare experiences and off-season career opportunities, according to WNBA.com. “I think we realized that it was more than just equal pay,” said Nneka Ogwumike,”It was equality and fighting for what we deserve moving forward.” Ogwumike said the players were able to make a deal that “improves almost every aspect of their daily lives as professional athletes. Beyond significant base salary increases, the deal includes performance-based bonuses, plus paid maternity leave and fertility and adoption benefits, as well as entitlements for more comfortable travel and expanded marketing opportunities.

There are still a lot of aspects to work on, but Nneka significantly helped improve a league that used to be far from fair when it came to the financial security of their players. Besides from the league income, there are also sponsoring revenues, which, according to a recent UNESCO Report, only 0,4% of it, worldwive, goes to women athletes.

Bouncing back : Angelique Cauchy 

Writing this portrait, it seems like there are no words appropriate enough to describe Angelique Cauchy’s story. She chose to share what she went through, in order to prevent other women from experiencing it.

On January 13th of 2021, her aggressor was sentenced with 18 year’s imprisonment for rapes and sexual assaults on minors and a lifetime ban on contact with minors. He was her tennis coach and she was not his only victim. The point of the portrait is not to go into more detail about the facts, but to highlight her courage and determination in the process of first naming her aggressor, and secondly, raising awareness about blind spots in sports clubs and through the relationships between athletes and coaches. 

According to a recent study from the European Commission, 55% of female athletes have been victims of sexual harassment and/or abuse during their career. These figures show how important it is to break the silence and combat this systematic violence. Addressing the prevalence of violence in sport can be challenging – coaches and other athlete entourage often lack comprehensive education on recognizing and addressing violence, and policy makers wishing to act on it must navigate complex, multi-stakeholder sport ecosystems. Cases of male violence against women and girls in sport remain significantly underreported due to a lack of clear and effective reporting processes, a fear of retaliation, and a general mistrust of existing mechanisms.

In fact, when asked about Angelique’s tennis coach, the club managers replied at the time that he may have particular methods, but he was winning titles and tournaments for the club. Besides, according to UNESCO, 94% of coaches report that their athletes seek their support regarding personal problems. Thus, the priority should be on education and prevention within sports clubs, in order to avoid grey areas and transgressive behaviors, defined as “any form of misuse of a relationship of power that violates someone’s access to safe sports.”Haandrikman & Schipper-van Veldhoven, 2024).

*Credits : LP/Photomobile/Patrick Tohier*

Angélique Cauchy is now a sports teacher in middle-school and she just published a book entitled If someone hurts you someday that she presented to her students. Moreover, she is committed to children’s rights and the protection of minors. Together with her co-victims in 2017, they created an NGO called “Rebond” (“Bounce”, in english), that prevents violence through training, prevention and awareness-raising for young athletes, parents, coaches and volunteers; and for leagues, committees and clubs. 

She may not be in the ATP rankings today, but she is truly moving mountains in order to build safer environments for young athletes and future generations. Angélique Cauchy is the definition of resilience, altruism and determination, among many other remarkable traits. 

Punching back : Joanna Harper

Photo credit : This scientist is racing to discover how gender transitions alter athletic performance—including her own | Science | AAAS

Among the popular opinions, transgender women such as Joanna Harper have athletic advantages over non-transgender women— called cisgender women—because of their previous exposure to male levels of testosterone. But Harper, a medical physicist at a medical center in Portland, Oregon, and an athlete, has been challenging that assumption with scientific data. In 2015, she published the first study of transgender athletes' performances, finding that transgender women who received treatment to lower their testosterone levels did no better in a variety of races against female peers than they had previously done against male runners. Although Harper's study included only a few transgender women, Eric Vilain of The George Washington University in Washington, D.C., a geneticist who specializes in gender-based biology, calls it "groundbreaking”. With this contribution to research, Joanna Harper has been advising the IOC in the reflections of the policy making in terms of gender inclusion in sports. 

One of the main issues when it comes to non cis-people participation in sports, is the definition itself of what makes a female athlete. Professional female athletes went through “nude parades” to prove their sex in the 60s, then went through chromosomal and hormonal tests. However, biology does not always clearly divide human beings into two sexes, especially when it comes to  intersex athletes.

*Photo credit : This scientist is racing to discover how gender transitions alter athletic performance—including her own | Science | AAAS*

As scientific data is still very recent and yet does not make consensus in the sports community, transgender athletes and in particular female athletes often go through violent backlashes and are accused of stealing cisgender women seats in the sports community. They are often victims of many forms of violence, in particular psychological, online and in the public space. After the Tokyo Olympic Games in 2021, a Report was published on discriminatory behaviours through social media. 87% of them targeted Women, 29% of them were sexists, 26% racists, and 9% transphobic.

Online harassment is a major issue in our everyday life, but particularly during major sports events, and as the numbers tell, women and the LGBTQ+ community are the first target. The British cyclist Emily Bridges said indeed that transgender women are the “current punching bag” in society and are the targets of “the culture war”. 

In order to prevent that, sports organisers set more and more effective moderating systems online, as the organizing committee of Paris2024. In fact, the IOC set up the first ever (AI)-powered cyber abuse protection service, described as the “ largest and most comprehensive service of its kind in sports history”. The key insights of the system are appealing :  353 athletes/officials were directly targeted with abuse, and the dominant type of abuse was gender-based, with sexual/sexist violence specifically targeted at female athletes. This data highlights the fact that gender is a thorny issue on and off the pitch.

Besides her scientific studies, Joanna Harper is well aware of the deeply rooted challenge of inclusion in sport competitions : “What I would suggest is that it is impossible to maximise inclusion, maximise fairness, maximise safety in sport, all three of those, without some impact on the other”. Through her shadow work, she is significantly contributing to have a better understanding for transgender people participation in sports in the future. 

To conclude, gender equality in sports still has a long way to go until it reaches elimination of violence of any kind. Sports competitions seem to represent a living laboratory reinventing its own rules in order to improve inclusivity and safety. The initiatives led by the women we mentioned, just like many others, are worthy of a closer look, because they will lead to key changes even outside of the sports environment. 

Even though definitions are not clear yet, and the doxa sometimes is a tough nut to crack, communities need spontaneous and collective initiatives, without having to wait for a consensus. Women voices speak up all over the world, trying to tackle appropriation, representing empowerment. 

At EUSA, women athletes participation has increased by 2% for both the Games and the Championships between the last competitions. In 2024, at the European Universities Games 52% of the athletes were men, while 48% were women. In some sports, like Beach Volleyball, we had 50%-50% participation among athletes. In Tennis and Volleyball the percentage of women athletes was bigger than the men. It may seem insignificant, but it reflects the initiatives of the national federations and the inclusive politics that aim to collectively encourage women’s sport. We are determined to make EUSA’s competitions more and more inclusive, and to keep making sports a safe place for women and gender minorities by preventing violence of any kind. 

The author of the text is Milia Molinie from France, graduate with a Master degree in international cooperation and development from both universities of Bordeaux, France and Turin, Italy, who is currently serving as a European Solidarity Corps volunteer at the EUSA Office in Ljubljana.