SPORT 1913 - 2013

PART 3: Woman, Man and Gender- diversity are the Future of Sport Develop the Gender-diversity and Sport already in School Woman is the future of football, say Audrey Keyseres and Maguy Nestoret Ontanon (2012) in their book about women’s football, using a phrase of the poet Louis Aragon “woman is the future of man”. Even if their proposition is re- lated to professional football, they opt against an education which reproduces prejudices concerning gender and advise to offer possi- bilities for girls and boys to start playing foot- ball already in primary school. School is an appropriate place as everybody has to attend it, provided that lessons should be adapted. Nina Charlier (2011), professor of physi- cal education (5), insists on the fact that sport practice is still clearly gender based. Children and their parents start very soon to choose a sport according to their gender. The Physical Education (EPS) in France imposes the same sports in mixed classes and reduces thereby the significance of gender. It contributes to a possible deconstruction of stereotypes and helps the children to obtain competencies in choosing within a wider range of sports in the future. Therefore the primordial necessities are to affirm EPS classes in school and to sup- port school sport organised on Wednesdays. In France, the “Union Nationale de Sport Sco- laire” (UNSS) has one million members of which 40 per cent are girls. It is very active in regions where possibilities to practise sport

sity. He explains that the volleyball is perfectly suitable for gender-diversity. “As the two sides are separated by the net there is no physical contact possible and therefore no physical vio- lence exists between the opponents. With younger children, the training and the compe- titions are completely mixed. It happens that in category U12 one team consisting only of girls plays against one team consisting only of boys. Leisure matches and tournaments in the clubs (teams consisting of 4 players) are or- ganised mixed. The FSGT has even included gender-diversity in the rules of its champion- ships. More precisely, the teams have the choice to adopt gender-diversity in the men’s competitions (the same is impossible in wom- en’s competitions due to the height of the net). When this innovation happened about ten years ago, of course there have been a lot of resistances and prejudices. We went from a re- fusal of gender-diversity over a toleration of gender-diversity into a right and a liberty of gender-diversity.” As a matter of fact it can be observed that the gender-diversity diminishes the more playing ability rises and quite often there are no more than one or two female play- ers left restricted to play as defender or setter. So it would be more appropriate to talk about “masculine-mixed”. New approaches are being studied to evolve to a real mixed practise. Playing in teams of four seems to be more adapted to women in a mixed match. Allowing to progressively change the role of each player, the rules have to be modified and women should be able to play equally in offence or de-

are limited and therefore allows an ample par- ticipation of girls. But the school sector and the public sec- tor are suffering from the severe austerity pro- grams implemented in the last years. One out of two teachers who retire is not replaced. Funds are depleted, sporting equipment is dated or not adapted to modern practice, and teachers are more and more in precarious situ- ations. And how could we put responsibilities on women when we denounce the end of equality in entry tests for becoming EPS pro- fessors? Gender-diversity: FSGT’s Volley-Ball Contributing to sport and to society, even to a utopia, means modifying the rules in such a way that they leave more space for women, for men and for mixed practices which could de- stroy the persisting prejudices concerning gender. The FSGT tries to invent these new rules since nearly 80 years. Team sport is played with mixed teams such as volleyball, basketball and handball. Mixed teams are playing football in national competitions. Cy- cle touring, tennis, athletics are more sports which could be practised in the same stadium or the same track by girls and boys. In the ar- ticle of the FSGT’s journal “Sport and Plein Air” from May 2012 with the title “Specificities of volleyball…and the gender-diversity becomes a reality”, Thierry Delonchamp (2012), respon- sible of this domain, explains how in a sport with masculine values and gender separation, the FSGT volleyball realised the gender-diver-

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