Solo project / Women access to sport in Turkey between improvement and inequalities
by Mathilde Warda
Children, women of all ages are in the gallery. Fans are chanting the songs of Besiktas. Smokes are lit. The spirit is high at the Besiktas stadium on 7 March 2020 for a friendly match between the women’s teams of Besiktas and Atletico de Madrid. The billboards feature slogans such as “We are in defense against inequality” in English, Turkish and French.
The game, free for all, was organized to promote the development of women’s sport and more than 30 000 fans attended the game. “It was a great game, we lost but it was very tense. I think initiatives like this are important. I like soccer very much, but in Turkey, women’s soccer is not developed enough,” said Safa, a lifelong Besiktas fan. “The event took place in one of the big stadiums of Istanbul, it was great because it put women’s sport in the spotlight! added, Mina, The fact that it was free allowed everyone to come, so the team could benefit from the support of the entire stadium. The momentum of the fans took over the game.”
However, behind this goodwill, access to sport stays unequal in Turkey. Indeed, amongst the three biggest soccer clubs in Turkey, only one, Besiktas, has a feminine team, created in 2014.
A fundamental right
“The practice of physical education, physical activity and sport is a fundamental right for all” states Article 1 of the International Charter of Physical Education, Physical Activity and Sport, of 2015 of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). It was first written in a UNESCO Charter in 1978, the first international charter to recognize sport as a fundamental right. But inequalities still exist.
For example, the “special Eurobarometer 472” of 2017 on Sport and Physical activity was a survey requested by the European Commission. According to the survey, “men are more likely than women to exercise or play sport”. Indeed, 44% of men exercise with “some regularity”, whereas 36% women do so. But this gap is even stronger with young people between the age of 15-24 years old. Only 15% of men never exercise or do sport, this number reaches 33% for women in the same age group. We can see that this important gap decreases as men and women get older.
Women athletes increased by 35,5%
More and more women are practicing sports in Turkey. Indeed, between 2007 and 2014 we can see that the number of women with a sport license increased by 35,5%.
Moreover, in Turkey, women are numerically more than men in five sports: Gymnastics, volleyball, dance sports, folk dances, ice skates. As seen on the graph below, in three sports the number of men and women is fairly equal. For example, in Equestrian, there are 49,19% of female athletes and 50,81% of male athletes.
But it is far from being the same for all sports. Indeed, in Automobile sports, billiards, and Wrestling, the same observation can be made: most athletes are male. The biggest difference between female and male athletes is seen in soccer, in which only 1,03% of the total number of soccer players today are female.
Lack of representation
One of the reasons that could explain why women are less likely to continue practicing sports is the representation in the media. The research was made by Beyza Canbaz, Canan Koca, and Pinar Öztürk in 2016, they analyzed the representation of women athletes in the sports news websites and the language used from a gender perspective. They studied Eurosport.com, ntvspor.net, sporx.com internet website.
The sports examined were soccer, volleyball, basketball, athletics, and tennis. Among 4 219 soccer news, only 0.31% were related to women Athletes. Whereas, in volleyball news, 69,7% were about women athletes. Furthermore, in the articles about women athletes, words about the femininity of the athletes or words such as “mother, wife” were often used.
This lack of representation was criticized by Didem Karagenç, Turkey’s team captain, in an interview by the Guardian.“Young girls had nobody to look up to in the past,” says Karagenç. “I watched men’s football and was a huge fan of Roberto Carlos. But there were no female players to emulate – I had to become my own role model.”, she declared.
Some regional differences
Besides, in Turkey, the number of athletes depends on the region. From this data set. We can see that more people are registered in a sports club in big cities such as Istanbul and Ankara, the two main cities of the country. In all the 10 main cities of Turkey, more men have a sport license than women. This gap is the same in all these 10 cities. The biggest gap is in Sanliurfa with 28,9% of women athletes, whereas the smallest gap is in Gaziantep, where, 37,2% of athletes are women.
Women and girls empowerment
In 1896, the founder of the modern Olympics, Baron Pierre de Coubertin stated that “No matter how toughened a sportswoman may be, her organism is not cut to sustain certain shocks”. While the number of females athletes increases at a steady pace, it seems that there is still a lot to take action on. But women athletes in Turkey as all around the world, are fighting stereotypes.
Sport is fundamental because it empowers women. According to UN Women, sports can help to defy stereotypes and shift perspectives. Also, the successes on the field can raise visibility for women everywhere. Finally, sport can help women and girls to “build confidence” to “pursue their dreams” and “become leaders in their communities”.
Sources :
5 ways sport empowers women and girls, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZWJNMC6cSRs
SpecialEurobarometer 472, https://www.spordiinfo.ee/ebs_472_sum_en-2018
Women, gender equality and sport, https://www.un.org/womenwatch/daw/public/Women%20and%20Sport.pdf
Turkey’s Didem Karagenç: ‘I had to become my own role model’, https://www.theguardian.com/football/2019/sep/27/didem-karagenc-turkey-womens-football-besiktas-offside-rule
Sporda Toplumsal Cinsiyet Eşitliği, http://www.ceidizleme.org/medya/dosya/80.pdf
Women’s and Girls’ Sports in Turkey? https://www.researchgate.net/publication/259866996_Women’s_and_Girls’_Sports_in_Turkey