The news this week that funding for men’s sports clubs in Trinity eclipses that of female ones is hardly galling, unexpected or even unusual – and that’s kind of the point. From the lowest rungs of the sporting ladder to the games that inhabit some of the world’s most exalted arenas, gender-based disparity reigns supreme.
What is galling, however, is the explanation and response of the various bodies involved in administering the funding to sports clubs. Dublin University Central Athletic Club (DUCAC) Vice-Chair Roisin Harbison matter-of-factly said “there is no sexism going on”, while DUCAC’s Administrator, Aidan Kavanagh, said its funding approach “does not involve applying any form of discrimination”.
They both, rather unfortunately, have missed the point entirely. The treatment of women in sport has always been a manifestation of the wider sexism and patriarchal norms that are ingrained in society. Pierre de Coubertin, widely considered the father of the modern Olympic Games, even went so far as to describe female participation in sport as “the most unaesthetic sight human eyes could contemplate”. That nothing seems amiss to either Harbison or Kavanagh suggests that, rather than being absent, the discrimination here has been applied so assiduously that no-one even notices.
As sport has professionalised over the past 100 years, the attitude of people like de Courbetin has become much more than a deeply rooted cultural norm: it now pervades the ledgers and balance sheets of sporting organisations of all sizes. And so seemingly pecuniary matters instead help the male–female imbalance self-perpetuate itself.
That many of Trinity’s female sports clubs ask for far less funding than their male equivalents is a symptom, not a cause, of the broader problem. As with many of the seemingly ineradicable inequalities in our society, small measures can give rise to previously unimaginable progress. There is no reason that Trinity can’t be a proving ground for the kind of change that should happen at all levels.
If people like Harbison and Kavanagh want to demonstrate that the salience of this hasn’t been lost on them entirely, the next time DUCAC funding allocations roll around is the time to prove it.
