Author: Katie Usalis
After celebrating the first gender-balanced Summer Olympic Games earlier this month, the 2024 Paralympics is shaping up to be the most gender-balanced Paralympic Games in history, with 45% of athletes being women – and this isn’t by accident! The disability rights community has always understood that exclusion and lack of representation are not due to “problems” within individuals themselves but rather due to issues baked into the systems, attitudes, and institutions that govern our societies! They have led the way in embracing systemic reforms and rule changes that level the playing field and create an environment where all people can participate. Let’s dive in and learn more about how the International Paralympic Committee (IPC) and the National Paralympic Committee (NPC) have upgraded their systems to ensure the Paralympics is just as accessible to women with disabilities, and how we can apply these strategies to see (at least!) 45% of US policymaking seats filled with women:
Women in Sports Committee
In 2003, the IPC launched the Women in Sport Committee (WiSC) to address the low number of women athletes and events and the lack of women in coaching, officiating, and leadership positions. Almost as soon as it was established, that committee adopted a policy on gender parity that encouraged all bodies of the Paralympic Movement to establish a goal for women to make up at least 30 percent of their decision-making bodies by 2009. This body also researches and produces reports on to gender balance in the Paralympics and makes data-backed recommendations of practical ways the Games can increase opportunities and remove barriers to women’s participation. The WiSC also plays a key role in developing the overall Strategic Goals of the IPC to ensure specific goals around gender balance are included. The WiSC is the foundation, the “starting line” (😉), of all outflowing initiatives related to gender balance in the Paralympics.
And how does this “play” out in politics (😉)? Easy peasy: the same! Many countries worldwide have a dedicated Women’s Committee (or Commission, or Caucus, or Ministry…) that can hold significant power over how things are run. For example, New Zealand’s Ministry for Women has been extremely influential on policy outcomes for citizens and rules within government structures. Is it any surprise that New Zealand currently ranks 14th in the world for gender balance in politics?
Athlete Quotas and Increasing Women’s Medal Events
The Paralympics understands that, to create equitable access in a male-dominated space, intentionally saving spots for non-male folks is essential. Without that, those spots will naturally be filled by men (because so many of them are already present)! Hence, the quota and increasing the number of women’s medal events. In order to increase gender balance, the IPC and NPC have established (and since increased) the number of available athlete quotas for women in some events and have added more medal events for women. In 2020, they also implemented “gender-free quotas” for some games, which means that the game either has no restriction on the number of men and women allowed to compete or it has allocated spots for both men and women.
And the political application of this? You guessed it: the same! Countries all over the world have adopted gender quotas in their very male-dominated governments to ensure spots are saved for non-male folks. As of October 2023, 84 percent of the world’s top 30 politically gender-balanced countries use gender quotas. I repeat: 84 percent. Coincidence? I think not. Also, although essentially a dirty word in the United States, gender quotas are actually used in well over half of the world’s democracies - 65%! And we wonder why we’re currently ranked 75th in the world (under countries like Iraq, Uzbekistan, and Vietnam) for gender balance in politics.
Bring It Home
RepresentWomen advocates for systems reforms that level the playing field for women in US politics. We have always looked to the disability rights community and their embrace of rule changes, like the Americans with Disabilities Act and the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, to remove barriers to participation. The efforts of the IPC and the NPC serve, yet again, as a model for what is possible when we focus on the systemic root causes of exclusion and underrepresentation rather than trying to “fix” the individual to fit a broken system.
Please visit RepresentWomen’s website to learn more about our research on women’s commissions and gender targets and how those can be applied to the US context.