Citation:
Norman, L (2014) A crisis of confidence: Women coaches’ responses to their engagement
in resistance. Sport, Education and Society, 19 (5). 532 - 551. ISSN 1357-3322 DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1080/13573322.2012.689975
Link to Leeds Beckett Repository record:
https://eprints.leedsbeckett.ac.uk/id/eprint/1880/
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Article (Accepted Version)
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A Crises’ of Confidence: Women Coaches’ Responses to
their Engagement in Resistance
Author:
Leanne Norman
Author’s affiliation:
Carnegie Faculty
Leeds Metropolitan University
Headingley Campus
Headingley
Leeds
LS6 3QS
United Kingdom
Email: L.J.Norman@leedsmet.ac.uk
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Abstract
This study centres upon the accounts of master women coaches based in the UK,
exploring how they have individually experienced such acts of resistance as reaching
the top of such a male dominated profession. By going beyond previous positivist
feminist approaches to this focus of inquiry, I employ a feminist cultural studies
framework to understand how the social construction of what it means to be a
woman impacts women coaches’ individual sense of self and confidence to lead.
The discussions are based upon semi-structured in-depth interviews with six senior
national women coaches of team sports in the UK. The data highlights the success
of masculine hegemony of coaching through documenting women’s reluctance to
advance their coaching career through a lack of self-belief and motivation as a
consequence of their culturally and historically marginal position. The findings
illustrate a pressing need for a revision of the dominant values inherent in
professional sport in order to engage and retain potential women leaders.
Key words: • Women • Resistance • Coaching • Culture • Hegemony
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Introduction
The underrepresentation and status of women in coaching is a well-
documented and researched area (e.g. Acosta & Carpenter, 2012; Cunningham &
Sagas, 2002; Cunningham & Sagas, 2003a; Everhart & Chelladurai, 1998;
Kamphoff, Armentrout & Driska, 2010; Kane & Stangl, 1991; Kilty, 2006; Knoppers,
1994; Lowry & Lovett, 1997; Norman, 2008; Parks et al, 1995; Pastore, Inglis &
Danylchuk, 1996; Theberge, 1993), highlighting the paradoxical global popularity of
and participation in sport by women alongside the stagnation and even decline in the
number of women in sports leadership. For example, the most recent report in the
longitudinal research conducted by Acosta and Carpenter (2012) demonstrates that
while the number of women coaches in U.S. collegiate sport has risen slightly since
2011, the number is still considerably lower than the inception of Title IX in 1972. At
that time, 90% of women’s teams were coached by women. This figure now stands
at 42.9%. The stagnation in the number of women coaches is evident even more so
in the context of men’s sport. The number of collegiate men’s teams with a woman
head coach remains near the same figure as it was in 1972 at approximately 3%
(Acosta & Carpenter, 2012). In the UK, the current number of women coaches is
similarly low. Over the course of two coach tracking studies conducted by Sports
Coach UK, the statistics reveal an increase in the number of men in the profession,
up to 69% in 2011 compared to 62% in 2006 (Sports Coach UK, 2011). The picture
is even bleaker when specifically focusing upon the number of men and women that
are considered ‘qualified’ coaches and on the number of coaches at a high
performance level (i.e. at the ‘top end’ of the athletic pathway). For example,
statistics reveal that 82% of qualified coaches, i.e. coaches that hold a qualification
in the sport they coach, are men (Sports Coach, 2011) and at the time of conducting
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the research, within the national squads of team sports within the UK, only nine
teams had a woman head coach compared to 43 male head coaches.
The research that has addressed women’s under-representation in the coaching
profession has often attempted to locate definitive reasons as to why there are so
few and even decreasing numbers of professional women coaches. On closer
examination of the majority of scholarship on the under-representation of women
coaches, utilising Dewar’s (1991) analysis of the research philosophies adopted in
research on gender and sport, it is evident that there are two distinct and dominant
ideological positions. One strand of research related to women in coaching is the
empirical investigation and quantification of sex differences in relation to ability and
behaviour, referred to as “categoric research” (Dewar, 1991, p.18). Examples of
explanations forwarded as to the under-representation of women coaches include
lower self-efficacy, less intention, desire and motivation to coach as well as higher
intent to leave the profession in women compared to men coaches. The second
prominent ideological position that dominates the literature related to women’s
absence in coaching is “distributive research” (Dewar, 1991, p. 18). Within such
frameworks, investigations take place into ‘technical’ issues and barriers, such as
opportunities to coach, in the pursuit of equality for all individuals on the assumption
that sport and coaching systems are meritocratic (Bryant & McElroy, 1997). Within
such liberal perspectives on gender and sport, power is conceptualised as belonging
to individuals who have it rather than the assumption of an underpinning system of
power relations (Halford & Leonard, 2001). Women’s unequal position in coaching is
perceived as a pattern of discrimination as a reflection of, what Halford and Leonard
(2001, p. 28) describe as, “multiple individual exercises of discrimination…rather
than a coordinated conspiracy”. Within this article, I explore the previous categoric