The theme of this year’s In­ter­na­tion­al Women’s Day is “Gen­der Equal­i­ty To­day for a Sus­tain­able To­mor­row.”

One of the mea­sures to as­sess the suc­cess of this theme will be the col­lec­tion of quan­ti­ta­tive and qual­i­ta­tive da­ta of fe­male par­tic­i­pa­tion in every as­pect of sport on and off the field ac­cord­ing to age, re­li­gion, eth­nic­i­ty, ge­o­graph­i­cal lo­ca­tion, so­cial class and dis­abil­i­ty.

Even if there ex­ist no ro­bust­ly col­lect­ed da­ta over time, it can be con­jec­tured with some de­gree of sub­jec­tive ‘cer­tain­ty’ that fe­male par­tic­i­pa­tion in sport has grown over the years, es­pe­cial­ly with suc­cess­es in var­i­ous dis­ci­plines such as ath­let­ics, net­ball, crick­et, and foot­ball.

Ad­di­tion­al­ly, da­ta and un­der­stand­ing of the fac­tors that ac­count for par­tic­i­pa­tion or non-par­tic­i­pa­tion will be crit­i­cal for pol­i­cy­mak­ers at the Min­istry of Sports and Com­mu­ni­ty De­vel­op­ment, Sport Com­pa­ny of T&T (SporTT), Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion, Na­tion­al Gov­ern­ing Bod­ies (NG­Bs) and clubs to guide their de­ci­sion-mak­ing process.

Ac­cord­ing to Mess­ner (1998), the “women's move­ment in­to sport rep­re­sents a gen­uine quest by women for equal­i­ty, con­trol of their own bod­ies, and self-de­f­i­n­i­tion, and as such it rep­re­sents a chal­lenge to the ide­o­log­i­cal ba­sis of male dom­i­na­tion.”

Bir­rell and The­berge (1994), state that the struc­ture of sport and phys­i­cal ac­tiv­i­ties in so­ci­ety is in­formed by:

· Sport be­ing an in­sti­tu­tion which priv­i­leges males;

· A sex­ist ide­ol­o­gy and stereo­types that dis­ad­van­tage fe­males in sport.

It is not fun­da­men­tal­ly im­por­tant to en­gage all en­er­gies and time in feck­less wran­gling as to whether the per­spec­tive of Bir­rell and The­berge [1994] is his­tor­i­cal­ly and or con­tem­porar­i­ly em­blem­at­ic of sport in T&T (Trinidad and To­ba­go), al­beit, it will be a co­gent start­ing point of dis­cus­sion. Rather the con­ver­sa­tion should be about con­struc­tive and tan­gi­ble poli­cies, pro­grammes, and im­ple­mentable ac­tions plans that strive to in­crease fe­male par­tic­i­pa­tion on and off the field across the myr­i­ad of sport­ing ac­tiv­i­ties.

The 1994 Brighton De­c­la­ra­tion on Women and Sport was adopt­ed by T&T (Trinidad and To­ba­go) to pro­mote gen­der equal­i­ty in sport in so­ci­ety through greater par­tic­i­pa­tion of women as ath­letes, of­fi­cials and ad­min­is­tra­tors. The then Min­istry of Sport ‘Women and Girls in Sport’ re­flect­ed the essence of the out­comes of the 1994 De­c­la­ra­tion but it was just a one-day event!

The sixth IWG (In­ter­na­tion­al Work­ing Group on Women and Sport) Con­fer­ence on Women and Sport in Helsin­ki, Fin­land, 2014, “ap­proved the up­dat­ed ver­sion “Brighton Plus Helsin­ki 2014 De­c­la­ra­tion on Women and Sport,” by in­clud­ing “phys­i­cal ac­tiv­i­ty as an es­sen­tial ex­ten­sion of or­gan­ised sport, es­pe­cial­ly for girls and women’s health, well-be­ing, so­cial cap­i­tal and ed­u­ca­tion­al en­gage­ment and achieve­ment.”

The In­ter­na­tion­al Olympic Com­mit­tee (IOC) Char­ter, adopt­ed in 2004, states that one of the roles of the com­mit­tee is to “en­cour­age and sup­port the pro­mo­tion of women in sport at all lev­els and in all struc­tures with a view to im­ple­ment­ing the prin­ci­ple of equal­i­ty of men and women.”

Ly­dia Nsek­era of Bu­run­di cre­at­ed his­to­ry by be­com­ing the first-ever woman to be elect­ed to FI­FA’s ex­ec­u­tive com­mit­tee in 2013. An­nette Knott be­came the first fe­male sec­re­tary gen­er­al of the T&T (Trinidad and To­ba­go) Olympic Com­mit­tee in 2013. In 2014, Becky Ham­mon be­came the first full-time, salaried fe­male coach in NBA his­to­ry. Deb­bie Hock­ley be­came the first fe­male pres­i­dent of the New Zealand Crick­et in 2016, in its then 122-year his­to­ry. Sene­galese, Fat­ma Sam­ba Diouf Samoura be­came the first sec­re­tary gen­er­al of FI­FA in 2016. In 2021, Maria Thomas be­came the first fe­male pres­i­dent of the T&T Rug­by Foot­ball Union [TTR­FU]. Clare Con­nor be­came the first fe­male pres­i­dent of the Maryle­bone Crick­et Club [MCC] in Oc­to­ber 2021 in the 233 years of club’s his­to­ry. These are sig­nif­i­cant in­di­vid­ual ex­am­ples of change; how­ev­er, they do not rep­re­sent pat­terned changes.

In­sti­tu­tion­al frame­works have and are be­ing in­sti­tut­ed to fa­cil­i­tate gen­der equal­i­ty. How­ev­er, the ques­tion is whether they are gen­uine or just to­kens. On­ly con­ver­sa­tions based up­on re­search of out­comes of im­ple­ment­ed pro­grammes will al­low for de­ter­min­ing the true sta­tus of T&T to­ward meet­ing the UN Sus­tain­able De­vel­op­ment Goal (SDG 3) - En­sure healthy lives and pro­mote the well-be­ing of all at all ages and by ex­ten­sion, “Gen­der Equal­i­ty To­day for a Sus­tain­able To­mor­row.”