"Women's Sports is Not a Real Sports": Negative Stereotypes about Sportswomen and the Experience of Gender Inequality in Handball in Croatia

Abstract

The main aim of the study was to determine how often young handball players encountered negative stereotypes towards sportswomen. In addition, we examined whether young sportswomen who were differentially exposed to those stereotypes differed in their perception of gender inequality regarding training conditions and sporting achievement appraisal of boys and girls in their sports clubs. The study involved 522 handball players (289 boys and 233 girls) whose ages ranged from 14 to 17 years (M = 14.75; SD = 0.96). The results showed that 94.5 % of boys and 95.6 % of girls who participated in the study have heard negative stereotypes towards sportswomen and/or the sports in which they participate. Young sportswomen were more often exposed to the attitudes according to which sports activities are not suitable for girls (U = 28188,00, p <0,05) as well as to the attitudes implying that women’s sports are not attractive (U = 28111.00, p <0.05). Furthermore, girls who were more often exposed to negative stereotypes towards sportswomen more frequently reported that boys and girls in their club trained in unequal conditions (U = 3551,000, p <0.001) and that their sports achievements were not valued equally (U = 3353,500, p <0,001). The obtained results indicate the need to undertake measures to combat the negative stereotypes towards sportswomen and enable equal training conditions and equal sports achievements evaluation for boys and girls who participate in sports.