Head: Lucie Schoch
Several researchers at the Centre for Olympic Studies & the Globalisation of Sport (CEO&GS) work on sport and gender. Through historical, sociological, psychological, legal and communication science approaches, they focus on sport as an organised social system and a microcosm of societies.
Their research seeks to demonstrate how sport has contributed and continues to contribute to the production, reproduction, and contestation of gender norms. Historically defined as a conservatory of virility, sport is seen as the site of numerous inequalities and discriminations linked to gender and sexual orientation, both on and off the field: in the media, in management and in the governance of sports bodies.
This research also reveals how sport participates in the construction of gender, i.e., in the learning of feminine and masculine roles, in the construction of interactions and gendered identities, in the production of unequal social relations between men and women, as well as in the reproduction, but also sometimes the subversion, of heterosexual norms.
The ambition of these studies and reflections is thus to promote more equality in and through sport.
The CEO&GS research contributes to the reflections carried out within the framework of the Global Observatory for gender equality & sport, whose academic partner is UNIL. This observatory, set up in 2021 in partnership with UNESCO, the City of Lausanne, and the Canton of Vaud, aims to promote inclusion, equal opportunities and non-discrimination in and through sport, physical education and physical activity, in particular for women in all their diversity.
