Chapter 6 - Coaching women and girls – how different?

This website has made the case for relevant gender difference to be addressed by coaching as an integral part of good practice. It has presented an overview of current knowledge and concerns on the understanding that definitive statements about best practice cannot be made at this time. Much further work is required both in terms of formal research, data gathering, practical experimentation and discussion among coaches and athletes. This cannot happen, or course, unless gender difference is widely accepted as relevant and important. In particular more needs to be known about:-

It cannot be over emphasised that the immediate requirement is for coaches at all levels to see the relevance of taking on board what IS known about gender and athletic performance This means devising strategies to raise awareness among those coaches who do not elect to undertake the Coaching Women and Girl Module. It also means devising a sustainable process whereby coaches can exchange ideas and experiences on a regular basis and where findings can be carefully collated AND CIRCULATED.

Women in Coaching

One topic which has not been covered in this resource book, is that of the lack of female coaches operating in any numbers beyond club level. Whilst the reasons for their lack of progression are likely to overlap with some of the topics covered here, it is basically a different issue requiring urgent, but separate, initiatives. It is a dangerous over simplification to assume that if females coached female athletes every thing would be hunky-dory in women’s athletics. Female coaches need to prove their worth by results over an extended time period, just as men do and neither to they need to be ghettoised into a female sub-culture. We need all coaches to have access to and to assimilate information and skills relating to gender and, if more women are attracted to coaching as a result, we have a bonus.

Coaching Boundaries

By this point, readers will have reached their own conclusions (or, more likely, had them confirmed) regarding acceptable behaviour by coaches. We have examined the nature of the coach athlete relationship with its inherently unequal balance of power, and we have stressed the particular complexities created by gender.

Since the agreed purpose of coach and athlete, both separately and together, is to enhance the athlete’s performance, we have acknowledged the mental requirements for performance and identified the particular responsibility of the coach to nurture and develop as far as possible, the athlete’s (and particularly the female athlete’s) ability to be in control of her own life and athletic career. In order to do this we have acknowledged the crucial importance of the HOW of coaching – facilitative, empowering interpersonal styles based on coach self awareness and appropriate self-management skills.

The following list of behaviours are unethical because they use the coaching relationship as a cover for the expression of the coach’s underlying personal needs. But is has to be acknowledged that these situations are not unknown.

Taboos

Sexual banter; flirting; sexual relationships; sexist/racist or homophobic language, comments or jokes; financial, material or emotional inducements; emotional pressure or blackmail; letting own desire or pressure for success override the needs or objectives of the athlete; using athlete to off-load personal troubles or grievances; lending or borrowing money; advising or condoning the use of performance enhancing drugs or flouting any of the other rules of the sport.

All these behaviours are unacceptable and damaging between coach and athlete.

As we have seen, competing for the coach, or anyone else, is a poor foundation for mental preparation for performance. Although positive examples of stable coach/athlete life partnerships exist, there is also much evidence to suggest that, even between adults of a similar age, the roles of coach and lover are incompatible. The coach/athlete partnership is always a power relationship, therefore a sexual relationship in addition is as unethical as it would be between lecturer and student. Adding the stresses and complexities of a sexual dimension can add up to a dysfunctional relationship that undermines the stated athletic aims of both parties. Weak justifications, such as “she was very persistent” or “I’m only human”, as if the balance of power has suddenly and inexplicably changed and, in this single aspect of life, he is putty in her mischievous hands. If sexual attraction becomes an unavoidable part of the relationship on either or both sides, it is the duty of the coach to relinquish coaching that athlete. If this is done, and there are no other adverse circumstances, there is no reason why a romantic relationship cannot flourish. The word unavoidable is italicised because True Love Stories are not the target here. Abusers masquerading as coaches who deliberately groom under 16s in sport for sexual reasons are a universally acknowledged evil for whom processes leading to legal action are increasingly in place . It is the coaches who enjoy a little sexual tension with athletes of any age, who will happily take advantage of the situation to make the athlete feel “special” in more ways than athletically, and who see no reason why a little sexual dalliance should not occur if the opportunity arises, who so often escape censure. This is exploitative and damaging and sports need to have clear rules and complaints procedures for such cases. (Recommended further reading “Spoilsports – understanding and preventing sexual exploitation in sport.” Celia Brackenridge ’01, Routledge.)

The Windsor Slough and Eton Dropout Project

In Chapter 1 this piece of work was referred to as an example of good practice regarding the loss of females athletes from the sport in the 15 to 17 age group. It collated the pressures on young women which often led to either temporary or, more often, permanent exits from the sport. Here are the results.

WSE Dropout Project

CONCLUSIONS

THESE HELP A LOT, BUT SOME DROPOUT IS INEVITABLE

The most difficult measure to achieve was the first, getting coaches to take the foot off the pedal!

Many coaches are understandably wary about methods and concepts in coaching which are “unproven” or “unscientific”. However, the move towards “athlete-centred” and “holistic” approaches to coaching, which is so important for girls and women, obviously muddy the scientific waters, for psychological and cultural issues are not easily isolated and quantified. But Geoffrey Dyson, in laying the foundations of modern coaching in his seminal work “The Mechanics of Athletics” in 1948, acknowledged that biomechanical, physiological, cultural and psychological issues had an equal importance to performance. The challenge for coaches is to acknowledge that, just as all human endeavour bears the characteristics and assumptions of the minds that shape it, coaches themselves have had a subjective influence on the definitions and substance of coaching. That influence, has, quite naturally, been a predominantly masculine one. With the help of male coaches, it is now time for that state of affairs to evolve.