Bianca Andreescu in an initiative and ad campaign being launched on by Tennis Canada about gender equity on May 31, 2021.Supplied
The numbers are both damning and frustrating.
Walk by any playground or sports field or gym (before the pandemic shut down most of those spaces) and you would likely see girls and boys playing sports in equal number. Between the ages of six and 12, about 57 per cent of girls participate in some sport on a weekly basis, according to data cited in a recent study. For boys, the figure is about 62 per cent.
But by the time they hit the 16- to 18-year-old age bracket, one-third of those girls have fallen out, bringing their participation rate down to 38 per cent; about 1 in 10 boys has dropped out, making for a participation rate of about 56 per cent.
There are multiple factors behind that stark participation gap, certainly too many for any one organization to fix. But on Monday, Tennis Canada is unveiling a 10-year program it hopes will help close that gender gap and lead to a comprehensive culture change for the sport.
“This is truly the biggest initiative of this kind that we have ever taken on,” Jennifer Bishop, chair of the board of Tennis Canada, said in an interview with The Globe and Mail last week.
As part of the launch, the organization is publicly acknowledging the gender gaps in its own sport, such as the fact that only about 30 per cent of certified coaches in Canada are female, with that figure being even lower in the more senior ranks.
“I think Step 1 is admitting we have a gap, and not to come up with creative ways to say that we don’t,” Bishop said. “We have a gap. We are being transparent about that. We’re talking about that, we are publishing that, we want to be held accountable for that.”
To that end, the program hopes to improve what Tennis Canada refers to as the “participation pipeline,” encouraging more young girls to be attracted to the sport and staying in it, and spurring women to pursue senior positions in coaching and instruction. It also aims to establish succession planning in senior and key roles that would prioritize gender balance.
Finally, the program will focus on what it calls “equal voice,” encouraging news media and broadcast partners to address gender imbalances in coverage, from the casting of on-air commentators to the sometimes different vocabulary used to describe female and male athletes.
By some measures, the program might seem unnecessary: Canadian women tennis players are perhaps more visible than ever, led by Bianca Andreescu, who has been chosen as the program’s first honorary ambassador. Andreescu is featured in a 30-second TV spot that will begin airing during the French Open at Roland Garros, where she is scheduled to play her first-round match on Monday.
“I have this Judy Murray [the mother and former coach of former Wimbledon champions Andy Murray and Jamie Murray] saying in the back of my mind: That you have to see it to be it,” Bishop said.
Still, while about 45 per cent of young players are girls, they continue to drop out of the sport in greater numbers than boys. Girls evidently regard the role of the sport in their lives differently than boys. A couple of years ago, Bishop said she held a roundtable session with the national under-16 girls – no coaches or parents present – to listen to their concerns.
“They want to play on teams. They talked about things like body image. They talked about things like pressure. So, we hear a completely different narrative [from the boys], and we have to get comfortable with making structural changes to keep them in the sport through those difficult [late teen] years.”
Part of what needs to change is those who train them.
“I’m a firm believer that role models are a big part of this, and coaching is a big area for role models in our sport, because we look at coaches as kind of the front line,” Michael Downey, the president and CEO of Tennis Canada, said in an interview.
Bishop, whose day job is as a partner with the Toronto-based law firm Miller Thomson, said the sport faces similar challenges to the corporate world. “Just like law firms [where we] have to find ways to keep women partners going,” she said, “we have to find creative ways to get [women] through their coaching certification, find creative ways to get them on the road with players, be flexible with our arrangements. And so it really goes all the way up to the top, including our senior-management team at Tennis Canada and at the board level.”
The initiative is backed by funding from National Bank, which signed on last year to become title sponsor of Tennis Canada’s two major late-summer tournaments in Montreal and Toronto, formerly known as the Rogers Cups and now known as the National Bank Opens.
“I expect that this strategy is going to touch on everything,” said Bishop, who said she hoped to see more women in all roles, including as referees.
“I am talking about women in the business of reporting, women in the business of finance, women in the business of marketing. So hopefully, as this grassroots program grows, these girls, these young women, will see women in these roles as we continue to promote them as career choices and opportunities.”