Canadian Women and Sport

Published purpose

This 27-month project will support a feminist response and recovery from the current impacts of COVID-19, through systemic change. Canadian Women and Sport (CWS) will achieve this by addressing discriminatory legislation, policies, and/or practices that prevent women and/or girls from fully participating in the social, political and economic spheres; designing and implementing policies and practices to increase women’s labour market participation and opportunities; and engaging men and boys to combat harmful gender norms and advance gender equality. CWS will also design and implement policies and practices to increase women’s leadership in democratic, civic, public or private sectors, and build relationships between equality seeking organizations and other stakeholders to collaborate across sectors to advance gender equality. At the end of the project, the organization will have contributed to addressing systemic barriers by advancing inclusive policies and practices, encouraging more equitable and effective sharing of resources to support women’s equality, and increasing networks and collaboration to accelerate systemic change. CWS will also contribute by supporting positive distribution of authority, voices, and decision-making power, and addressing persistent harmful gender norms and attitudes. This project will scale up an initiative developed in partnership with Ryerson University’s Diversity Institute under Dr. Wendy Cukier that addresses systemic barriers to women’s leadership, employment and participation in sport using an intersectional feminist framework: The Gender Equity Playbook (“the Playbook”). Having successfully implemented this initiative with 20 organizations (to date) at the national level of sport, CWS will work to replicate the Playbook with 55 provincial/territorial sport organizations in BC, the Northwest Territories, Saskatchewan, Ontario and Nova Scotia.