Sustaining Male Dominance in Interscholastic Athletics: A Case of Homologous Reproduction…or Not?

Abstract

To establish if male hegemony continued to exist in high school athletics within the USA and to determine the extent that homologous reproduction (hiring people of the same gender) might be a contributing factor, the administrative structures of 480 high school athletic departments were analyzed. The gender of each school's principal, athletic director, and coaches were collected from The National Directory of High School Coaches. Male hegemony was found to exist since men dominated both principal (76%) and athletic director (85%) positions, however evidence of homologous reproduction was only evident at the coaching level. The culture of hegemonic masculinity within athletics might be sustained more as a result of sex-role theory or gender-based schematic processing, rather than homologous reproduction.

Organizational Justice and Job Satisfaction in Coaching

“…The remaining 32% of the coaches were at either a 3-A (12%), 2-A (10%), or 1-A (10%) school. Finally, consistent with multiple earlier findings regarding the sex of high school athletic directors (Lovett and Lowry 1994;Whisenant 2008;), 93% of the coaches worked in an athletic department being led by a man in the role as athletic director.…”

“Think Athletic Director, Think Masculine?”: Examination of the Gender Typing of Managerial Subroles Within Athletic Administration Positions

“…However, men continue to be overrepresented in the position of athletic director. Because the domain of sport, including intercollegiate athletics, is considered as a place that perpetuates masculine hegemony (Fink 2008;Whisenant 2008), women may be evaluated as less capable leaders in athletic administration regardless of the characteristics identified as important to the leader (Eagly 2007). Therefore, even if feminine managerial roles are valued for the position of athletic director, women may still not be perceived as effective for this position as a result of the stereotypical masculine characterization of the domain of sport (Eagly 2007).…”

“…Yet, this change in perceptions of women and managers has not been demonstrated in perceptions held by male college students; the stereotype of "think manager, think male" still exists in this population (Duehr and Bono 2006;Martell and Desmet 2001;Rudman and Kilianski 2000;Schein 2001). Given that male hegemony continues to exist within the sport setting (Fink 2008;Whisenant 2008), this world view may hold particularly true for male sport management students as part of the male college student subset and as they prepare to enter a male-dominated field. This leads to our last hypothesis:…”

Leader Self-Efficacy of Women Intercollegiate Athletic Administrators: A Look at Barriers and Developmental Antecedents

“…Scholars argue that sport is "a gendered space" (Burton, 2014). Gender discrimination and gender stereotypes have been identified by numerous studies as barriers for women's careers in athletics (e.g., Kilty, 2006;Whisenant, 2008). For example, Burton, Grappendorf, and Henderson (2011) asked 276 athletic administrators to evaluate a hypothetical male or female candidate for positions in athletic administrations including an athletic director position.…”