Women’s collegiate soccer coaching in the United States: exploring barriers and challenges

Promoting Coaches on Instagram: A Content Analysis of Posts Featuring NCAA Division I Coaches of Women’s Sports

“…In other words, the communal qualities often attributed to women (e.g., kindness, softness, and empathy) inherently clash with the agentic qualities demanded to succeed and excel in sports, particularly within leadership positions (Cooky et al, 2021;Cooky et al, 2013). This ultimately presents significant barriers to women's career prospects, preventing them from flourishing in the male-dominated sporting world (Gurrieri, 2021;Karlik & Wolden, 2023).…”

Legitimising and Delegitimising Women Coaches in the Golf Industry: Women Golf Professionals’ Experiences of Advocacy

“…Ecological Systems Theory (EST) (Bronfenbrenner 1993) and a modification of EST, Ecological Intersection Model (EIM) (Burton and LaVoi 2016), have been employed to better understand the complexity of these influences (Burton and LaVoi 2016;LaVoi and Dutove 2012). These models have received support as a broad framework for understanding coaches' development (Cooke et al 2023;Côté 2006) and women coaches, in particular (Banwell et al 2021;Borrueco et al 2023;Gosai et al 2023aGosai et al , 2023bKarlik and Wolden 2023;Kubayi et al 2020;LaVoi and Dutove 2012;Zdroik and Veliz 2023). Through EST, coaches' development is viewed as a response to personal and contextual demands (Côté 2006).…”

“…Current women's golf coaching initiatives such as Love.Golf (Love.Golf 2022), #FOREeveryone (Royal and Ancient 2022), and Women on Par (England Golf 2022) also emphasise social participation over skills development or competition. Such gender-based assumptions may limit women's playing and coaching aspirations and development opportunities (Cunningham et al 2019;Clarkson et al 2019;Karlik and Wolden 2023). Further, comparatively fewer women are likely to meet the playing ability criteria (i.e., handicap) to become a PGA trainee (World Handicap System (WHS) index of <8.4 for women and <6.4 for men) as the criteria are somewhat "out of step" compared with the average WHS index for female (27.2) and male (17.1) players.…”

“…The individual level of influence includes "personal, biological and psychological factors such as cognition, emotions, beliefs, values, expertise and personality of the individual" (LaVoi and Dutove 2012, p. 20). Negative interpersonal interactions may include being marginalised by other coaches (Burton and LaVoi 2016;Karlik and Wolden 2023) and microaggressions (Norman and Simpson 2022) such as gendered microinvalidations-"subtle communication that dismisses or devalues women's thoughts or feelings" (Norman and Simpson 2022, p. 4). These include assumptions of traditional gender roles that undervalue coaches (e.g., a woman cannot be the person in charge; women coach young people and not elite performers), scrutinising and questioning ability and credibility, as well as direct opposition to women's appointments to coaching roles.…”

“…In golf, generally, a woman coach is the only woman coach within golf clubs and organisations; therefore, they are likely to feel marginalised in these "hegemonic male-dominated spaces" (Kitching et al 2017(Kitching et al , p. 1537) and experience microaggressions. Further, at the individual level, experiences as a minority within the industry and feeling undervalued can have negative effects on confidence, mental and physical health, and subsequently upon female coaching careers (LaVoi and Dutove 2012; Karlik and Wolden 2023). Norman and Simpson (2022) also found experiences of microinvalidations led some women coaches to question their ability, feel like an outsider in their context, and even lose their coaching role.…”