Discourses and strategies for the inclusion of women in sport – the case of Norway

Abstract

Norway is seen around the world as a champion of gender equality policy. This paper explores how Norwegian sport has framed, negotiated and understood gender as policy issue during the last decades. It focuses on dominant gender political discourses and strategies and how shifting gender policies has been influenced by internal institutional conditions as well as by public discourses and policies on gender. The empirical basis derives mainly from previous studies, as well as relevant policy documents. The theoretical framework is mainly rooted in an understanding of how gender as a dichotomy and a power relation operates and is constructed. The analyses of shifting gender policies trace a development from rights- and justice-oriented discourses and strategies towards more utility- and difference-oriented discourses, and show how the struggle for the equal inclusion of women has been and still is a contested terrain.