ABSTRACT
As with many other domains of sport, the lack of women’s involvement in the formalized setting of governance has raised concern from scholars and policy-makers alike. Despite calls for greater gender diversity within sport governance, women are still strongly under-represented across international, national, and local levels. This chapter explores women’s involvement in sport governance, and probes why women are still largely absent from sport governance. We provide background about sport governance scholarship, which leads us to identify predominant theories that have been used to explain sport governance and gender dynamics. We highlight institutional theory as a lens to examine women’s involvement in sport governance, as well as examine the small number of studies that have focused on gender and sport governance. We also offer a contextualized account of women’s involvement in sport governance by using New Zealand Rugby (NZR) to explore the forces that have influenced the governance of rugby in New Zealand. We conclude by highlighting a landmark in the governance journey of NZR, the inclusion of the first women to the national board in 2017, Dr. Farah Palmer.
