The Sport Intersectional Model of Power (SIMP) as a tool for understanding intersectionality in sport governance and leadership

Abstract

The recent UK Diversity in Sport Governance report (UK Sport, 2019) highlighted that two thirds of boards have no Black, Asian and minority ethnic (BAME) members and that board diversity is an ongoing problem. In the report, UK Sport (2019, p. 5) acknowledge that ‘the sports sector is falling behind other sectors in terms of minority ethic members’. While this is an important acknowledgement, it reflects trends in both research and policy on diversity in UK sport governance that continue to focus on single forms of discrimination (e.g., gender, ethnicity, age or sexuality). In this chapter we move beyond this approach to consider how Black women experience sport leadership and governance through an intersectional lens. The key findings in this paper outline Black women’s positionality at the intersections of race and gender and how these influence their sport leadership opportunities and experiences based on: (a) their outsider within status, (b) inequities in their salaries, marginalizing promotions, and occupational stereotyping, (c) their identity negotiation, and (d) their experiences with womanism. We conclude by arguing for more research that explores the intersection of race and gender within UK sport leadership and governance which should be positioned within the context of long-standing and deep-rooted racialised and gendered ideology and beliefs within UK society.