The Israeli National Project for Women and Sport (NPWS) - A Discourse Analysis of Gender Based Organization

The study analyses discourses about the roles and barriers of women`s access to decision-making positions in Israeli sport organizations, and aims to identify and evaluate some of the strategies and tactics adopted to overcome these barriers. In particular, it focuses on the exploration of discourses on masculinity and femininity that underpin Israeli society (the discourse of militarization organizations) and sport institutions within it (the unique political affiliation system in the sporting arena). In order to understand and explore the social construction of these gendered discourses, a significant policy initiative toward gender equity in sport was explored. This includes the creation of the National Project for Women and Sport (NPWS) – ATHENA.

Critical Discourse Analysis was employed as a methodological approach to analyze how female and male interviewees explained the process of the construction of gendered roles and barriers. Included in the interview data was also the auto-ethnographical account of the first author, who was a primary actor in the process. Dominant discourses of femininity (the discourse of sisterhood, assertiveness, the processes of mentoring) and of masculinity (and how these promote uniformity) were identified as mechanisms for reproducing the gendered reality of sport leadership in Israel.

The implication of using a critical theoretical approach is that it is emancipatory in its ambitions and impact, and can contribute to enhance the understanding of how discourse not only reflects but also creates barriers and opportunities, so that the construction of such barriers can be challenged in progressive policy discourses.