Just like other public norms, stereotypes about men and women are being developed during growing-up. They sources may be parents, educators, teachers.

In the traditional system, children are raised according to their assigned sex. It concerns not only external manifestations, but also internal attitudes saying that girls must be more ladylike, whereas boys must be more masculine. In general, the society shows a clear division into 'masculine' and 'feminine'.


Judith Butler in her book, Gender Trouble, said that the assigned sex, either male or female, does not determine the life of a person: it is determined by the society. Gender stereotypes are transmitted in books, cartoons, and on television. Toys are also divided into feminine and masculine. Judith Butler, in her book, Gender Trouble, said that the assigned sex, male or female, does not determine the person's life: the society determines it. Gender stereotypes are transmitted in books, cinema, cartoons, television. Toys are also divided into masculine and feminine ones.

However, the girls and boys are not very different. Men can perform domestic duties or raise children, whereas girls may run business or fire a ruffle. And the gender makes no difference.

According to Reina Arturova, often girls become victims of gender stereotypes, but in terms of the culture, stereotypes must help a person socialise and live in the society.

"Very often, [gender] stereotypes are contrary to the interests of a modern woman and contemporary girl," the sociologist said.

Unfortunately, there are. They first appear in the families that decide to send the girls to dance classes, not sports. The football player of Kyrgyzstan, Aizhan Boronbekova, said that when she was playing football at school, one of the teachers told her, "Do girls play football? If you continue playing, you won't get married!"

Sociologist Reina Arturova noted that most of parents prefer to give sons, not daughters, to sports. She said that when she took her son to football club, she saw there a man with three children – two daughters and a son.

"One of his daughters kept saying, "Dad, I want to run with him, I want to play football, too," and her father said, "No, you will go to gymnastics or drawing lessons. Now we will just sit and wait for an hour for him." Do you see the priorities now?" Arturova said.

Discrimination is encountered in adult sports, too. For example, women were first permitted to compete in the Olympic Games in 1900 in Paris. There were only 22 women among 997 participants.

A woman ran the marathon for the first time in 1967. It was Kathrine Switzer at the Boston Marathon. When organisers and other male runners saw her, they tried to attack her. But Kathrine did not give up and crossed the finish line.

In Saudi Arabia, female students of private schools were permitted to play sports and women were permitted to ride bikes (only in parks and recreation areas) in 2013. In 2018, women were first admitted to the stadium where the football match was played.

According to the UN publication "Women, Gender Equality and Sport", "a common social constraint is the stereotyping of sport." Accepted norms of behaviour that expect women to be "ladylike" and "demure" exclude women from participation in sporting activities, where "masculine traits" are exhibited, such as rugby and boxing. When women do engage in such [contact] sports, they can be labelled with negative traits, such as being "manly" and "unfeminine".

Unfortunately, the female types of sports do not solve gender discrimination. They get less media coverage, fewer spectators, less money.

According to the UN publication "Women, Gender Equality and Sport", "the value placed on women's sport is often lower, resulting in inadequate resources and unequal wages and prizes. In the media, women's sport is not only marginalised but also often presented in a different style that reflects and reinforces gender stereotypes."

Segregation into male and female sports is normal in itself. This is when physiological make-up is considered. However, there are kinds of sport where women compete equally with men and often face discrimination.

A silver medal winner of the world jiu-jitsu championship, Malika Bootaeva, said when she started to train, she often encountered disapproval of men.

"What I experienced was that none of men in the gym greeted me because it was their practice," she said.

In 2015, the British agency NHS Digital held the survey of physical activity among school-age boys and girls. They found out that girls spend less time on sport activities from the age of eight, and only 8 per cent of girls are engaged in physical activity at least for one hour a day by the age of 13-15.

According to Reina Arturova, it happens not because girls are less athletic or weak, but because gender stereotypes give them fewer opportunities to succeed. For example, parents do not allow girls to go into "strength sport", but send them to gymnastics because it "it is meant for girls."

"Since my first match I heard horrible things like dirty ^^^^^ or, you have nothing to do here. Hockey is a sport for men, go back to the kitchen!" I was nine, I wanted to start ice hockey in my club, and I was immediately told that girls and boys couldn't go on the ice together!" Charlotte Girard-Fabre, a former ice hockey player and international ice hockey referee, said (cited from Euronews).

The Kyrgyzstani female athlete, Malika Bootaeva, said that sport was contraindicated to women before the beginning of the 20^th century. It was considered to affect the women's fertility. In addition, there is a stereotype that men's kinds of sports are for men only, and women's one are for women. As if men's sports make women manlike, and women's sports develop femininity.

According to the State Agency for Youth, Physical Education and Sport Affairs, more men than women participate in republican competitions. The same situation is in sport clubs.

"This is because most of girls get married immediately after graduation from school, and they have no spare time afterwards. Another reason is that the majority of sport activities are for men, and also most of sporting venues are private and not all can afford doing sport," the agency said.

According to Reina Arturova, girls' performance is based on the opportunity to develop in sport and on the family support – whether parents encourage daughter's physical activities, or prefer to invest into their son.

In fact, they don't. If we take the statistics of Kyrgyzstan, the situation is to the contrary.

According to the State Agency for Youth, Physical Education and Sport Affairs, there are four men to one female athlete in the Olympic sports of Kyrgyzstan. Most of females are engaged in swimming, rhythmic gymnastics and track and field athletics.

In non-Olympic kinds of sport, the ratio of women and men is 1:8.

If we add together the number of athletes in Olympic and non-Olympic sports, we'll get 85,467 men and 13,449 women. In other words, there are nearly six male athletes to one female athlete.

The picture is as follows based on the number of medals won in the last 4 years:

If we look at the performance, only 684 males out of 85,467 won medals in 4 years, and 194 females out of 13,449. In other words, only one of 13 male athletes and one of seven girls win medals for Kyrgyzstan.

The most prominent female athletes in Kyrgyzstan are Aisuluu Tynybekova and Valentina Shevchenko.

As a rule, men's sports are more popular and get more investments, more sponsors and more media coverage. According to the UNESCO statistics, 40% of all sports participants are women, yet women's sports receive only around 4% of all sports media coverage. They noted that female athletes are often objectified or demeaned because of limited coverage.

According to the UNESCO, media tend to represent women athletes as women first and athletes second. Coverage of women in sports is often dominated by references to appearance, age or family life, whereas men are depicted as powerful, independent, dominating, and valued as athletes.

First, to overcome gender stereotypes, they should be talked about, myths should be unveiled, and girls should be encouraged to go in for sport, including professional one.

49 per cent of all participants of the 2020 Olympic Games were women, which is the highest indicator for all years. Before those games, the International Olympic Committee approved the new rules:

1. At least one male athlete and one female athlete must be in the team of every national Olympic committee.

2. Every national Olympic committee can appoint one male athlete and one female athlete as flagbearers during the opening ceremony.

Women's sports must get more media coverage to make women visible in sport. The state must create necessary conditions – accessible sports centres and clubs, financial resources, awareness-raising campaigns and popularisation of sport among girls, etc.

So far, female athletes in Kyrgyzstan overcome gender discrimination by ignoring it. Malika Bootaeva recommends not to pay attention to "side looks, or to the people who don't greet you."