Swedish karate works for equality

MIE is a program and network within the Swedish Karate Association. It is created to bring out more female leaders in karate. The idea is that sport will eventually achieve gender equality. The initiative is about recruiting new and strengthening existing female leaders in karate. The goal is to increase the number so that they correspond to the proportion of female practitioners. In this way, the business can be developed and run more equally. It is also about women being given the opportunity to develop their leadership and being offered support from others in the organization.

Equality in sport is basically about securing the democratic processes from the practitioners to the confederation level. Women must be given opportunities and rights to participate in decisions. As well as being involved in shaping their sport and club environment. The first partial aim is to strengthen female leaders within the union, inspire and motivate them to take the next step in the leadership role. Aim number two is to create the conditions for a living network for female leaders in karate who can support each other in the future. The network shall contribute to and highlight role models of female leaders in karate. They can in turn inspire the next generation and change the dominant structures that exist in sports today.

The program is named after Mie Nakayama who was a Japanese pioneer in female karate. She is known today as one of the foremost practitioners and coaches of all time. In the eighties, women were allowed to participate in international championships for the first time. Mie then reaped great success in various competitions. She ended her competitive career surprisingly early to start coaching female karate practitioners herself. She is now a recognized historical and style-crossing icon throughout the karate world as a leader, coach and karateka. In her memory and as a guiding light in our work, the program is called MIE.

Martial Art News had a chat with the Swedish Karate Federation’s general secretary Sarah Wennerström Cedercrona after the network organized its first meeting.

Why do you think bringing out more female leaders is so important?

– Working to bring out more female leaders is in line with the National Sports Confederation’s equality goals and also common sense. Karate, like many other sports, has a deficit of female leaders. Research shows that equal sports is a prerequisite for successful and effective sports development. With good democratic principles that represent both men and women. The world’s population consists of half men and half women. If our business and governing structures are dominated by leaders of only one gender, it does not correspond to reality. Nor the interests that should be represented for fair and safe sports environments. We strive for balance.

Can you specify how you work to produce more female leaders?

– The government grants we have to distribute are partly conditional on them also benefiting gender equality initiatives. This is in accordance with the National Sports Confederation’s guidelines and gender equality goals within the framework of Strategy 2025. Based on that, the Karate Federation has now also started the network and leadership program MIE as a special effort. The purpose and goal is to speed up gender equality work by:

• Strengthen female leaders within the union and inspire and motivate to the next step in the leadership role.
• Create the conditions for a lively network for female leaders in karate who can continue to support each other.
• The network must contribute to and highlight role models of female leaders in karate who can in turn inspire the next generation.

How long have you been active?

– The MIE network was started up administratively at the end of 2023 following a decision by the Confederation Board in October. Our first meeting took place on January 20-21, with two days of intensive introduction to a leadership program. We will have four more meetings during the year.

Have you encountered a lot of resistance on your way to achieving equality?

– Karate is fundamentally an equal sport, regarding training and competition. Our view is that, for the most part, there is no principled reluctance to include women. In contrast, karate was introduced in Sweden in the sixties as a sport for men by men. A historical starting point most sports share. Based on that, it can be interpreted that there is a time lag in the number of women who joined us. As well as with what opportunities and at what pace they were given the opportunity to develop and be educated. Now, in a more modern age, the culture is more open for women to advance faster. We see a positive trend that awareness is increasing about how important gender equality is, which is gratifying. Since we started MIE, we have received a lot of support and positive feedback from many of our male karate friends and leaders. We feel that there is a need for MIE and that the investment is appreciated by most.

What does the gender distribution look like in the Swedish Karate Association at the moment?

– For the clubs, the number of female leaders is around fifteen percent. For practitioners, between thirty-two and thirty-five percent are girls and women. Within the association, since a couple of years ago, we have also been governed by statutes where at least forty percent of the board and other leading bodies must be made up of women. We have been lucky to have a confederation board that for a few years consisted of half men and half women, which is exemplary in the sports world.

Are you working to get more girls to want to try karate?

– Yes, we encourage through association contributions and PR efforts to recruit more girls to karate. Through MIE, we also want to create knowledgeable role models to be able to increase the pace in those efforts as well.

How far is Swedish karate from being an equal sport?

– It is impossible to say. We have come a long way but we have to get even better and it has to go faster. The hope is that within not too many years we can see at least forty percent of female leaders in the associations as well – of course preferably half. It is required that we strive towards equality together, both men and women. That the will exists from individuals to get involved, from association level upwards. In a year or two, when the National Sports Confederation makes its evaluation of the gender equality goals according to Strategy 2025, I really hope that karate will appear as a good example of development going in the right direction. Karate-Sweden has both the will and the knowledge to change the structures that are needed. We just have to put it into practice and I absolutely feel that we are on the right track.

Photographer Jeff Tran

Source Karate Sweden

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