Gender and cultural diversity in Australian sport

In early twenty-first century Australia, the traditions of Anglo privilege and exclusivity that remained intransigent throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries are increasingly being challenged. Australia is a culturally diverse nation, and many traditional Australian institutions have been forced to reconsider who their stakeholders are, and adapt to the changing population base in order to be viable and sustainable and to appeal to a wider range of individuals and community groups. This chapter examines the policies, processes and practices of Australian sport in relation to anti-racism, cultural diversity, social cohesion and gender equity. The intersecting challenges of racism and sexism in Australian sport are explored here in the context of the experiences of a historically marginalised population: women from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds.