Dr Una May: ‘It’s not just about trying to encourage women to do the same things as men’

Even before the Irish Sports Council received statutory status, in 1999, Dr Una May was already on board as one of four development officers, working alongside first chief executive John Treacy, already identifying pathways to progressing Irish sport across the board.

Among the areas highlighted were high-performance sport, recreational sport, and women in sport, although May could never have imagined then just how things would evolve, first into Sport Ireland, and now including the Sport Ireland Institute, and where the current dedicated head of performance psychology would be also a woman.

May’s own role has evolved significantly, as she soon found herself director of anti-doping, expanding that further to director of participation and ethics: what has remained consistent is her understanding that all such progress is the result of proper strategic planning, and nothing happens by chance or accident.

“Within months of starting, I took up the anti-doping role,” she says, “once it became very clear this was more than just a project, it was a huge thing, and later in 1999, anti-doping was written into the constitution.

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“Historically, we spent a lot of time and energy trying to build structures that would deliver on everything we wanted, but right from back in 1998, anti-doping was one of those key areas. We did have the women in sport programme, only then it was more about a funding pot. If people wanted to apply, they might get funding, and then buy their women in sport T-shirt, something like that.

“In recent years, it’s become much more strategic. We look at the challenges, and target the funding based on that. That transformation has been really interesting, seeing what it takes to get more women involved.

“It’s not just about trying to encourage women to do the same things as men, we have to look very closely at the challenges, and the barriers. I think it’s important to say, too, that we’re seeing a bit of a creep, during Covid, women haven’t being coming back quite as quickly as the men. That’s partly because the preference among women might be the gym-based activity, and that has challenges, and is one of the reasons we drove the Her Outdoors, this summer, to drive women into the outdoor activity.”

For May, some of the enduring barriers aren’t necessarily participation, but getting more women involved in leadership roles in Irish sport: “We do need to see more women in those roles, around coaching and officiating, and also around women’s achievement, in terms of just being seen. For younger women, say teenage girls, the research is fascinating, obvious in some ways, because it’s about their whole support network, and even their social media moments.

“What is still frustrating is when some young girls label themselves as ‘non-sporty’ from an early age. That could be based on team sports, whereas if you’re offering them more, just because you’re no good at kicking a ball doesn’t mean you’re not sporty. It could be something like mountain biking. What we’ve found there is in families where the mother is active, their children are far more likely to be active. So we have to look back a bit, if we get more mothers involved, we can get more kids involved.”

Her current role as director of participation and ethics also taps into that: “I felt in people’s heads, ethics meant Garda vetting, child protection. It does have a lot of that, when in actual fact the ethics is about good practice in sport, all of what is good in sport. So that overlaps into the women’s side, the whole area of diversity and inclusion. It’s about making sport more welcoming for all, which is where the ethics come in. Good practice and values in sport is also about making people more welcome, regardless of their background, gender or their abilities.”

Dr Kate Kirby has been head of performance psychology at the Sport Ireland Institute since 2016, and like May has seen women's experience and role in sport evolve significantly, though with still some distance to go.

“The first thing I say when people ask me about gender differences in sport psychology, I’m very lucky that most of the sports I work in are Olympic sports, gender is pretty equal, the resources split evenly between men and women,” says Kirby.

“So it doesn’t tend to be an issue in our day-to-day working life, which is great. I did work for the rugby association for four years, where the differences in resources for men and women was more obvious. Gender inequality is not something I have to deal with, but obviously I am aware of.

“I think where you see the gender issue most often is the fact a lot of our coaches are male, when the athletes might be female. That can create differences in communication, or what’s important to them.

“It’s really important coaches understand that, when sometimes male coaches impose their own motivations and values and beliefs onto female athletes, assuming they’re the same, when very often they’re not.”

Kirby also sees that need for more women in leadership roles: “There’s also an issue around role models for women who make a career out of sport, there are still so many barriers there for females going into professional coaching, a physio or doctor.

“I’ve been lucky I did travel early in my career, before starting a family, so I can pick and choose now, I don’t need to be away for six weeks. For a woman who wants to have a family, then be away coaching for six or seven works, it’s not that easy. So the next progression for me would be to have more women paving the way in careers in sport after their sporting career.”