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This chapter is an exploratory study of women’s football in Goa during two defining periods in its history: 1975–1991 and 2017–present. Anchoring the analysis within the intersection of sport, gender, and decolonisation, the chapter aims to address the peripheralisation of women’s sport in academic work on sport in India. Examining the evolution of women’s football in Goa and the multifarious factors that stilted its advancement, this research demonstrates how the systemic challenges that have historically plagued women’s sport continue to hamper its progress. The chapter argues that the professionalisation of women’s sport is indispensable to unlocking its potential and doing justice to the players and other stakeholders who continue to pursue it despite manifold challenges.

This chapter approaches issues of ecospirituality through Gender and the Environment analytical lenses. We propose the need to actively queer human/Nature relations and understandings by exploring studies related to ecospirituality, Earth relations, and gender dynamics. The chapter considers ecospirituality as ritual practices, material cultures, codified ethics, and/or cosmological structures related to a category of “the sacred,” which influence how various gendered and sexed bodies interact with the non-human world. Here, we propose that ecospiritual categories can shape the ways that humans conceive of their humanness and their sexed and gendered bodies. Within the context of religion/Nature interactions white evangelical masculinist subcultures in the United States are considered as an example that demonstrates the paradoxical characteristics of the gender binary and human/Nature dualisms. The chapter proceeds to offer queered ecologies as alternative narratives that can assist the larger Gender and Environment discourse in better understanding ecospiritual practices and worldviews, and how the latter can contribute to prosustainable lifeways as a viable alternative to masculinist hegemonies that are continuing to predominate the ways that many humans – especially those in the Global North – understand and relate to the natural world at great cost to life on the planet.

Women’s indigenous organizations have existed for years in the Colombian Amazon. Yet, information about their members’ motivations and the opportunities and barriers those organizations face is missing in the literature on the indigenous movement, ecofeminist struggles, and efforts for a good life in Colombia. This chapter analyzes the connection between women’s indigenous organizations and the territory’s efforts to contain climate change. Two sources inform our understanding of the relationship: the systematization of the main program in Colombian institutional history supporting indigenous women’s led associations linked to conservation efforts, “Women Caregivers of the Amazon” and the mapping of indigenous women’s organizations in the region. This chapter offers a critical impact evaluation of the program “Women Caregivers of the Amazon,” analyzing the way in which the ecological native discourse, particularly on environmental practices of indigenous women, has permeated conservation initiatives in the Colombian Amazon. The impact this has had on women’s participation in self-governance and environmental governance remains to be analyzed. However, mapping indigenous women’s organizations in 2021 offered relevant information on those organizations and their care and conservation practices in the Amazon Forest. In turn, the systematization of “Caregivers of the Amazon” results offers an updated analysis of the scope, limitations, best practices, and lessons learned in developing the projects. A longitudinal and comparative analysis of these two sources of information will lead to an understanding of the incidence of intergovernmental and civil society actions for mitigation and adaptation to climate change carried out by indigenous women’s organizations.

This chapter emphasizes the interconnectedness of legal frameworks, socio-cultural norms, and policy interventions in forging a more inclusive and just society for girls and women. Despite substantial strides, gender disparities still persist across the Western world, highlighting the need for targeted actions. The chapter explores the “glass ceiling” phenomenon, the wage gap, gender-based violence, emphasizing their persistence, and the imperative of transformative policies. Shifting focus to the East, the narrative navigates through distinct trajectories of women’s rights advocacy. Religious beliefs have historically reinforced gender inequality in some Eastern societies, shaping cultural norms and limiting women’s public participation. In the context of Islam, varying interpretations have led to differing perspectives on gender roles. The chapter showcases instances of progress, such as Saudi Arabian women gaining voting rights, while acknowledging enduring challenges like female genital mutilation and forced marriages. In the conclusion part, the chapter highlights the need for sustained efforts to dismantle barriers and elevate women’s voices, fostering a global landscape marked by gender equality and women’s empowerment.

This chapter focuses on the concept of genderwashing in the context of higher education (HE) in the United States. Using intersectionality as a framework, the authors critically examine gender-based affinity groups, which are used in HE as a common strategy to support diversity and equity efforts. The authors discuss how such efforts often fall short in facilitating meaningful organizational or systemic change and provide questions and considerations for addressing genderwashing that are informed by an intersectional lens.

Body weight has a long history of functioning as a symbol of one’s beauty, social status, morality, discipline, and health. It has also been a standard inflicted much more intensely on women than men. While US culture has long idealized thinness for women, even at risky extremes, there is growing evidence that weight standards are broadening. Larger bodies are becoming more visible and accepted, while desire for and approval of a thin ideal has diminished. However, the continued widespread prevalence of anti-fat attitudes and stigma leaves uncertainty about just how much weight standards are changing. This study used an online survey (n = 320) to directly compare evaluations of thin, fat, and average size women through measures of negative stereotypes, prejudicial attitudes, and perceptions about quality of life. Results indicated that, as hypothesized, thin women were perceived less favorably than average weight women. However, fat women were perceived less favorably than both average and thin women. Men were harsher than women in their evaluations of only fat women. Additionally, participants being underweight or overweight did not produce an ingroup bias in their evaluations of underweight and overweight targets, respectively. That is, participants did not rate their own group more favorably, with the exception of overweight participants having lower prejudice toward overweight targets. These findings add to the emerging evidence that women’s weight standards are in transition, marked by an increasingly negative perception of thin women, though not necessarily growing positivity toward fat women. This evidence further points toward the need for more extensive research on attitudes of people across the entire weight spectrum.

Sport organizations hold substantial ideological power to showcase and reinforce dominant cultural ideas about gender. The organization and portrayal of sporting events and spaces continue to promote and reinforce a hierarchical gender binary where heroic forms of masculinity are both desired and privileged. Such publicly visible gender hierarchies contribute to the doing of gender beyond sport itself, extending to influence gender power relations within sport and non-sport organizations. Yet, there has been a relative absence of scholarship on sport organizations within the organizational sociology field. In this paper, we review findings of studies that look at how formal and informal organizational dimensions influence the doing and undoing of gender in sport organizations. Subsequently, we call for scholars to pay more attention to sport itself as a source of gendered organizational practices within both sport and non-sport organizations. We end with suggestions for research that empirically explores this linkage by focusing on innovative theoretical perspectives that could provide new insights on gender inclusion in organizations.