During the past women\u2019s college basketball season, two prominent head coaches, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill\u2019s Sylvia Hatchell and Georgia Tech\u2019s MaChelle Joseph, were fired.<\/p>\n
In Joseph\u2019s case, her players had accused her of\u00a0being abusive, demeaning, and manipulative<\/a>. Hatchell\u2019s players claimed she had\u00a0berated them, made racially insensitive remarks, and forced them to play through injuries<\/a>.<\/p>\n We don\u2019t want to litigate, refute, or deny the claims against Hatchell, Joseph, and countless other female coaches. But it\u2019s not difficult to imagine a male coach with a similar style being called \u201ctough,\u201d \u201cdemanding,\u201d and \u201cpassionate.\u201d<\/p>\n As social scientists who study\u00a0coaching<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0leadership in sport<\/a>, we\u2019re starting to see a double standard at play \u2013 one that holds female coaches to a different standard than their male counterparts.<\/p>\n We think it might help explain why the percentage of collegiate women head coaches is stagnant and near an all-time low.<\/p>\n Dwindling numbers over the decades<\/strong><\/p>\n In 1972,\u00a0Title IX<\/a>, a federal civil rights law that made gender discrimination in schools illegal, was passed. It led to record numbers of girls and women playing sports at all levels. But an unintended effect was that, over time, women started to hold a smaller share of sport leadership positions.<\/p>\n According to the\u00a0Tucker Center for Research on Girls & Women in Sport<\/a>\u00a0at the University of Minnesota, the percentage of female coaches has steadily fallen<\/a>\u00a0since the passage of Title IX. In 1972, more than 90% of female collegiate athletes were coached by women. Today that number hovers around 42% at the NCAA Division I level.<\/p>\n After Title IX required schools to allocate more resources for women\u2019s sports, male coaches started to see coaching female athletes as a legitimate career path. Today men occupy\u00a0nearly 75%<\/a>\u00a0of all head coaching positions in collegiate athletics.<\/p>\n A shorter leash?<\/strong><\/p>\n Hatchell and Joseph\u2019s experiences are not isolated ones.<\/p>\n In recent years, a number of collegiate women coaches have encountered challenges to their coaching behaviors, integrity, character, and job security, some high profile, many not. In 2014, University of Minnesota-Duluth women\u2019s hockey head coach Shannon Miller didn\u2019t have her contract renewed<\/a> despite multiple national championships, high graduation rates, and no NCAA violations. Miller sued for gender discrimination and won more than $3 million in damages<\/a>.<\/p>\n In the wake of allegations of abuse, a few female coaches have been able\u00a0to keep their jobs<\/a>. Some win\u00a0court cases<\/a>\u00a0against the\u00a0university<\/a>. But many end up simply leaving their positions in the hopes of landing another coaching job at a different school.<\/p>\n Most of these women are\u00a0not rehired<\/a>; if they are, it\u2019s not at the\u00a0same level<\/a>\u00a0or position<\/a>. For example, Tracey Greisbaum, a highly successful former head field hockey coach at the University of Iowa, was fired after athlete allegations of harassment and mistreatment. She subsequently won a $1.5 million lawsuit for gender discrimination. But she\u2019s now a volunteer coach for Duke University.<\/p>\n Male coaches also get accused of abuse, and some\u00a0do get fired<\/a>, like Maryland college football coach D.J. Durkin, who was fired in October 2018 after one of his players died after practice.<\/p>\n But many that\u00a0exhibit behaviors<\/a>\u00a0their female colleagues are fired for remain employed or quickly get hired for head coaching gigs at other schools. The most prominent example of the return to coaching is former Indiana men\u2019s basketball coach Bobby Knight, who was fired in 2000\u00a0after choking a player in practice<\/a>. In 2001, Knight was hired as the head coach at Texas Tech.<\/p>\n On the women\u2019s side, University of Illinois head women\u2019s basketball coach Matt Bollant\u00a0was sued by players<\/a>\u00a0who claimed he had created a racially abusive environment. Bollant was fired in 2017,\u00a0only to be quickly hired<\/a>\u00a0as the head coach at Eastern Illinois University.<\/p>\n When women don\u2019t behave as expected<\/strong><\/p>\n What might explain the differential treatment?<\/p>\n Due to gender stereotypes<\/a>, we expect women be more nurturing, caring, supportive, and relationship-oriented. We expect men, on the other hand, to be assertive, independent, and dominant<\/a>.<\/p>\n Then there are behaviors we expect each gender to avoid. For men, this includes signs of weakness, like insecurity or sensitivity. Women, on the other hand, aren\u2019t supposed to be aggressive or intimidating.<\/p>\n Studies show that when women exhibit dominant behavior or men appear to be weak,\u00a0people tend to react negatively<\/a>.<\/p>\n But the backlash isn\u2019t evenly distributed:\u00a0Research has shown<\/a> that women who act in dominant and more masculine ways generate much stronger feelings of contempt, disgust, revulsion, and disdain in others.<\/p>\n Damned if you do, damned if you don\u2019t<\/strong><\/p>\n It\u2019s easy to see how these gender stereotypes can make things more difficult for female coaches.<\/p>\n Coaches are expected to be confident, demanding, and assertive. Women in head coaching roles are, not surprisingly, expected to act \u201clike a coach.\u201d<\/p>\n But many of the behaviors expected of coaches also align with stereotypical male behaviors. So when women act like a coach, it violates traditional female gender stereotypes,\u00a0subjecting them to backlash<\/a>.<\/p>\n Another problem is that female college athletes seem to value coaches who act in dominant, sometimes\u00a0authoritarian ways<\/a>. When female athletes are asked what they want in a coach,\u00a0they\u2019ll say<\/a> they want someone who is commanding, confident, assertive, and knowledgeable.<\/p>\n At the same time, female athletes consider\u00a0ideal female coaches<\/a> to be caring, supportive, and nurturing. But this contradicts what they value in a coach<\/a>.<\/p>\n Female coaches ultimately\u00a0find themselves in a double bind<\/a>: They\u2019re damned if they act like men, and damned if they don\u2019t.<\/p>\n On March 30, Notre Dame head women\u2019s basketball coach Muffet McGraw\u00a0told Think Progress<\/a>\u00a0that she would no longer hire men coaches for her staff. A few days later, when she was asked to elaborate on her stance,\u00a0she said<\/a>,<\/p>\n ‘Girls are socialized to know \u2026 that gender roles are already set. Men run the world. Men have the power. Men make the decisions. It\u2019s always the men that [are] the stronger ones. When these girls are coming out, who are they looking up to telling them that that\u2019s not the way it has to be? And where better to do that than in sports?’<\/p><\/blockquote>\n McGraw\u2019s impulse to hire more women is well-founded. But the issue goes beyond simply hiring more women. These women, once they\u2019re hired, need to be able to thrive in their jobs. Understanding how \u2013 and why \u2013 they\u2019re held to a different standard is an important step in addressing the larger problem of inequality.<\/p>\n