This paper seeks to evaluate the complex, competing and
ever-changing discourses between cultural difference, gender and
sport in relation to global sports movements. The paper raises a
number of questions about inclusion and exclusionand, although it
attempts to provide some answers to these questions, it does not
claim to have all the answers or even that the answers offered by a
Western academic are necessarily the most appropriate answers for
academics and practitioners working in Iran. The role of a social
scientist, however, is to problematise as much as problem solve with
the latter dependent upon establishing links between academics and
practitioners.
The paper is structured in five sections. The first section highlights
the role of women in the Olympic movement from the ancient
Olympic Games until the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta in the
US. The second section evaluates the role of women in sport
outside the Olympic movement and explores the ways in which the
Western domination of global sports movements such as the
Olympic Games has resulted in the alternative organising and
organisation of womens sport. The third section evaluates the ethos
of "Sport for All" and the influence of discourses of UK sport policy
in informing wider global discourses of gender and sport. The fourth
section examines the relationship between the UK Womens Sport
Foundation and the development of other Womens Sports
Associations around the world. The final section of the paper
concludes with a focus on cultural difference, gender and the 2000
Sydney Olympics and asks if the Olympic ideal can bring the Middle
East and the West together without unduly compromising cultural
difference, gender relations or sports participation and performance.