In­ter­na­tion­al Women's Day (IWD) 2025, themed "Ac­cel­er­ate Ac­tion," high­lights the im­por­tance of break­ing bar­ri­ers, in­creas­ing op­por­tu­ni­ties, and fos­ter­ing en­vi­ron­ments that en­able women and girls to par­tic­i­pate ful­ly in ath­let­ics.

Women have made re­mark­able strides in sports over the decades, yet per­sis­tent chal­lenges re­main. The "Ac­cel­er­ate Ac­tion" theme calls for an in­ten­si­fied ef­fort to close gen­der gaps in par­tic­i­pa­tion, fund­ing, lead­er­ship, and vis­i­bil­i­ty in sports.

De­spite sig­nif­i­cant progress, his­tor­i­cal is­sues such as un­equal pay, lack of me­dia rep­re­sen­ta­tion, and cul­tur­al stig­mas con­tin­ue to hin­der fe­male ath­letes world­wide. This theme en­cour­ages stake­hold­ers, in­clud­ing gov­ern­ments, sports or­gan­i­sa­tions, spon­sors, and fans, to com­mit to mean­ing­ful ac­tions. For In­ter­na­tion­al Women’s Day 2025, “the In­ter­na­tion­al Olympic Com­mit­tee (IOC) high­lights the elite and grass­roots lev­el pro­grammes of the Olympic Move­ment and its part­ners, aim­ing to pro­vide every woman and girl with the op­por­tu­ni­ty to en­gage in and ben­e­fit from sports, striv­ing to en­sure #Sport­ForAll­Wom­e­nAnd­Girls.”

One of the most press­ing is­sues is the high dropout rate among fe­male ath­letes, par­tic­u­lar­ly dur­ing ado­les­cence. Ac­cord­ing to UN Women, by age 14, girls drop out of sports at twice the rate of boys due to sev­er­al fac­tors, such as so­cial ex­pec­ta­tions, lack of in­vest­ment in qual­i­ty pro­grammes, so­ci­etal ex­pec­ta­tions, lack of fe­male role mod­els, and in­ad­e­quate sup­port for bal­anc­ing sports with ed­u­ca­tion. The "Ac­cel­er­ate Ac­tion" theme high­lights the need for poli­cies and pro­grammes that pro­vide men­tor­ship, fa­cil­i­ties, and in­cen­tives for young fe­male ath­letes to con­tin­ue their sport­ing jour­neys.

In­ter­na­tion­al ex­am­ples of progress and ini­tia­tives:

Gen­der par­i­ty at the Olympic Games

A sig­nif­i­cant mile­stone in gen­der equal­i­ty in sports was achieved at the Paris 2024 Olympics, mark­ing the first time in his­to­ry that male and fe­male ath­letes will be equal­ly rep­re­sent­ed. This his­toric mo­ment re­flects decades of ad­vo­ca­cy and pol­i­cy changes to en­sure bal­anced par­tic­i­pa­tion. The In­ter­na­tion­al Olympic Com­mit­tee (IOC) has set a prece­dent for oth­er sport­ing events by es­tab­lish­ing equal quo­tas for male and fe­male ath­letes. “Fur­ther progress will be made at Mi­lano Corti­na 2026, which will be the most gen­der-bal­anced Olympic Win­ter Games in his­to­ry, with women ac­count­ing for a record 47 per cent of the ath­letes.”

In­creased in­vest­ment in women's sports

Ma­jor sports or­gan­i­sa­tions and brands have be­gun pri­or­i­tiz­ing in­vest­ments in women's sports. For in­stance, FI­FA an­nounced a record $152 mil­lion prize pool for the 2023 Women's World Cup, sig­nif­i­cant­ly in­creas­ing from pre­vi­ous tour­na­ments ($15 mil­lion in 2015 and $50 mil­lion in 2019). Al­though this amount is still less than the men's prize pool, the in­crease demon­strates a grow­ing com­mit­ment to ad­dress­ing fi­nan­cial dis­par­i­ties in sports. Adi­das' Break­ing Bar­ri­ers Project and Nike Women's In­stazine are cam­paigns ded­i­cat­ed to sup­port­ing fe­male ath­letes and pro­mot­ing gen­der eq­ui­ty.

Ac­cord­ing to Emer­son [2025], “Re­search showed the WN­BA near­ly dou­bled its at­ten­dance from 2023 to 2024 and has seen a 41-fold in­crease since 2018. The NWSL se­cured the largest me­dia deal in women’s sports his­to­ry, bring­ing in $240M through 2027 and boost­ing its an­nu­al me­dia rights from $1.5M to $60M. Ac­cord­ing to the study, new spon­sor­ship in the WN­BA, in­clud­ing its first of­fi­cial wine spon­sor, sports watch line, and new kit spon­sors in the NWSL, con­tributed to a 22% in­crease in brand deals across leagues, teams, and ath­letes last year, re­flect­ing grow­ing in­vest­ment.” The “Sports In­no­va­tion Lab showed the mer­chan­dise in­dus­try al­so reached a val­u­a­tion of $4B an­nu­al­ly in 2024, show­ing grow­ing in­ter­est in women’s sports, ‘[Emer­son 2025]. The De­loitte study al­so stat­ed that peo­ple are more than twice as like­ly to buy a prod­uct en­dorsed by a woman ath­lete than any oth­er in­flu­encer type. Women ath­letes at the Paris Olympics drove 53% of to­tal en­gage­ment across so­cial me­dia, in­clud­ing Tik­Tok and In­sta­gram,” [Emer­son 2025].

Grass­roots pro­grammes pro­mot­ing in­clu­sion

Grass­roots ini­tia­tives are vi­tal for en­cour­ag­ing young girls to par­tic­i­pate in and stay in­volved with sports. "She is a Ruck Star" in the Cook Is­lands pro­vides rug­by and lead­er­ship train­ing to girls aged 6 to 18, pro­mot­ing con­fi­dence and skill de­vel­op­ment. Sim­i­lar­ly, "Girls on the Run" in the Unit­ed States merges run­ning with life skills ed­u­ca­tion, help­ing young girls cul­ti­vate re­silience and self-es­teem through sports.

In Rwan­da, the Or­gan­i­sa­tion of Women in Sports (AK­WOS) em­pow­ers women through sports while chal­leng­ing gen­der stereo­types. Some of its high­lights in­clude 1,000 women who have pur­sued high­er ed­u­ca­tion and over 250 women trained as sports lead­ers through work­shops.

Women in Caribbean Sports

The Caribbean has pro­duced some of the world's most out­stand­ing fe­male ath­letes, yet many face sys­temic bar­ri­ers to suc­cess. Ini­tia­tives across the re­gion are help­ing to pro­mote greater gen­der equal­i­ty in sports:

· Shelly-Ann Fras­er-Pryce and Fe­male Em­pow­er­ment in Track and Field. Ja­maican sprint­er Shelly-Ann Fras­er-Pryce has been a vo­cal ad­vo­cate for gen­der equal­i­ty in ath­let­ics. Through her Pock­et Rock­et Foun­da­tion, she sup­ports young ath­letes, es­pe­cial­ly girls, by pro­vid­ing schol­ar­ships and men­tor­ship op­por­tu­ni­ties. Her lead­er­ship is a mod­el for fu­ture gen­er­a­tions of fe­male ath­letes in the Caribbean.

· Af­ter years of ne­glect­ing a strate­gic de­vel­op­ment plan for West In­dies Women's crick­et, Crick­et West In­dies [CWI] has re­cent­ly in­creased its in­vest­ment in the sport. The re­gion­al gov­ern­ing body has cre­at­ed fe­male-fo­cused pro­grammes, such as the Women's Emerg­ing Play­ers Acad­e­my, to nur­ture new tal­ent and en­sure more women have ac­cess to pro­fes­sion­al train­ing and com­pet­i­tive op­por­tu­ni­ties. A re­gion­al path­way de­vel­op­ment Un­der-16 pro­gramme is ex­pect­ed to launch in 2026.

· T&T has made strides in pro­mot­ing women's foot­ball. The T&T Women's League Foot­ball (TTWLF) is work­ing to en­hance op­por­tu­ni­ties for fe­male play­ers by pro­vid­ing or­gan­ised leagues and train­ing camps. How­ev­er, chal­lenges such as in­suf­fi­cient fund­ing and lim­it­ed spon­sor­ship con­tin­ue to hin­der progress.

· Net­ball is a promi­nent sport for women in Caribbean na­tions such as Ja­maica, Bar­ba­dos, and T&T. Ja­maica's Sun­shine Girls have con­sis­tent­ly ranked among the world's top teams, in­spir­ing young girls through­out the re­gion to take up the sport. In­creased in­vest­ment in pro­fes­sion­al leagues and fa­cil­i­ties could en­hance net­ball's sta­tus and cre­ate more op­por­tu­ni­ties for fe­male ath­letes.

A call to ac­tion

De­spite the gains, more has to be done in the form of:

· En­hance Fund­ing: Greater in­vest­ment in fe­male sports leagues, tour­na­ments, and ath­lete spon­sor­ships must be made. We must walk the talk!

· En­hanc­ing Me­dia Cov­er­age: In­creas­ing the vis­i­bil­i­ty of women's sports on tele­vi­sion, on­line plat­forms, and so­cial me­dia.

· Ex­pand­ing Lead­er­ship Op­por­tu­ni­ties: En­cour­ag­ing and sup­port­ing women in pur­su­ing coach­ing and ex­ec­u­tive roles.

· Ad­dress­ing Cul­tur­al Stig­mas: Ad­vo­cat­ing for poli­cies that en­cour­age sports par­tic­i­pa­tion among women in con­ser­v­a­tive and tra­di­tion­al so­ci­eties. A re­cur­ring theme among some par­ents and guardians in T&T is that girls, un­like boys, can­not si­mul­ta­ne­ous­ly en­gage in sports and ed­u­ca­tion.

The theme of In­ter­na­tion­al Women's Day 2025, Ac­cel­er­ate Ac­tion force­ful­ly re­minds us that al­though progress has been made, much work re­mains to achieve true gen­der equal­i­ty in sports. Let us en­hance our ef­forts be­cause equal­i­ty can­not wait.