Opportunities and Obstacles for women in Australian triathlon governance: Lessons from a feminist history

This paper centres on the question: What do we learn about women in Australian triathlon governance if we adopt a feminist, woman-centred approach. The idea of writing history from the perspective of women is not new. A landmark example in Australia, Creating a Nation: 1788–1900, challenged the notion that women have no role in the creation of nations. Sport, like nation building, has traditionally been presented as the product of the actions of men. Using an early feminist gap-filling approach this paper compiles an overview of women in triathlon governance from institutional records before drawing on contemporary feminist cultural and narrative studies to identify the obstacles and opportunities they encounter. The first approach demonstrates that gender equality is a foundational myth in the sport of triathlon, while the second highlights the need for continued individual and institutional intervention in the pursuit of real opportunities for women.