De KNBB spant zich in om stereotypen en clichés zo veel mogelijk te voorkomen in haar communicatie-uitingen, en streeft naar gender equality.

Richtlijnen die wij hiervoor proberen aan te houden komen uit de PORTRAYAL GUIDELINES FOR GENDER BALANCED REPRESENTATION van het IOC.

Onderstaand de introductie en achtergrond van dit document, zoals verwoord door het IOC.
 

Introduction
Sports is one of the most powerful platforms for promoting gender equality and empowering women and girls, and sports coverage is very influential in shaping norms and stereotypes of women/girls and men/boys. At the International Olympic Committee (IOC), we know that the Olympic Games are an incredible spotlight. Those two weeks of Olympic coverage are a rare time when sustained coverage of women’s sports makes the headlines. But, outside that period, the opportunity and the quality of that coverage remain limited. As leaders and communicators within the sports movement, we can set the tone as to how women and girls in sports, and athletes – globally – can and should be pictured, described, talked about, represented, i.e. portrayed, across all forms of media and communication channels.

Challenging stereotypes and clichés
Avoiding prejudice and stereotypes in the portrayal (i.e. representation) of women and men is a crucial step on the path towards gender equality, in all areas of life. Gender biased attitudes and behaviours can be conscious or unconscious. Changing behaviour to put an end to this prejudice based on gender can only be achieved by raising awareness of what constitutes such bias so that efforts can be made to avoid and overcome it. The following Guidelines are intended to raise awareness of what constitutes gender bias in the area of portrayal (i.e. how women and men are presented and described). They provide examples and good practice within the sporting context of how this bias can be overcome – notably in the areas of print, digital and broadcast – to achieve gender neutral language and equal representation. They are a direct result of Recommendation 12 of the 2018 IOC Gender Equality Review Project – Balanced Media Portrayal of Both Genders – which calls on the IOC administration “to establish principles and guidelines for fair and balanced portrayal in all its forms of communication” and encourages “all Olympic Movement stakeholders to adopt” and adapt these Guidelines.
 

Foto’s: Sandy Millar (uitgelicht) en Brittani Burns, via Unsplash