ABSTRACT
Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 5 aims to “achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls.” Sport itself has a unique relationship with gender, making it an area ripe for connection and application to SDG 5, but also bringing with it challenges that require thoughtful consideration. The masculine nature of sport reinforces gender stereotypes and leads to a lack of opportunity and participation among girls. Yet many of the physical and mental benefits of sport can lead to progress for women that would be hard to achieve through other means of development. Using examples from across the globe of sport for social change programming specifically focused on women and girls, this chapter outlines the many ways that sport can address the gender gap in larger society.
