SCOTTISH Women in Sport (SWiS) joined with many thousands of women’s organisations this week to celebrate International Women’s Day (IWD) and their #BeBoldforChange campaign for 2017.

IWD is March 8 and it takes on greater momentum as each year passes, enabling all types of organisations an opportunity to highlight their particular cause and showcase the challenges that still exist. One of the benefits it is hoped will be achieved through this, is an opportunity to draw attention to the issues and challenges still faced by many women.

Men and women from all walks of life support the day and many statistics are churned out along with the delivery of many events, which take centre stage, if only for the day. There is a feel-good factor that this day brings as it creates a togetherness and removes the feeling of exclusion and isolation that can be felt by many women.

Sport has its own challenges where women and girls are concerned and it was really heartening to see the inclusion of sport in the final report from Engender, which was released to link with International Women’s Day. Engender is Scottish-based feminist organisation whose vision is for a Scotland in which women and men have equal opportunities in life, equal access to resources and power, and are equally safe and secure from harm.

Although the figures released were less than positive, with research showing that only 14 per cent of sporting organisations in Scotland have a female chief executive officer, one of the lowest numbers in the overall report, it felt good to be included in the final report.

I feel that inclusion in this report clearly signified that sport is now part of mainstream thinking and that there is now a general consensus of the benefits that sport brings to our economy and society.

When you see that the sector with the highest female presence is public body chief executives at 28 per cent, and the lowest was senior police officers with just 7 per cent, you can begin to understand, not just the enormity of the task, but one of the reasons why there are so few women currently on sporting boards.

The numbers in the talent pool are extremely low, and as more and more sports organisations are looking for a skills-based board to help them move forward, it becomes obvious that the talent pool has difficulty in coping with this. So we must work together to increase women’s representation in all areas of our society, to help accelerate change in sport.

SWiS’s involvement in the day was to create awareness, through a social media campaign, which told the global picture where women in leadership in sport was concerned. These figures were taken from a report by Dr Johanna Adriaanse, international expert in sport, women and gender equality, from Australia.

Her research, based on the Sydney Scoreboard Global Index for Women in Sport Leadership, shows that women chaired only 7 per cent (five of 70) of international sport federations in 2016 the same as in 2012, and that women occupied 19 per cent (12 of 64) of chief executive positions in 2016, up from 8 per cent in 2012.

She also stated that gender balance in board composition – usually defined as between 40-60 per cent of either gender, is still a long way off and added that according to critical mass theory, when the size of a group reaches a certain threshold or critical mass, only then does that group gain trust and influence.

She went on to say that research in the public and corporate sectors has found that having just one or two women on a board does not substantially change gender dynamics, it does not admit women’s voices and ideas. Without a critical mass, one or two women on board stand out, and can be fiercely scrutinised and stereotyped. They run the risk of being perceived as the “token” woman, the one fulfilling a target or quota, and as a result are not taken seriously.

So it obvious there is still a lot of work to be done and that one day alone will not fix this puzzle, but my hope is that it might just add another little piece to help complete the jigsaw.