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Research question: This study examines the views of employees working in Turkish sport organizations on the qualities of sport managers, their preference for female or male sport managers, and their attitudes toward female managers.Research methods: A quantitative research design based on the data of 244 female employees and 492 male employees was chosen. Results and findings:The results of the Women as Managers Scale indicated that gender, education, marital status, the preference for female or male sport managers, and the type of organization significantly affected gender role stereotypes and attitudes toward women's career advancement. In addition, the under-representation of women can be partly explained by dominant meanings, which are framed in the sport and sport experience given to a sport manager. Implications: In line with role congruity theory, management in Turkish sport organizations is stereotyped as a masculine domain requiring agentic characteristics and sport experience is more strongly attributed to men. As a result, employees have a general preference for male sport managers and male employees in particular have negative attitudes toward female managers.

This research aims to explore the gender–power relations and gendered experiences of the players in a women’s football team in Turkey. An ethnographic method and a feminist perspective were used to allow a deeper understanding of their experiences. Based on participant observation and interviews conducted with 14 players, three coaches, and one staff member, the data were analyzed via thematic analysis. The identified themes are (a) institutionalized gender discrimination and (b) compulsory femininity: being ladylike. The findings indicate that unequal gender relations in the club, influenced by institutionalized gender discrimination, determine the position of the women’s team within the club. Accordingly, compulsory femininity is continuously generated in the field. Consequently, the women’s football team remained at the periphery (and finally outside) of the men’s club.

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Although a growing body of evidence emphasizes the benefits of physical activity and exercise participation, diverse cultural, social and religious factors prevent girls and women from participating in physical activity and exercise. Recently, women-only gyms have become an important factor in promoting women’s participation in exercise in nonwestern countries, such as Turkey. This study examines the factors that affect the experiences of women who participate in exercise in a women-only gym, in Turkey, by applying self-determination theory (SDT) with a gender perspective. Data were collected through in-depth semistructured interviews with seventeen women and three women instructors and analyzed with thematic analysis. Identified themes are a) regulation of daily life: time of one’s own, b) structured exercise, and c) comfort of being in women-only environments. Findings show that women-only gym satisfies the three basic needs identified by SDT, and reproduce the relationship between exercise and femininity for women. This means that satisfaction of three needs, autonomy, competence, and relatedness, involves gendered meanings for women who exercise in women-only gyms.