European University Sports Association (EUSA) through its EUSA Institute runs ENACT – Empowered Nation project on gender equality, supported by the Erasmus+ Programme of the European Union. This month, our coordinator of the project Ms Anett Fodor reflects on the topic from a philosophical and personal point of view.

We grow up in different cultures, each culture has its own picture about gender equality and create its social norms according to it, but to be honest social standards can sometimes lead a mess in our heads.



I personally started to be interested in gender equality because I realized more I read about it, more I know about our society and culture, my place in our society, relations between men and women and about myself. I enjoyed this journey very much, discovering that not everything is correct or right as I saw it since my childhood. There are many things which we often take for granted and accept as usual, but when we read about different versions we find out there is not only one way to proceed and act, maybe not ours is the best one…then here comes the chaos.

I doubt, question, agree and disagree about some issues of gender equality, but I care, read, think, criticize, rethink, try to make a change or impact and ask others, discuss, think again and read and try and so it goes. And on the way I and we, all who care, might make mistakes too.



I often feel that the articles about gender equality are one-sided. We name the obstacles and plenty of statistics about how women are held back, what they have to suffer through, how vulnerable are they and we forget about the other sex. However, they also do have their obstacles and their vulnerable points, situations and I guess some of them feel about gender mainstreaming that it goes against them, or without them, which creates negligible interest for the topic from their side. For mutual interests this should be changed, so we, who cares for equality, here to support the other side too and wants this discussion that it will be about both sexes, about real equality.

We search for partnering, for better understanding and mutual respect which can be increased through mixed sports, as so we are able to build a more cooperative society. University sport naturally does care about the sport itself, but it is also about to create community, sharing cultures and building better society, thus supports gender equality with several projects. ENACT is one of them and it aims to foster equality in sport leadership in the dispersion between both gender while it also empowers volunteers and current athletes through non-formal education to become leaders of tomorrow’s sport sector.



The article is written by Anett Fodor, former EVS volunteer in EUSA and currently the project coordinator of the ENACT project. She is a graduate of the University of Physical Education in Budapest.

If you would like to raise your voice in this subject or know more about this project, please follow our website https://enact.eusa.eu and feel free to contact us anytime.

Are you a student with an opinion? We are looking for new contributors for our student column every month. Feel free to contact stc@eusa.eu to offer a piece or propose a topic.