Gender-Based Violence in Girls’ Sports

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

This is a useful and interesting contribution to the literature. However, at present it lacks structure, and as a result, it is difficult to determine if the authors are continually drawing on the gender-based violence literature, or if some of the literature drawn is discussing any violence in sport. As an example, section 5.3 provides a useful background for understanding the potential for gender-based violence in sport, yet is kept until the second half of the manuscript. In other places throughout the manuscript, it is difficult to understand WHO is being described (boys and girls or just girls) and how the behaviour being described is being conceptualised as gender-based violence. Specific comments are below.

Lines 56-59: The definition explicitly refers to physical force, yet we know that violence can take many non-physical forms. It also feels somewhat contradictory given that there is almost an immediate shift to discussing psychological violence.

Lines 121-125: This appears a description of medical neglect rather than physical neglect, which is likely to be highly prevalent in sport. 

I find it interesting that neglect is captured as a gender-based violence when, arguably, the high prevalence of traumatic brain injury in contact sports (which are dominated be male athletes) is also a form of medical neglect. I think it is important to justify why you theorise this is a form of gender-based violence amongst athletes.

Also, there appears to be no consideration of financial abuse or coercion? Is this intentional?

Table 1: Which sports were included in these prevalence surveys? Were male and female athletes questioned? How was it determined that this was gender-based violence?

Is Table 2 focused on gender-based violence? If so, how is it that men have increased risk of violence experience? This table requires more explanation.

Section 4.1.2 - this isn't clearly defined as gender-based violence. What discriminates the types of behaviours being described as gender-based violence? Is the perpetrator predominantly male? Does a socially endorsed power imbalance exist between the genders? The lack of description means that it is possible the authors are describing behaviours that are used by girls to intimidate other girls (as an example), or by boys to intimidate other boys.

Author Response

Please see attachment 

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Dear Authors,

Thank you for sharing your work. However, I find that while it reads as a good literature review there is a poor basis for analysis and recommendations. The information shared within the manuscript is readily available in all the sources, and the contribution of your manuscript to new scholarship is unclear.

May I please offer this suggestion? Perhaps you may want to consider using this manuscript as the background to either: (a) conduct an empirical research where primary data is collected from athletes, or (b) conduct a review research with a more structured analytical framework?

Typo: Page 8 line 331. "femininity" and not "femeneity". Thank you.

I wish you the best. Thank you. 

Author Response

Please see attached.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

1. I am not clear about how the authors selected the articles for their review studies. Especially how they include the articles on their study and based on which criteria. Need clarification on it.

 

2. I am not clear about the significance of this study compared with existing studies. Please clarify it.

3. I am observing that the authors presented the information in Table 1 and Table 2 in a tabular format. I am suggesting that, try to show them in a tree diagram format or sequentially present all information concerning time and countries.

 

 

4. Need to be a clearer definition of Gender-Based Violence in Girls’ Sports.

 

5. what kind of challenges you faced to conduct this review study? need clarification on it.

Author Response

Please see attached

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

Dear Authors,

Thank you for the revision to your submitted manuscript. The revisions address the concerns and feedback of the reviewers in good detail. May I please make the following suggestions for minor corrections? Thank you.

1. In Part 3, please consider changing the title to "Effects of Gender-based Psychological Violence". Thank you.

2. In Part 3, please state clearly in the first paragraph that the gender-based violence focused on is gender-based psychological violence. Thank you.

3. In Section 4.1 please explain (one or two argumentative statements) as to how the power and authority of the coaches contribute to gender-based psychological violence. The authors have explained how the coaches wield their power, but please explicitly state how the power/authority of the coaches and gender-based psychological violence are connected. 

4. Could the authors please note the limitations/strengths/weaknesses of the manuscript? This would give more credibility to their assertions in the recommendations section.

Author Response

Dear Authors,

Thank you for the revision to your submitted manuscript. The revisions address the concerns and feedback of the reviewers in good detail. May I please make the following suggestions for minor corrections? Thank you.

We wanted to thank you for the attention to this paper, we have appreciated your comments and suggestions.

1. In Part 3, please consider changing the title to "Effects of Gender-based Psychological Violence". Thank you.

This has been updated - please see page 3, lines 121-122

2. In Part 3, please state clearly in the first paragraph that the gender-based violence focused on is gender-based psychological violence. Thank you.

We have clarified we are referring to psychological violence on line 122.

3. In Section 4.1 please explain (one or two argumentative statements) as to how the power and authority of the coaches contribute to gender-based psychological violence. The authors have explained how the coaches wield their power, but please explicitly state how the power/authority of the coaches and gender-based psychological violence are connected. 

We have drawn out these conclusions on lines 229-233

4. Could the authors please note the limitations/strengths/weaknesses of the manuscript? This would give more credibility to their assertions in the recommendations section

Thank you for this suggestion, we have added a strengths and limitations section in lines 443 to 450.

Reviewer 3 Report

I have observed that the author has updated a lot of their article. You can consider this article to be published in your journal.

Author Response

Thank you for your attention to this review