Women in Sport’s 40 years mark both progress and need to end inequality

Jill Scott shows her elation at the Lionesses’ Euro 2022 victory, which led to a sea change in attitudes towards women’s football. Photograph: Tom Jenkins/The Guardian

In what year were women allowed to compete in an Olympic marathon for the first time? The answer, 1984, may not only come as quite a shock but may help explain why a gamechanging charity was formed that spring.

As Women in Sport marks its 40th birthday, its chief executive, Stephanie Hilborne, is eager to celebrate the real progress over the past four decades while also emphasising why anyone assuming that sporting inequality belongs to the past is, sadly, very much mistaken.