This article is about the recent history and development of the 'Women's In
ternational Sports Movement', characterised as a global cultural flow which
links women from different countries across the world in a common cause. I
ts growth and apparent success is treated critically, raising questions abo
ut local-global connections and strategies, which in turn lead to questions
about empowerment. Pivotal to the various groups and organisations which c
ompose the international women's sports movement is the idea that they shou
ld cater to a global community of women, but it is argued that its original
middle-class, elitist character and white, Western, educational and cultur
al hegemonic stance, has not changed fundamentally over the years. Empirica
l evidence shows that women from the developed world are in dominant positi
ons throughout the movement and that they have been joined by 'neo-colonial
elites' from the developing world, facilitating complex hegemonic relation
s based on Western consciousness and acculturation. Although in some ways t
he women's international sports movement has provided a channel of empowerm
ent for women working for female sport in countries with a wide geographic
spread, and it claims to embody a sensitivity to difference and an understa
nding of the lives and problems of women in the developing world, it has st
rong links with state apparatuses and stands the risk of remaining subject
to overt or subtle forms of neo-colonial domination. The final argument is
that if the women's international sports movement is going to grow in stren
gth, it needs to transform the existing sets of power relations and to invo
lve women from under-privileged backgrounds in a process of reconstruction.
Published by Elsevier Science Ltd.