Gender inequality in handball: Direct, institutional and epistemic mechanisms of discrimination: A narrative review

Gender inequality in handball operates through three interconnected mechanisms that shape the development, performance, and health of female athletes. Direct discrimination appears in unequal salaries, visibility, and media investment, reflecting long-standing norms that privilege men's sport. Institutional discrimination is embedded in resource allocation, as women's teams receive limited access to high-quality training facilities, medical support, and experienced coaching staff, restricting both performance optimization and career sustainability. Epistemic discrimination, the systematic exclusion of female athletes from sports science research, results in training models, injury-prevention protocols, and recovery practices derived primarily from male physiology. Consequently, female handball players train and recover under conditions misaligned with their biological profiles, increasing injury risk and slowing long-term development. Recognizing that these forms of discrimination reinforce one another, the paper argues that achieving equality in handball requires coordinated structural change across financial, organizational, and scientific domains.