A sad sight...

I've noticed this, in a few different ways.

From the age of about 12 or so, there is quite a lot of unspecified pressure on girls not to have any active hobbies or interests at all. DD is a rhythmic gymnast, the most feminine of the sports probably, and the coaches have often noted that there is a huge dropoff in attendance after the first year of secondary school, even if the girls concerned were very good. Apparently it is particularly true in karting, which is why there are so few female racing drivers. I can't put my finger on what the pressure actually is, but it exists, and I think boys are often part of it. Media promotion of passive appearance-based activities to this age group is probably a major factor.

I've also noticed adult women doing the whole spectating thing, sometimes after having given up that sport themselves. What strikes me is how much they complain about it, and when it is put to them to join in, or do something else, this is met with indignation. DH climbs, and unless he's going somewhere really far-out we can make a weekend of, I don't bother going. A couple of the other partners do and they whinge about it constantly. I don't understand.

my DH was attracted to me initially because i was really really into martial arts. he's not at all but he cycles and he just appreciated that i had 'a thing' that i cared about that was physical and active.

yes, it is sad... i remember as a teenager the boys mucking around on skateboards and the girls just chatting and sometimes playing on swings in the park.

BUT.. things do seem to be changing (slowly).. i do a lot of mountain biking and i've noticed a LOT of girls stick with it from kids to teenagers and young adults.. i think cause it's so social and family-friendly. i've seen some bloody amazing girls at the jump park (14/15/16yr olds) and that's traditionally the most 'male' part of cycling.

Interesting discussion. Years ago, in the early days of our relationship, I deliberately avoided watching DH play cricket every weekend. I found it totally boring, although I was very happy for him to take part. Instead, I went out with my friends and did my own thing. Later on, he told me that one of the things that attracted him was the very fact that I was so independent and didn't need to hang around him all of the time! He had had a gf in the past who irritated him enormously in that she hung around all of the time when he was playing sport and didn't seem to have a life of her own.

This was 25 to 30 years ago. Have things got so much worse then?

Thinking about it, dp has actually watched me having a riding lesson in the past!

I will be telling my boys not to expect, or even suggest that any future girlfriends tag along to watch them do any sporting type things.

I dislike this type of thing too. Luckily, I don't ever recall doing it as a teenager. Before we had the children, I used to go and watch dp playing in his band a lot but I like to think it was because I liked the music. He plays a lot of squash and I never go to see him play that; it's soooooo boring!

Sadly, I don't do anything myself that anyone would want or feel they had to come and watch me doing so I think it's true that, firstly, boys/men do more of that type of activity and, secondly, they expect their girlfriends to come and watch them. I recently took up running in an attempt to become fitter (although I haven't been able to go recently because ds2 has been in hospital for 3 weeks). It has crossed my mind to enter a race in the future and I would hope do and the boys would come and watch me.

It really does make me despair.

OH does a lot of physical/ outdoor team sport things. . . and is in the TA so with lots of things he does he tends to encourage new joiners/ younger members to join in. So there?s always new people coming in

I go to watch if he asks me, if it is important to him i.e.: big charity event, friend?s last appearance etc.
I go then because he has asked he doesn?t assume and that?s what partners do support each other. Sometime it means me standing in the cold sometimes it?s him going to films/concerts/shows that he gets nothing out of.

Having attended an event recently one of the other girlfriends took it upon herself to tell me I was being very silly. . .

Didn?t I realise that OH was very attractive and I was being foolish not keeping an eye on him at these things, and besides a ?good? girlfriend would ?make? an effort.

Because I don?t go to lot of these things a lot of the new joiners don?t realise quite how long I?ve been around (17 years +).

I did point out that (a) I had better things to do than stand freezing in mud passively watching OH, when he really wasn?t bothered too much if I was there or not, like studying, reading, MN-ing.

And (b) that it wouldn?t be much of a relationship if I needed to police him, that he was an adult and if he as an adult wanted to become involved with someone else there wouldn?t be a lot I could do. (A quick look at the relationship boards on here will quickly show that if someone wants to cheat, very little will stop them)

I fricking got tutted at. . .and as she walked off commented that I?d soon learn

I mean really if a group of adult women think this, what hope is there for their daughters and sons.

Girls being brought up to stand around and Ohh and Ahh at the menfolk and thinking that they need to police ?their? men and it?s their fault if they cheat they weren?t hanging off them at every minute?????

Boys thinking that their every move should be fawned over. . .

It really worries me.

Unfortunately it extends into all things....

A while ago my friends and I went to see a fantastic exhibition on a female dominated craft at the V&A. It was so interesting, full of social history, and there were hundreds of spectators. Female spectators that is. I counted no more than two men among them.

Yet women will go to exhibitions on scientific inventions, tanks, war technology, etc, and admire the work that men do.

Geena Davis's theory is that it starts early with the lack of female protagonists in mainstream movies which teaches kids that boys are worth watching/admiring but girls are not. Except of course when they're hot.

"I cycled,fished and did tombstoning with boys, knocked myself out once when I came off my bike. It was all fine until my boobs started to develop and then they asked me to take off my top so they could have a look. It was a turning point and lots of boys have irritated me since."

We've all been there too

disclaimer: have only read OP so far.

i got quite annoyed with myself recently based on the same sort of thing. i travelled by plane to spend the weekend with a new man i had been seeing. saturday was spent leaving our hotel at 12 noon going to the local football field, waiting for all the players to turn up, watching him and his team mates set up the nets, wait while they all got changed, had team talk etc, watched the match alongside the other wives and girlfriends and a few small children, once again waited while they all got changed and then went to their local, again with all the other wives, girlfriends and dcs following behind the men and waiting outside in the beer garden for the men to get us our drinks because although the rules had been changed to allow women into the bar, "it just felt wrong going in" (not my words). needless to say, i haven't been back to see him again. anyway, this got me thinking about how many times i had tagged along with what my ex had wanted to do and socialised with his friends and their girlfriends when he would never have entertained the idea of joining me and my friends for lunch on a saturday.

i have vowed never to let myself go down that unbalanced road again. i just need to find myself a hobby that encourages spectators.

Anyone see the World Cup cycling over the weekend (BBC2)? Now there were women "doing something". And no, they weren't being watched because of the streamlined cycle suits - the blokes were equally tightly streamlined.

I stand by what I said about I'd rather see girls "doing something" and risk an injury than be passive. Both my daughters have had injuries (I was also a visitor to A and E on occasions as a kid) but at least we didn't turn into the sort of helpless types who can't lift anything heavy or stand around waiting for a big strong man to change our wheel when we have a puncture

thedog your post TheDogTheDogHesAtItAgain Mon 20-Feb-12 16:44:56 took me right back!

I have a feeling that "everyone knows" that boys are going to be out there doing dangerous things and some of them suffering the consequences, and it's just part of the landscape (ladscape?) whereas if there's talk of girls doing the same, people worry about it.

And as for spectator sports, it does seem to be true that when women do them, there tends to be a element of display. Women running in tiny shorts and bare midriffs. Beach volleyball in bikinis. This insane discussion of women boxers in little skirts. Maybe it's based on an assumption that men would be doing the thing so much better that there has to be an extra reason to make the women worth watching.

Haha, I used to watch boys playing football when I was 13.

As I had nothing better to do.

Too old to play with them, too young to know how to be "girly" around them, we just stood and stared.

Am now into sports myself so it all turned out o.k.

........and I should know better, a very nice Highland hospital stiched me up nicely after coming off my mountain bike a year last April. I have minimal scarring!!

Nah, it just seemed a mad sentence after just watching DS1 wincing when he stood up a few minutes ago and after two years it aint getting any better. Bit sensitive why anyone would want their kid to feel like that.

I dont think it is true that girls just stand back and watch sports tbh.

Go to Gisbourn Forest, Whinlater, Grizedale and you will see women mountain biking with the lads. Go to Lee Quary and again you will see women with full body armour on doing jumps.

My caving club has a very high % of females,certainly active ones that turn out for trips.
Same with archery.

Go to a kick boxing club. There are more and more women going through their grades and becoming black belts.

Sure women do sometimes spectate. The headmistress at the school my son goes to is a huge footie fan and has a season ticket. I spectate in a rather niche sport.

When I was 14 or 15 I was not interested in sport at all. I would have been more than happy hanging out at the skate park with the crowd with the stereo on ( oops, I did) Didn't make me sad. I was not interested in boarding but wanted to be around my peers and in with the crowd - and bloody good it was.

There is a group of women that I work with that are part of a netball team and they are in their twenties and have carried on being in teams since their school days.
I think women in sport is alive and well tbh.

Id rather my girls break their arm trying things than never discover whether or not they actually enjoy stuff.

I bloody wouldn't - two years on and the lad is in constant pain with his elbow, still having appointments,scars all over his elbow and on his stomach where he landed that haven't faded, a fit lad but can't do press ups or lean forward on his arms because it hurts too much. You would rather that for your girls for the sake of a sport.
Fuckin' bonkers statement.

I think the messages start very early, perhaps more so now than even 20 years ago. Boys are supposed to do stuff, be active, take risks, lead the way. Girls are supposed to be passive, think of others' needs first, tend to their appearance, not to be too uppity of full of themselves.

This idea is reinforced by everything from toys, games, stories and clothing targeting the respective genders, social traditions, family expectations, the media, etc. It's a brave girl that bucks the trend and does things that aren't considered "right" for girls, and they can expect to get alot of flak for it. It's also a brave boy that bucks the trend and does things that aren't considered "right" for girls, and they, too, can expect to get alot of flak for it. If you step too far outside the norm, you can expect not to be popular, perhaps not even be accepted, possibly bullied and not even necessarily supported by trusted adults around you.

I remember it was somewhat like that even when I was a kid in the 70's, but I think now the messages about what is "girl" and what is "boy" are even more pervasive, with the genders even more demarcated than ever before. It's depressing because when you pigeon hole children because of their sex (or class, ethnicity, disability, whatever,) their aspirations and potential are constricted. That's crap for all of us, crap for society.

I don't think it's fair to blame individual girls or boys for not bucking the trend, or insist that there was something inherently "wrong" with the girls in this scenario because they weren't pushing in and being like the boys (or blaming the boys for not being more inclusive and trying to encourage the girls to get involved.)