Minister for Sport's opinion about women's sports.. gah

Art, I wouldn't watch two sports games in a row. I have a babysitter to relieve.

Isn't that the support act mentality too - if you buy a ticket to see an artist, you might pop in and see the support or you might stay at the bar, I'm not sure that a BOGOF approach is the best way to encourage an audience. Maybe offer an option to stay on for both for £10 and sell single tickets for £20?

Linking participation in sport to watching sport is a red herring; plenty of people who go to theatres and cinemas have no interest in amateur dramatics. Both my sons enjoy playing football for a local team every week but have no interest in watching football live. I have friends who go skiing regularly but have never watched it on TV. I swim twice a week but would be bored to death at the thought of watching other people swim up and down.

I know very little about American sport but I would imagine that if lots of women participate in football there, then they would stand a good chance of having a successful, professional, national team as there will be a large pool of enthusiastic, talented, experienced women to choose from. So, if you are particularly bothered about people watching other people play sport professionally, it would seem sensible to encourage as large a section of the population as possible to play sport in the first place. Thus the primary issue remains encouragement to participate. Some people might see that as Pavlovian, but I would merely call it logic.

Apologies for typos, not wearing my reading glasses!

Artetas actually I think the massive crowds, and in particular the professionalization of sport, has been behind the declining participation by men and boys. big crowd events, especially regular w=ones get people watching sport, not involved in it. To encourage participation you need to invest in local, friendly facilities, not elite events.

In the US sport participation by girls and women rocketed when title IX came in. Title IX required educational facilities receiving federal money to not discriminate in the money spent on sport. Women and girls suddenly got better facilities and access to college sports scholarships. I'm sure that's not the only think that has encouraged participation, but it's been a massive part of it. Why soccer I don't know.

Womens/girls soccer is massive in the USA. Professional teams, world cup and Olympic winners. In amongst their cheerleading culture, does anyone know why soccer has thrived over there? It's bigger than the men's game, at least per-Beckham. And I have no doubt that having a brilliant international team must encourage young girls to participate.

How the hell can someone be 'Minister for Sports and Equalities' and have such stupid ideas about sport and equality?

Maybe there are some women/girls who would like more 'feminine' sports but it strikes me that the sort of activities you see a lot of female participation in are ones like skiing, hill walking, watersports.... in which you have to wear functional clothes and no-one really gives a shit about appearance. They're also not the sort of things offered in school PE lessons.

Anyway, my DD and I look totally radiant after a day outside doing those types of things!

All our own fault - and there we have some people's mentality in a nutshell. Every time you mention some action that could be taken by women to help with an overall aim, some people cry this. It's Pavlovian.

Why do so many boys play so many sports? Do you think that massive crowds at stadiums might have something - anything - to do with it? A football match that can attract 100,000 fans has an attraction to sponsors, press, TV, radio etc. And it's all publicity. And that brings revenue. And that means money for clubs and associations. And that means better facilities at grass-roots level. My home town football clubs - boys and girls teams, and mixed below a certain age gets a share of revenue that is ultimately filtered down from the Premiership and FA Cup. But also, girls watching the involvement of live sport will get them hooked. It happens. My mate's daughter plays for the local club youth team. She is very, very good. And she goes to every home game - with her dad. She is hooked, and it's fantastic.

Do you really think that women should not be encouraged to attend and support?

What has women being encouraged to take up sport got to do with people watching women play sport? This thread is about women playing/getting involved in sport not whether or not people want to watch women play sport on the telly.

But thanks for pointing out that it is all our own fault that people don't, by the way.

Someone on here went to a men's England rugby game at Twickenham last year. Straight afterwards, there was the women's international (same two nations). So, 80,000 spectators were already packed into the ground. Lots and lots of women spectators, as it is with international games. A free spectacle, the best players the women's game has to offer. And what happened? Virtually everyone pissed off home/to the pub.

There is a part for everyone to play in promoting women's sport - TV, radio, papers. But there is also a huge live audience that seemingly aren't interested. And unless people are prepared to get into the grounds, these sports will struggle for airtime, press column inches and ultimately revenue. And some of that responsibility comes down to women, who want their sport's profile raising, actually going to the matches and meetings.

Anyone see the Six Nations at the weekend? I was staying with friends in the south of Ireland and RTE (the national broadcaster) showed the women's England-Ireland game in full, probably because the Irish team won the grand slam last year so the profile of women's rugby has been raised a little here. It was a good match.
Some of the Irish men's team had stayed around to watch (well, came up the tunnel in their suits and lurked for a bit, then disappeared and reappeared....probably taking time out from entertaining the sponsors). I thought that was quite cool.

Have been reading more about the "pop up pool"!

It seems that it goes to one location, so women and girls can "have a go" and then moves to a different location.

Which is all well and good, but does not address the fact that for the BME women identified in the article, the problem was not that they wouldn't "have a go" but that they didn't feel comfortable going to the main pool because of the cafe situation.

I am not convinced that people not "having a go" is an issue.

For swimming I would guess that some of these things are the reason women are not doing it regularly.

The cafe problem as mentioned
Transport costs
Pool costs (don't know about Bury but here the pools are really expensive)
Having preschool age children and no-where to put them while going for a swim
I'm sure there are more!

Also, and incidentally, the Bury pop up pool is funded by Bury Council in partnership with National Lottery and Sport England. I am not sure she can claim it as "her initiative" although if she has been pushing it and providing funds historically am happy to take that back.

Rebecca Adlington opened the mobile pool and had this to say:

“There are lots of reasons why women and girls don’t do more physical activity, such as body image and cultural reasons, and we need to find ways of breaking these barriers down.”

Maybe she should be our minister for sport instead, eh.

Oh yes I thought that idea sounded bizarre. Surely they could achieve a similar objective by doing something with the windows in the cafe / having some women only time or something, and not spending £2.3 million quid on, of all things, a "re-locatable swimming pool" (WTAF?) which can only fit 10 women in it at a time.

One of the weirdest things I've ever heard.

And I was going to mention (but didn't) that this action that she has taken had nothing to do with women wanting to be feminine and radiant, and everything to do with not wanting to be on display to men. Which brings us back to many of the points I just made about female participation and how a lot of it starts young and is tied into societal expectations about girls and, yes, the fact that they are supposed to be radiant and feminine is what is preventing them in many cases from participating in the first place.

From the original article;

^But her biggest scheme is happening in Bury, where £2.3 million has been invested by Sports England. “We’re looking at this particular location and trying to understand about local woman, their lifestyles, and what motivates them to getting into sport,” explains Ms Grant.
So far she has learnt that local women were reluctant to use the public swimming pool because they felt uncomfortable about men being able to see them from the café. It was a particular issue for black, minority and ethnic (BME) women, and has resulted in a re-locatable swimming pool being created, which holds up to 10 women and can be moved to different locations.^

Hmm. 2.3 million pounds - weak and ill-though-out? As sports minister, she has to offer practical solutions. She is doing so.

Men can (and do) do all of the activities she mentions.

Just as women can (and do) do all of the activities traditionally reserved for men.

Segregating sports into his n hers, especially with reference to "femininity", looking "radiant" and picking out cheerleading (which no matter what anyone says, at a professional level in the US does mean immaculately groomed beautiful women in tiny clothes cheering to support the men playing the main featured sport), does not help anyone.

She needs to be asking why women don't participate. Is it because they never got involved at school? Why was that? Is it because lots of teenaged girls try to adhere to grooming regimes which are incompatible with joining in sports? Why is that? Is it because girls get a lot of stick about their changing bodies and they feel vulnerable in PE? If so, what can be done? What about periods in all of this? Many girls feel utterly rough when they start menstruating and swimming becomes problematical etc. What about primary school - I have read that problems with girls and sport start very young & in the playground. How can this be tackled?

There are a load of possible reasons, which should be fully explored. Her response is ill thought out and weak.

She used a clumsy phrase. But she is targeting a shortfall of 1.8 million women. Not all women, but those who currently don't participate. She is offering an alternative that may appeal to them. She is presenting an additional set of activities that men don't have (I assume). For some people to pile all this negativity at her door because she is actually trying to do something, rather than just criticise, is unfair.

What if it worked? What if the best part of 2 million women took her up, and did rounders, or zumba, or whatever? What if a government actually enabled women to participate around their other commitments, by listening and providing the infrastructure? Once I had picked myself up off the floor, I would be rather impressed.

I agree, and that's why it would have been nice if the minister for sport could have thought more deeply about how to change that and attract women into those male default sports, rather than just suggest the answer is to attract women into the sports where they could either still look "feminine" or that are historically linked to supporting/titillating men in a patriarchal society.

And, with very few exceptions, the sports you listed above, when played by women, are specifically known as 'women's' X.

Football, or women's football.
Rugby, or women's rugby.
Boxing, or women's boxing.
etc etc..

There isn't just 'football' - it is specifically defined as Women's Football. You don't need to say Men's football, it's an assumption of ownership and normality that patriarchally, falls to men.

Actually, a lot of the sports you mentioned do have historical links with a patriarchal society - as in women have not been allowed to do them in the past.

It still goes on now.

But if you are going to dismiss everything that girls and women do because it has historical links with a patriarchal society, there ain't going to be much left that they can do.

Well, except netball, football, hockey, lacrosse, rugby, swimming, horse-riding, boxing, swimming, athletics, tennis, table tennis, badminton, squash, weight-lifting, golf, cycling, basketball, diving, canoeing, skiing, cricket.......................

I'm not into sport but those are the first few examples of sport that popped into my head which women can do and which do not have a historical link with a supporting/titillating role in a patriarchal society.

It is a problematic area. Looks should not matter. But they do - even in the men's arena, although not to the same extent. David Beckham had a far bigger profile than his talent should have allowed. So did Anna Kournikova. Both played on their looks, and were massively rewarded.

I don't think that piling into the sports minister is helpful. This isn't another Inverdale moment. Having a woman in such a position has got to be a great thing. For one, it means that the people (men) in government see a need for such a role and are trying to do something about the gender imbalance. And she obviously sees that for some of them, the (false) image sport has of being dominated by great, hulking, muscly brutes needs to be overcome.

It's easy to pick on someone for a clumsy or inappropriate phrase, but I doubt she meant it to be negatively interpreted. And who hasn't said something, only to later think, 'Bugger, I could have phrased that better.' But if you are going to dismiss everything that girls and women do because it has historical links with a patriarchal society, there ain't going to be much left that they can do.

"why should anyone care how you look when doing sport." But people do care how women look when they do sport. Advertisers, marketing, media, men on sports chat sites, John Inverdale to name but a few.

You can't take that out of the equation when you are looking at why women don't enter sport. No people shouldn't care but they do and that is what needs to be tackled. The objectification of women.

The minister for sport and equality should never be caught of guarf when asked a question about women in sport. Really.

It seems she was responding to a question about how would you address some girls / women's concerns that you can't do sport and look feminine.

The better answer would have been to ask why looking feminine was deemed to be important to those people.

Not to say "well, look at these sports and look how feminine they look"

Maybe she was caught off guard?

I disagree that the issue with her statement was that though.

Her statement was offensive because she said women could participate in sport and still look feminine which is ridiculous, because a) what is feminine and b) why should anyone care how you look when doing sport.

Agreeing that cheerleading (or anything else) is objectifying, actually supports her argument.