Play equipment is a feminist issue

Agree Goosefoot
Especially true when you think of the comfy stretchy clothes and trainers they wear. Great for running around.

Far less clothing restrictions nowadays, yet not allowed go to the park unsupervised.

Not saying this isn't the case in some respects but I have often thought the opposite, that children and especially teenagers are infantalised these days.

Weirdly I also agree with this.

It's so strange to me that in certain things we infantalize children, so for example my 9 year old son taking the bus would be looked at as inappropriate. And teens are even worse, we don't let them do all kinds of things they are perfectly capable of.

On the other hand, we push them into wearing clothes that look like adult clothes, pop culture, dancing in shows to look like sexy op starts.

Or another strange example, when I look at some films made originally for kids, something like Goonies, or Adventures in Babysitting, I don't think they'd be made for kids now. I've known parents to complain about E.T. And yet at the same time I see kids watching shows that are way too adult, really meat for adults, with significant content that is conceptually not right and I think must also be stressful.

It's a very strange combination but I think somehow each side must all feed off the other.

I think it's massively linked to the increased societal pressure on girls to look nice and behave 'gently' for want of a better word. Everything is increasingly about looks

This is very likely a huge part of the problem, agreed.

Haven't read the whole thread but a thought struck me Is one of the reasons so much is spent on facilities aimed more at boys than girls because boys are more likely to be anti social - loitering in large intimidating groups, vandalism, graffitti, letting off bloody fireworks so need distraction from this? Certainly where I live you hear about much more bad behaviour from boy teens than girls. I have both

I think maybe this has followed a general cultural tendency to rush kids into being "older" in terms of behaviours

Not saying this isn't the case in some respects but I have often thought the opposite, that children and especially teenagers are infantalised these days.

I got berated on another thread recently for saying groups of 6 or 7 year olds don't need adults holding their hand while out guising. It was bizarre to me, in my very working class town this is still the norm, as it was when I was growing up. They're only going round their local neighbourhood, the same place they play out in summer and on Halloween there are numerous adults looking out their windows, keeping an eye. I've never known any problems.

Teenagers today don't seem to have the freedom we did. We used to go into the city, or wander off up the hills, we were drinking in pubs at 16, missing the last train home from gigs, having impromptu raves up the forest. All before mobile phones (we did usually have a phonecard between so could at least let our parents know if we were spending the night in Dunkin Donuts). Leaving home for a grotty one bed flat at 17 or 18 was normal and if you lived at home you paid 'dig' money. We made our mistakes and we learned from them.

So here we are again.
We can assume that women and girls are unlikely to be consulted, and the default is for boys.

I think it's massively linked to the increased societal pressure on girls to look nice and behave 'gently' for want of a better word. Everything is increasingly about looks and this will be fuelling a lot of the 'self selection' as activities tend to ruin your make up

The focus on nails and jewellery and clothes etc for my DDs 5th birthday presents made me want to cry.

Plus they are shown this ideal version of 'woman' with fake hair, fake nails, glitter, make up etc so equate that shit with being 'grown up'

They don't want to look sweaty / ugly particularly in front of boys so no, the spontaneous games of girls football aren't there as there's an expectation from society that girls behave a certain way and enjoy certain activities.

So the rigidly enforced stereotypes mean that this is what girls do as they don't want to stand out.

Still thinking about the 7-11 year olds spontaneous play.
I would like to see something like a small amphitheatre with grassy banks maybe with climbing wall grabs to clamber up to the top where there are logs to jump on or sit. Kids could skateboard down one side.

An aside
Netball can be played by boys too.

What did strike me as very different with my own children was how young the girls stopped playing in the playground in favour of 'hanging around'. We played skipping games, elastics, ball games against the walls etc right up to the end of primary school, only becoming too 'cool' for such things when we went to high school. My daughter and her friends had stopped by primary four, aged around 8. There was no reason for this in terms of space. They just considered themselves too old for such things, which I always found sad.

I think maybe this has followed a general cultural tendency to rush kids into being "older" in terms of behaviours.

I can't remember the last time I saw kids skip though. That was big for girls and it's very healthy but it seems to have gone out of style.

No one is collecting this data for parks, at least as far as I can tell - and I've been talking to some of the big lobby groups in this area.

You could probably make a strong argument for doing this. It might make a nice thesis project for someone studying recreation of something similar, if they could get funding for a project.

I would also argue that the decline in activity levels in teenage girls is something that would require, at very least, equality in funding. Gothenburg did a study which showed that a) they were mainly funding sport for boys, and if they redirected some of the money to girls sport, not even half, it would pay for itself in terms of less osteoporosis in later life. That's in the Caroline Criado Perez book.

That rather assumes that redirecting the funding resulted in more girls playing sports or being active. But if you don't even know what those girls are doing instead, I don't think you can assume that. You don't really even know they aren't doing other kinds of activity away from parks in your area.

Also, it's not like that round here. No mainly girls sport activity, at least not that receives funding. And I think, in terms of what you describe, a lot of the girls activities are funded by parents. Perhaps that's because they can't go to the park...

It's not just sports though, girls do all kinds of other activities that compete for their time. Many teens begin to reduce their activities because they begin to concentrate on a few that they prefer, and each requires more time to continue to participate.

Girls might be reducing their sporting activity because the parks and rec facilities aren't designed with them in mind, but you don't really know that. It could also be because they are more drawn to different kinds of activities, they are more involved in school, or they prefer more organised pass-times. If there are more girl-specific activities in your community that would draw more girls away.
It could also be that the reasons are related to sport but not in a way you can address directly - in my experience one reason some girls give up sports is related to struggles with menstruation.

If someone was advocating to get more funding directed to girls activities in parks, these are the things I'd want them to be able to tell me - I'd want to know how they intended to spend their funding in a way that would be more effective in big picture terms.

*IMO, Pinkification is to blame. And yes, that's a serious observation.

Look at how we (as in society) 'sort' and categorize our kids from birth. Aisles for girls: pastel pinks and lilacs resembling an explosion in a sugared almond factory. Boys' aisles: bright primary colours. As recently as the 70s and 80s, the latter category were the generic colours for children. This [marketing] division has happened recently.*

Couldn't agree more. Something has happened that has wimpified girls. My childhood/teens was the 1950s and none of my friends or I would have put up with boys taking over spaces. We fought our corner where necessary - took enormous risks on tipper swings (illegally pushing them over the bars), played football, hung upside down from any horizontal bar that was available and if you fell off and the boys laughed so what?

Strange that in a decade when there were serious restrictions on girls' opportunities jobwise, sportwise etc. we were actually much more free and self-confident than girls seem to be today. We certainly took no shit from the boys.

It is really counter intuitive. I honestly don't understand what has gone wrong.

I was fortunate enough to attend both primary and secondary schools with large grounds and separate football pitches (one blaze at primary, two blaze and two grass at secondary) so there was never a conflict between those who wished to play football, including some girls at both, and those who didn't.

What did strike me as very different with my own children was how young the girls stopped playing in the playground in favour of 'hanging around'. We played skipping games, elastics, ball games against the walls etc right up to the end of primary school, only becoming too 'cool' for such things when we went to high school. My daughter and her friends had stopped by primary four, aged around 8. There was no reason for this in terms of space. They just considered themselves too old for such things, which I always found sad.

I read Invisible Women a while back and was struck by this chapter too because it was something I had never thought about.

Going back to school playgrounds, when I was at both primary and secondary school the girls were actually not allowed to play games at lunchtime. Football, which was pretty much all that was going on, was strictly for boys. I remember my friend and I being hauled off the playground by the playground supervisors, reported to the principal and made to sit indoors once because we had joined in.

Toilets is a massive issue for teen girls - either because there aren’t any or they’re gross or don’t feel safe. Matters less with kids still young enough to pop behind a tree or boys who’ll do that at any age...

I would love to know if there is any research into this sort of thing around rock climbing. 20 years ago it was very heavily male dominated. There are far more indoor walls now, but participation has tipped into over 50% female. Not sure how this has evolved, but it would make an interesting case study.

Girls in our area skateboarding on sloping paths near the council-provided skate park because the boys dominate and occupy it and refuse to let the girls share the space. 😡

I have not artisanparsnips, looks interesting (and Christmas coming too).

The council are starting to put thought into cycling but we still need better infrastructure in terms of separate from major roads cycle lanes. As it happens that could be done relatively easily as the two major routes around both have wide pavements with not very many pedestrians that could be restructured into pavement, cycle lane, road Dutch style routes that cater to all. It would cost but we do at least have the space to play with which a lot of towns don't.

This is maybe a bit off topic, but related. I just thought I'd say that as a girl who had an unpleasant father, I enjoyed having male sports coaches and leaders for games. They allowed me to see a kind of father figure that could interact with kids in a fair and appropriate way whilst also being fun, which was honestly a revelation to me. Just saying that coaches need not be the same sex as the group they are teaching for them to be beneficial if they're doing their job well.

When I was a teen we all used to ride bikes, what has happened?

I have gone back to cycling and this is a subject I have 'opinions' on. I feel that we have forgotten cycling is, primarily, a mode of transport, not a sport. For the longest time I was put off because all the cyclists I saw around me were on racers, clad in lycra, legs pumping, sweat pouring.

I spend a fair amount of time in Holland and was always struck by the difference there. People in ordinary clothes on 'sit up and beg' style bikes just going from A to B. I thought for several years about buying such a bike, but live half way up a steep hill so it didn't seem workable, then electric bikes came along. Very expensive so I hummed and hurred for a bit longer before finally trying one out and deciding to invest. Haven't looked back.

My council is now investing in shared bike schemes for some of the poorer estates and we have a cycling hub locally that offer repairs, and courses to help nervous riders get back into it. Long way to go but there are definitely more going from A to B types around lately.

another observation - I rarely see teen girls riding bikes, DD was happily riding hers until around 11 when she suddenly stopped. She would still come on family bike rides, but never cycle down the road to see a friend, for example.

When I was a teen we all used to ride bikes, what has happened?

The skate parks around here are all ramps and jumps. Maybe there needs to be more space for just skating (like on roller skates rather than just skateboards) so the kids who don't want to do the 'daredevil' stuff can use the skate park - something like a meandering track around the ramps.

The Cowley play area you mention in the report has photos which show entrances no different to any other basketball court and fencing.

It's not about "needing a penis" @ilovetolurk it's about creating a culture in which girls feel welcome and valued too.