Play equipment is a feminist issue

most basketball courts are designed - like ours here - with one or two small entrance ways. The boys hang around there and deter the girls. Design a more open, free flowing space

Well that is a bit of a subjective comment based on what you have seen, but not necessarily representative of basketball courts in general.

You could make entrances larger however a basketball court needs to be an enclosed space for safety reasons. Getting hit unawares by a basketball can cause concussion, plus it's a pain in the arse to keep retrieving a basketball out of play.

It's a very good point - these facilities tend to be very male dominated with girls very much taking on a spectator role if they're present at all. I was a teenage girl when the skateboarding craze took off in earnest in the UK (late 90s) and I was extremely intimidated about having a go and getting laughed at by boys i was trying to impress. It was very male orientated and i doubt it's changed much in twenty years.

At the single sex school I work at, the girls happily occupy the entire space - and yes, they do sit and chat a lot whilst eating packed lunches - but they also have free access to indoor spaces throughout the year, not just in rain or cold and, what's more, they have the choice of ten before school sports clubs and ten after school sports clubs a week, so I think they deserve a bit of a rest when they're quite likely doing up to 2 hours extra sport a day - including things like Rugby, Lacrosse, Trampolining, Gymnastics, Netball, Gym, Badminton, etc - as well as their timetabled PE.

Yes, but if you can redesign an area so that both sexes use it, then why not do that?

Girls can play basketball - you don't need a penis to do it believe it or not.

Far more junior age participation going on in basketball for both sexes than ten years' ago and participation from less wealthy backgrounds is higher in basketball than other sports. Basketball England is focusing on recruiting more women's coaches to the sport and 1 in 4 regular players are now female.

The proportion of male to female usage of a outdoor basketball court may look at lot different in ten years' time than it does now

Oh shit.

This perspective had never actually occurred to me before, and I've just realised it is an issue in my ward.

In my defence though, I've been very vocal over the last two years about ensuring small grants are awarded to an equal ratio of female and male activities (and that has been a battle in itself). I got pissed off that so much money was supporting mostly male football, cricket and bowling clubs.

And yes, outside of toddler and small child facilities (which we do well on), our teen provision is ... a skate park, a football field and a basketball ring. And yes, teen boys tend to use the skate park while the teen girls hang out watching them on the benches. And we have a problem with drug taking and drinking. However, during the day, quite a lot of smaller children of both sexes use the skate park with scooters and tricycles.

But still ... it's shit. And it is even more shit that I didn't realise it.

I can definitely use the PSED to back up my arguments. That would put the shit up the rest of them.

I do wonder whether part of the problem is that girls are largely socialised to take up physical activities that are indoors. When I think about the girls that I know, it's all about dancing, swimming, gymnastics or martial arts, whereas with the boys, it is all football, rugby, bikes, skateboards and cricket.

There's also a dogs issue with some of our local parks. Some residents seem to be under the impression the park is primarily for exercising their dogs off lead, which does cause an issue with young children using the fields and teen girls. Teen boys don't seem to be so bothered about it.

Lots to think about here.

There’s nothing where we live so at least everyone’s treated equally .

Well they can go to the park and the reasons why they may not do have been comprehensively addressed in this thread.

If boys are utilising the basketball courts then that is surely a positive in terms of antisocial behaviour and tackling the obesity crisis in the future. I took both my children to courts to learn to ride their bikes and there are any number of uses for tarmac areas in suitable locations.

Aside from that I agree osteoporosis is a big concern. I am a big fan of girls sports but also high impact exercise classes (e.g. combat/attack) aimed at girls that teach skills that (importantly) can be maintained after leaving school. If I was a LA I would be funding these in schools. Aerobics has died a bit of a death but I've done aerobics/step classes with women in their 60s who are incredibly fit still and the high impact is great for their bones.

One other concern for girls sports/exercise is the lack of awareness of women's injuries. I worked with a physio who donated her time to lecture women's netball teams on core strengthening, she said there were a very high number of ACL injuries in the sport linked to insufficient core strength and weak hamstrings. Men's sport teams are addressing these needs but women's sport needs to catch up.

Rambling now but more girls doing PE at GCSE would also be a positive step.

What happens in the playgrounds at all girls schools? Do the girls play football or other active activities or do they mostly hang about and chat?

There were no single sex schools where I grew up so I've no idea.

There's no sexism in trying to establish why girls self select themselves away from the fun activities they secretly enjoy.

Obviously boys grow bigger and they enjoy their newfound strength and greater speed, rightly so.

We also need to make sure the girls don't lose confidence in their physical ability too.

But in terms of funding, our local council doesn't fund much of that kind of thing at all (is only a town council). And they provide no facilities in the parks which are used by older girls more than boys. So I would argue that they are not being equal.

Not all public facilities, even of a given type, need to be used equally by all types of people. There is even room for funding things for groups that are seen as needing extra services of some kind.

It would be worth looking at getting some figures on who is using what, and not just at one level of government. If girls are over-represented in school programs, as an example, it doesn't necessarily indicate a problem if boys are more represented in other places, or vie versa, even if it is separate funding streams.

Teen boys in a lot of places are considered a high risk group, compared to teen girls, and it can be more difficult to find activities for boys as well. Where I live there are a fair number of girl only activities but few for boys, and certain mixed ones are often dominated by girls because of developmental differences in early childhood. And there are some activities like dance that typically attract more girls.

I'd be very hesitant to be levelling charges of inequality and sexism without a good sense of the overall numbers, so that is the kind of information I'd be looking for, maybe with a view to identifying any groups that are being missed out in terms of services across all levels of government. I daresay if they aren't collecting stats for sex they aren't looking at a lot of things.

I think It is interesting once children are off to the nearby park away from parental supervision. Usually from 7 or 8 years old maybe, ie junior age group. They might take their bikes, they might walk, then what?

If the climbing frames and swings are suitable for their age group they will generally have fun.
Do they take a ball with them like the boys do?
I think the play equipment is lacking in this particular age group of girls.

The size of climbing frames, swings and slides have been reduced for the safety of toddlers, rightly so, but...

I would think novel ideas for gymnastic style equipment would appeal to this age group, boys as well. Girls love to balance and swing.

I can confirm that "one goal park" is fucking useless for dd. ds and ex place football. the installation of a few swings would keep her busy. They tend to play at a park on the outskirts of the city as there is football space and climbing space next to each other, instead of being able to walk to one goal park in the inner city.

That coombe abbey one is outside the city if I remember on a visit with relatives, needs driving to and charges for parking, thus restricting use by those on limited income.

communityplanningaberdeen.org.uk/participation-involvement/

Your community should have a page like this. If not, it will have some or all of the groups listed.

As well as writing to the council as an individual, it's worth getting involved in these groups.

This discussion is so important.

Our local parks: one has an outdoor gym which does get used by teenage girls. It's quite close to a caravan park so any tomfoolery is nipped in the bud.

One is grass with a bandstand. Girls like talking in the bandstand but it's often full of broken glass.

One is a lovely park with climbing frames and swings.
It's beside a big car park that's dead at night, since the council started charging for parking a year ago.
In the past year it's become quite a nasty place to be.
There's no community warden or police presence.

Once this is admitted, the Equality Duty problem is a slam dunk, I think.

No, not unless you can show there aren't also things for girls. There is nothing wrong with a particular facility having a narrow target demographic. It's more common than not really in public facilities.

I think a pp who pointed out that girls are more involved in organised activities is probably right on the mark. Many school and other activities now are female dominated to some extent, music activities, art, dance, a lot of school related clubs and activities. In itself that will tend to mean fewer girls available to use the kinds of facilities you are thinking of.

Analysis of this kind of statistic really has two levels and you need both. One will be the lower level analysis, who is using these sporting or park facilities. But that will never tell you the real story, unless you know what all the other kids are doing with their time. You have to integrate the information about public parks into the larger picture of activities for youth.

There’s no good reason for basketball to be a boys sport or netball girls. Unfortunately there is a lack of funding and support for girls team sports.

This is only kind of true. It's true that boys and girls could play the same sports. The reason for having slightly different sports associated with boys vs girls are often pretty arbitrary. But the problem is with offering all the same sports to gild tends to be that the traditionally "girls" sports, which are really just as good in many cases, tend to lose out.

A good example where I live is hockey vs ringette. It used to be that hockey was boys, ringette was girls. Ringette is a perfectly good sport, some people prefer it, and there were some good competitive girls leagues where girls were really supported to be active.

However, as there was more and more push to include girls in hockey, ringette has really lost out. Many teams can't get enough girls and some are now mixed sex in order to get enough kids, which isn't horrible but it means that it becomes difficult to have even teams. In the mean time, girls and women's hockey isn't identical to mens, it has no checking and tends to be a different game as a result - a lot like ringette, in fact.

Is this better, or worse, or neutral, I don't know. But it does represent the loss of what was an active female led, female focused organisation in order to have some sort of surface level of equivalence to men.

I would definitely be up for campaigning on this. Maybe a letter template on MN for people to send to their council. ?An FOI to ask for the findings of the last assessment on council activity equipment in public areas which assesses sex/gender impact of spending. Or something. Thinking out loud a bit so totally happy to be corrected with better ideas.

Fascinating thread. Thank you for starting.
Nothing to add but I will be reading all the links.