Teenage girls and public space/facilities : an update

Facinating thread and wonderful idea. Best of luck makespaceforgirls and I'd be another one interested in your book about the countryside

So many interesting questions raised by this discussion!

I'm also a horse rider, and was ruminating about the way that over the course of the past century, the gendered associations of competitive horse sports in general (outside of racing) have shifted from predominantly masculine to feminine, but also wondering to what extent factors such as the media presence of a sport might have an influence on gendered perception; for example, I'm wondering what relationship there might be between the greater TV presence of Showjumping in previous decades (as a very viewer-friendly sport easily appreciated by non-equestrians) might correlate with a greater prevalence of male riders (even Eventing is heavily female-dominated, which suggests that female risk avoidance isn't exactly the full picture! ;-) ). I'm sure someone has studied this, though!

Another question prompted by earlier posters: why is there so often a core assumption that whatever the (shifting, in the big picture) interests of male youths are, these should be the aspirational interests of female youths? "Girls can skateboard too!": of course, but is there an underlying assumption that skateboarding (being stereotypically a masculine interest) is inherently more worthwhile than gymnastics equipment (being stereotypically feminine)?

Given the inversion of gendered associations that can happen over time, e.g. as mentioned in equestrian sport, perhaps it's wise to keep in mind that fashions do change. I do think that girls as well as boys like doing things that they feel they can be successful at, and I really like some of the psychologically sophisticated design ideas mentioned by previous posters, for subliminally steering the attitude of the users of the various facilities.

@backinthebox as a runner, cyclist and ex-horse rider your post really struck home with me. Women do access the countryside in different ways. I see loads of female horse riders when I’m out on my bike, very few male riders. Unlike cycling which is very male dominated.

OP this is a marvellous initiative. A local councillor approached my women only cycling club to run some sessions for teenage girls in our village park as she was so sick of it being dominated by boys on the skate park to the detriment of the girls.

Wishing you every success .. such a great idea.

@makespaceforgirls This is absolutely brilliant! We have a village playground with a bike track beside it, which is currently being terrorized by a bunch of teenage boys on electric bikes tearing up the surface.

I’ve got a couple of things to say to the OP. Firstly, regarding girls in competitive sport, my husband made a point to me last month. He coaches the local town’s girls cricket team, and was shocked to find out neither of the local secondary schools have a team sport for girls on their summer PE curriculum, while the boys do. Boys move from football and rugby in the winter to cricket in summer, while girls do dance, tennis and athletics. Competitive team sports are beneficial for both sexes, and if one sex is not even offered the opportunity for a whole term at school they have to be motivated to seek it outside of school.

Secondly, I’m very interested in your other interest - “In my other life I am working on a book about writing women back into the countryside.”

I have been chatting with friends a lot about this recently. I’m a horse rider, and many of the rural leisure bodies focus very much on providing routes and networks for cyclists apparently at the expense of horse riders. 75% of cyclists are male, 85% of horse riders are female. Recent surveys by Ordnance Survey, Forestry England and Sustrans have asked what they can do to get more people walking and cycling in the countryside, whilst completely neglecting to even mention horse riders, let alone make provision for them. It’s considered that these omissions are symptomatic of a greater misunderstanding of the way women want to use the countryside. Near where I live there are lots of lovely off-road byways and bridleways, which would be much safer and nicer for running on than the busy main road (which has no footpath) but I see a lot of women choosing to run by the side of the road. When I’ve asked them, they say it’s because they feel the risk of being struck by a car is lower than the risks they take running through the forest, although they are not able to articulate what exactly they think might happen to them in the forest. I don’t know if either of these points are things you’ve come across, but I’d be interested in what you think if you have.

Such an inspiring thread.Please keep us in touch with developments OP.

This is such an inspiring thread thank you

This sounds like a brilliant project. I teach at a girls secondary if you are ever in need of a focus group...

@makespaceforgirls you might also find this interesting - it is looking more generally at the inequalities of access to green space for some elements of the community but I think that they might well be open to taking your points on board.

localtrust.org.uk/big-local/events/towards-resilience-improving-access-to-green-spaces/

I think that you do need to be careful about sightlines. They may allow boys to intimidate verbally but areas that are divided up to avoid this allow places for people to lurk who may well have more nefarious purposes. Girls are usually safer in areas where there are good sightlines throughout and from surrounding housing and streets.

I love the idea of using colours to discourage the macho boys - thinking about it why is it that playgrounds always have wooden forts rather than fairytale castles? I guess painting climbing walls and other equipment with stars and rainbows would discourage the macho boys (or would it encourage them to vandalise with graffiti to claim their territory?).

Wow! Congratulations! I wish you every success.

Colours sounds good. Cheerful not macho. Also, perhaps have two walls, a small distance from each other, out of each other's line of sight?

If boys are genuinely interested in climbing (and they will be! In my favourite park, mixed sex groups, groups of girls and groups of boys played on the climbing wall that was part of a concrete play-fort), the group of boys will naturally gather around one for any muscle macho contest.

Which means they're out of range to intimidate girls off the other one, right?

But how would you get funding for two climbing walls?

Such a fantastic idea.

I'm really keen to get more young girls into climbing as it's one of the few sports where they tend to outperform boys of their age. I was thinking a bouldering wall could be cool but I can immediately see (from my own experience of testosterone-fueled climbing gyms) how it could quickly be dominated by boys.

I think getting the design right will be really key. For example you could create a bouldering wall that's more of a puzzle (e.g. with numbers you have to follow) and paint it in a way that feels colourful and fun (rather than black and yellow extreme sports) to put the boys off from using it as some kind of macho muscle contest.

But all in all I think you're right that it's mainly about the (revolutionary!) act of actually asking girls what they want. Great stuff.

@Sophoclesthefox the problem with competitive sports is that the there is nothing to motivate the unfit/ uncoordinated/ rubbish at sports kids. Some of us will never win no matter how hard we try!
It applies to girls and boys but boys seem to have more alternatives such as playground football.

Really interesting stuff, OP.

I’ve always been into competitive sport, so I have to say I do struggle with the concept that provision for girls needs to necessarily be somehow non competitive. I’m not sure which of the chicken or egg comes first, and if girls end up preferring non competitive stuff for reasons that could be addressed, rather than just accepting it as a given. I don’t know the answer, but it’s an interesting question, for sure. Which we will only get to answer by asking girls, so am fully behind the approach!

This is such a fantastic report. I agree with PPs about how much better spaces are where there isn't essentially an "observation platform".

There's a very small park near us that seems to incorporate lots of different spaces well. At the top of the hill is a toddler play area which is fenced, a little bit further down is a more adventure area which is probably suitable up to early teens, which has fixed picnic benches and bbq spots, and then gym style equipment at the bottom of the hill, with more benches.

There are paths running through and around these spaces and crucially there is planting between them so you can't sit in one spot and observe. It also ticks the boxes of wide entrances and good lighting mentioned in your report, and attracts a pretty even mix of ages of kids of both sees as well as families and couples.

Possible funding might come from here OP

www.tnlcommunityfund.org.uk/

Excellent initiative.

Will walk past my local park later and have a recce.

OP, for the time and effort you're putting into this.

Great work OP!

That's great. I was a teen in the 70s and used to spend a lot of time in local parks, hanging out with friends. In those days there were park wardens, which was a pain when we wanted to use the playground equipment and were chucked out because we were too old, but also meant a certain level of safety.

I'm not sure whether girls could hang out in my local park without coming under the scrutiny of the local young males who use the skate ramp.

posted - not posed :)