Teenage girls and public space/facilities : an update

Well done OP! I remember your thread and I think I posed on it.

If anyone is going to build a sodding skate park, it needs to be positioned so a medium sized group of teens (which 9/10 is mostly male with a couple of current girlfriends awkwardly hanging out on the fringes) don't have a vantage point over the rest of the area.

I've really started thinking about how people, i.e. women, react to leisure layouts, instead of just accepting current designs as how the world is. How much skating is ever done on them? Mostly they seem to be used for drunken loitering. It becomes a no-go area for lone women and girls, and if you were with another girl, then it was homophobia time.

One particular one I encountered was at the edge of a flat community green space, and it didn't matter how far away you were, the boys at the skate park saw you and shouted stuff.

The nicest park I ever used had plenty of artificial hillocks in between equipment sections. Could be an idea for the dratted skate parks. Also would provide sound insulation for the rare occasion someone actually does any skateboarding.

Good luck with it, sounds fab.

I do think it is somewhat area-specific.
Our local skatepark has a huge mix of boys and girls- yes there are more boys!- but DD (16) skates there with friends and it's very welcoming.
That's more with the skateboarders though, the scooterers are all chavvy 13 year old boys who she says can be intimidating.

This is brilliant! Thanks so much for doing this! The original MN thread is seared into my brain, and I spent close to an hour one day trying to find it so I could link to it in a consultation for a new park that is going to be created in my area. Talk had started turning away from green spaces and community meeting places to "Maybe we could build a skate park??? Wouldn't that be just the greatest?" so I made sure to put forward an alternative perspective.

I will definitely make use of the resources on your website if further public consultations on my local park are held.

Thanks again!

Well done, OP. Carry on with the great work.

Well done OP.

@makespaceforgirls you are spot on about what women do for physical activity. I HATED PE at school and did dare to mention that (and pointed out to a room of sporty women many of whom were PE teachers) that they were often the main disincentive to girls playing sport. DId not go down well.

WHen DD1 got to year 10 PE at school was split into the keen girls who did GCSE/sportsleaders, those who preferred dance and the rest were lumped into "core PE" - basically all the netball/hockey etc they had hated for years. I suggested that instead offering a choice of aerobics (wouldn't it be nice to be the newbie in a class and have learnt what a "grapevine" is at school), jogging, swimming/lifeguarding, body weight/HIIT/circuits. But no that would have required effort whereas standing around in a puffa coat blowing a whistle and gossiping with the other PE teacher was much easier.

Couldn't agree more and this is so useful. My town recently completed on a skatepark. As fantastic as it is, it's 99-100% males using it. Coupled with the lack of seating provision and absolutely no lighting it's a no-go area for our girls. What is annoying is that it is being lauded as an amazing provision for the young people of our town, defaulting of course to the "keeping the lads entertained".

I might use your article to harass my local councillors for action.

makespaceforgirls, your comment about competitive sport reminded me of another bugbear of mine, which is the (over) emphasis given to competitive sport in the secondary school curriculum. At DC's state secondary, PE is dominated by the usual candidates of rugby, football, hockey and netball, divided along the expected sex lines. By secondary school, the kids who are good at these sports are typically already playing them outside of schools, and get limited benefit from the watered down coaching of PE lessons. The kids who aren't good, unsurprisingly enough, suffer through the sessions getting very little from them other than yet more reinforcement of the message that they are crap at sport.

Given the general acceptance that the UK is in the middle of a health and obesity crisis I find this absolutely infuriating. Schools are uniquely placed to introduce children and young people to positive experiences of heath and wellbeing, yet they squander it time and again, placing more importance on their position in the inter-school sports tables than the health of the pupils who most need some help.

Of course, the impacts boys as well as girls, although my guess is that girls are particularly ill-served by a bog-standard school PE lesson.

I totally agree about the different approaches to sports between the sexes - BIL was a youth sports coach with our local council and he was used to coaching youth football teams and it was a huge change for him to teach "fun" classes. He didn't consider them real sport for a while because there was nothing to win, nobody to beat.

This is brilliant.

I've actually read your research rather than skimming the webpage now I've had time. Really hope you can make some impact with your campaign.

Persistent you're absolutely right about school spaces.
I work in a school and worked really hard to divide up the spaces and timetabled girls football etc.
It worked really well for a while, until certain staff members decided that it was worth sacrificing the girls' spaces and times so that the group of alpha older boys could 'stay out of trouble' (this, despite the fact that 99% of fighting and swearing originated in football games)
It ended up with the boys claiming it was unfair and the playground went back to boys dominating and girls on the fringe because I was the only member of staff who cared to enforce it.
Occasionally the boys would 'let' the girls play. Their choice of words, 'let' 'permission' was illuminating.

I remember your original thread and I think it’s a great initiative! Looking forward to hearing more.

Great research report and initiative!

I wonder what are the effects on girls' participation when other groups are also encouraged to use the spaces. Perhaps having a lot of teenage boys around is less intimidating if there are also more pensioners, parents with children etc. This can also substitute (to some extent) a lack of paid supervision of the spaces which the report mentions is generally too costly. I mention this as I spent some time in a mainland Chinese city some years back and I was quite impressed to see how many people - of all ages and both sexes - gathered in the local square in the evenings where they held different dance groups (I think the phenomenon is known in English as 'square dancing'). Obviously it is a very different cultural context, but perhaps there would be positive spillovers for girls' participation if a regular contingent of bowls-playing grannies and grandads can be rallied, for example

I also remember your original thread and really glad to hear your brilliant update. Keep us posted!

makespaceforgirls, I have another question (you have really piqued my interest! It is a great project).

How do you think this and other similar projects can address the seeming contraction between not stereotyping things as "boys' activities" or "girls' activities", whilst also acknowledging that in reality, there does seem to be a difference that broadly breaks down over sex lines?

Notwithstanding the specific issues around safety etc, I can just imagine a smug councillor, when challenged about lack of provision for girls, triumphantly responding that I am being terribly sexist in my views and in fact girls can be just as good at skateboarding and bmx-ing as boys, don't you know?

I can well understand why teenage girls self exclude from exercise in parks. There are specific parks I don't run in, as a grown woman, because of fear (justified - it's already happened!) of groups of teenage boys.

I definitely think female only classes and groups would be a huge encouragement. Like in the old days, when we used to have female swimming nights. Obviously these things tend to be targets now so easier said than done.

All that said, my local skate and bmx park is under 18s only and staffed brilliantly by youngish people who all the kids look up to. They strive to be inclusive and don't put up with poor behaviour from anyone. Whilst attendance isn't 50/50, I certainly see plenty of girls enjoying the facility.