To think they should separate girls and boys on sports day

[EmergencyHaribo]

I wasn't sure if I should post this in feminism but I sort of wanted everyones opinions. I've NC.

DS (6) came home from his sports day today and was really excited that he'd won an event and mentioned some of his friends (all boys) who had also won events. We celebrated all of their achievements then I asked if any of his girl friends had won anything. He said it was only boys who had won events and that it was because the girls weren't strong enough.

I was horrified at this as I've never brought him up to think anything like this and challenged him. He said that that's what the girls were saying amongst themselves after the events were finished.

This made me so sad. I hate to think that girls feel this way about themselves. I know some people believe that 6 year olds are physically the same despite their sex and that it is down to socialisation; boys being encouraged to be physical and girls being encouraged into less physical pursuits, but I sort of feel this is irrelevant at this stage, because now they are seeing evidence that 'boys are stronger'.

AIBU to think that it makes sense to separate them by sex for the events so there was a boy winner and girl winner for each event? And each could be celebrated for their strength?

The biggest issue is that girls are so strongly socialised to be less physical that they are affected before the physical differences should be manifesting.

This is so true

Our boys and girls are in seperate groups so say boys bean bag throw, girls bean bag throw and so on...

Football is mixed until Year 7 here. Some of the girls totally outperform the boys although yes there is less of them.

I think I they should have mixed team sports instead. That's what I remembered from primary school.

Mixed teams .

My six year old came home from sports day and said she came last in everything. That's fine she had fun. But when we saw the photos she was racing against boys. She's one of the youngest and smallest in the year anyway, so she really didn't stand a chance.

When I was in a village primary school (in the 70s) our year groups were so small (about 8-10 in each!) that we all competed in year groups in each race, boys and girls together. As I recall, most races were won by girls. (Speaking as the undefeated egg and spoon champion for four years in a row, consistently second in the sack race, and female).

Have things really changed so much in terms of physical capability that sexual differences are now apparent in such small children? Or has society changed (gone backwards) and is it now less acceptable for girls to get messy, sweaty, dirty, and therefore they don’t go at it with such gusto? Certainly none of us were obsessed with pink, frills, fucking unicorns and glitter - we played on go karts, made bows and arrows, biked, played Lego, all with boys and girls together. Until I was about 11, my clothes and my brother’s were pretty much indistinguishable, apart from the couple of dresses I owned.

@Souther

I think I they should have mixed team sports instead. That's what I remembered from primary school.

Mixed teams .

That makes the most sense

@eurochick
Do you think a boy who was the smallest and youngest would have stood a better chance at six though?

My primary school never segregated sports day. There was one boy who usually win everything but there otherwise wasn't an obvious gulf between boys and girls.

Our school separates boys and girls. Even at that age they are not physically the same so it makes absolute sense.

Dds primary was mixed sports. I have to say, I didn’t really see much of a difference until y5 or 6. Actually in reception and y1 the girls often left the boys standing! Even in y6 my dds could give the boys a run for their money.

Only in secondary did they get split by sex. Though when they did do some sports together dd1 was still faster than all but the very fastest boys. So I don’t really see the problem 🤷‍♀️

There are negligible, if any, differences between boys and girls at that age. In fact at primary school girls age 10/11 will often be stronger than the boys if they are equally sporty due to phyically maturing quicker.*

It's for social reasons that none of the girls beat the boys in the school. At my reception age son's football, rugby and athletics clubs theres only 1 girl in each class (maybe 2 in the athletics). Yet at his dance class he's one of 2 boys while the rest are girls. Which classes prepare him better for sports day? The ones that are dominated by boys.
Yeah I think there's a lot of truth to this. Even ignoring outside activities, throughout primary school most of the boys played sport every break and lunchtime. The girls skipped sometimes but for the most part just socialized.

My kids primary separate boys from girls from year 2 onwards, so about 6/7ish.
I read a study last year that showed boys can start to show an advantage from the age of 6, possibly the first burst of testosterone even if in small amounts.

I wonder if there is a difference if you control for participation in relevant after school sports, lunchtime activities and so on. Are female footballers under ten slower than male footballers under ten?

Our school separates them. The fact that only boys won shows the girls need to have a separate competition. Putting them together could put girls off as it may seem impossible for them to win.

@kowari

In lower primary I'd say there would be much more likely to be a difference between a September and August child, than a girl and a boy the same age.

Exactly this. An age difference of the best part of a year is far more significant in children under 8 or so.

I have taught children around that age for years. Generally the girls tend to be taller, stronger and moreover more sensible and able to listen to instruction.
The most sporty able child in my current class is a girl who is also the smallest.

Trying to remember.

They definitely separated them towards the end of primary can't remember further back!

I did think it was puberty that made the difference. Of course when that happens varies massively!

Then I read that the advantages strength etc for boys starts before puberty. Not sure how long etc.

I think it depends on a load of things generally eg

How big the school
Whether there is a culture among the boys of I don't want to do X with girls/ throw like a girl etc
Whether for mixed sex clubs etc the take-up for girls is noticeably lower
If there's a choice of activities do they generally divide by sex (if some are considered 'for girls' etc)

I mean I don't know really.

I'm fine with mixing if there's an eye to fairness / stereotypes and that sort of thing.

It reminds me of the way at some schools at break there is a group of boys taking a lot of space booting a ball around and the others are round the edges occasionally leaping out of the way of a ball!

I remember (this may be off the point!) me and my brother used to sometimes fight physically (I mean we were close and spent all our time together it wasn't awful or anything).

He is 2 years younger and we were fairly evenly matched- I think we started that when we were maybe 7 and 9. Not when we were toddlers!

Anyway when he started puberty we had a row and he shoved me or similar and I went flying.

We were both kind of taken aback and surprised.

And we didn't physically fight again after that- the strength differential was suddenly so big and I think we both knew that he could really hurt me without much effort.

He think he was dunno. 10 maybe.

I think mixed or not depends on the things I said plus the nature of what's being done.

I love the way out primary do sports day - colour coded teams of mixed ages so that there’s an emphasis on team work, cooperation and having fun. The older kids encourage the younger ones and pass on strategy and tips and the oldest class help organise and run the day.

The juniors have a series of fun games and the older half of the school have a leaderboard. It’s not really about the winners and losers but very much focused on promoting sport and exercise as fun and healthy.

There are no miserable faces on sports day - it’s one of the most anticipated days in the calendar.

AIBU to think that it makes sense to separate them by sex for the events so there was a boy winner and girl winner for each event? And each could be celebrated for their strength?

Totally utterly NOT unreasonable.

Of course they should have separate events and girls should be encouraged to be as strong and physically active as they can be.

From my experience with out of school sports for my nearly 6 year old, girls if this age who do sport are MUCH better than most boys at anything involving skill, concentration and listening. Her multi sports group has 2 girls, both have won star of the week ("objective" competition eg most balls in basket/targets hit rather than coach opinion) twice against 8 boys. Beginner tennis is similar, DD has been teased by the boys for wanting to concentrate and play while they want to chat about Roblox and Minecraft. She's happier in the 6-8s rather than the 4-6 class. Didn't get a direct comparison at skiing - her "young" beginner class happened to be all girls and they got on really well.

However body type will be a bit of an issue for strength - my DS is a much broader build than his sister. He carries slightly more fat but at 2 his shoulders and chest are marginally bigger than hers are at 5.

Annoyingly they fit the stereotypical attitudes to risk. He's pretty gung ho and relatively unlikely to learn caution from a bump. She's generally unsure until she "gets" something then is really confident, but does tend to learn from painful mistakes... This started with learning to walk and has very much continued with running, jumping and biking!

@tealasoldastime

You are being very unreasonable and perpetuating gender stereotypes - before kids hit puberty the their muscles and strength/speed will be determined by their body shape and height and how active they are, which will have nothing to do with their sex. A tall girl could easily beat a short boy of the same age. You should perhaps first tell your son that girls can be just as fast as boys and if you could suggest to the school that they look at ensuring that the abilities of children are taken into account when organising sports day so kids are not led to believe that boys will always win.

I'm talking about sex not gender.

And I do tell my son that. But it doesn't matter what I tell him. He saw with his own eyes today boys winning everything and being thought of as the strongest ones where as if they had separated by sex he might have come away with the idea that 'Ava and Harry won that race. They are the strongest ones in our class'

The trouble is, I think smaller or younger or less athletic children of either sex can be left behind fairly early on. School sports need to be more inclusive to encourage all children to be physically active.

We have totally mixed races for key stage 1. Have done for several years now.
It's never just the boys who win here, in any of the races.
I don't think we breed unusually speedy girls here in Sheffield. But we genuinely have a complete mix of girls and boys winning the races and events.
Infact, this year's year 2 races were won more by girls than boys. A lot of our girls this year seem very tall, taller than the boys and I suspect that helps them especially with the sprint type races.

I didn't think the athletic abilities between girls and boys kicked in until early puberty time.

My granddaughters primary school had mixed races and she won nearly every one she was in because she's really fit and good at anything to do with sport. It surely depends on the child at that age.