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?

My daughter beat all the boys at her school in 100m, 200m and long jump until Year 9.

Competing against the other girls simply didn't give enough challenge, but she was completely energised and focussed when competing against the boys.

Please point this out to the school, especially as a parent of boys and point out all of the issues that go along with it..

If the parents of boys who are not affected by this, do not speak, it reduces the pool of people who speak up. Then there are the parents of girls who are not interested in sport and the parents of those awesome girls who overcome all of the odds that are stacked against them and still manage to out perform the boys, leaving a small pool of parents who are prepared to stand up and say, this is not equitable.

It doesn't matter that the girls are better at reading, dancing or art because there are no whole school events where everyone is expected to perform publicly and for one person to be declared the winner and for 100% of those prizes to be given to either sex, it simply never happens.

And it doesn't matter that theoretically boys do not have an advantage over girls at this age:

• it is not a level playing field, boys are not expected to spend huge proportions of their lives in thin soled shoes, skirts and white socks which are not conducive to running around in,

- they are not socialised to be kind, to let others join in, to let others win which is no conducive to winning - and they have many more opportunities to play sport outside of school, girls have to fight to be included in team sports at the same age (statistically... anecdotes about someone's niece or boundary breaking daughter do not invalidate the reality of the terrain our children live in).

So shout about this, everyone, shout.... by age 14, girls drop out of sport at twice the rate of boys. www.womenssportsfoundation.org/do-you-know-the-factors-influencing-girls-participation-in-sports/

If girls learn at a young age that there is no point in trying, they will never believe that they can win. It is not enough for them to look at the field and think, I did OK, when it's a girls only race in secondary school, I might have a chance. It is the same as looking at the make up of the Boards of the FT100 companies, if we don't see women there, we don't believe that women could be there. We can only change the landscape by changing the landscape.

The reality of what has been described is that no girls won, not that the girls who were oldest, fastest, best, managed to beat the boys but that no girls won.

It's interesting that a few of you have noted that earlier born children do better in sports. In this case most of the boys who won, including my son, are September/October born.

We are not an athletic family by any means and none of the school clubs have been running since March 2020. This is however an outdoorsy, physical forest type school where a lot of their education is outside.

I hear that a lot of you are saying that this isn't the case in your school or that your daughter could outperform boys etc and I am so pleased about this, however I can't help but feel sad that 30 little girls (and presumably hundreds of others as other posters have commented saying similar) have gone home seeing boys win everything and possibly believing that they aren't capable of achieving anything athletic or involving strength.

The summer born effect has been the subject of much analysis and it is very very true.

HOWEVER... it affects part of the male sex class, not 100% of it.

This 'lesser status' of female status affects the share of power, money and voice that females all over the world have and until that is more equally balanced, we should rage against it, every time we see it.

@ChateauMargaux thank you so much. This is exactly how I feel, you've just said it much more passionately and coherently than I could have done.

'It doesn't matter that the girls are better at reading, dancing or art because there are no whole school events where everyone is expected to perform publicly and for one person to be declared the winner and for 100% of those prizes to be given to either sex, it simply never happens. ...
The reality of what has been described is that no girls won, not that the girls who were oldest, fastest, best, managed to beat the boys but that no girls won.'

This is the crux of it.

I should point out that I wasn't an athletic child and was never interested in sports days or athletics at all. I have no real memories of sports days and no bitterness at being beaten by boys or anything. I just feel unhappy that little girls are receiving the message that this isn't an event for them.

My twins are very sporty. They won loads of the events between them up to about age 10. At age 11 to 12 the boys were catching up but they still won things.

Now 13 and going into 2nd year of high school and it's separated as it should be because the boys would smash everything.
Pre puberty, I have no issues. Sporty girls do fine. Perhaps the real problem is that fewer girls are sporty or aspire to be sporty, which is a real shame.

When my dc were at infants it was generally done boy/girl races. Although in one year there was a girl whose friends were all boys and she asked to run with her friends so they let her. She won.

And, having coached a sport at infant level, you tend to find the girls outperform the boys at that age-until you do a competition. The boys on average are far more competitive, so tend to not do that well in practice, but win the competitions. So they may well have expected it to go the other way.

Our primary school year group has a girls race (younger group), a girls race (older group) and then boys races again split into older/younger. No one is for ed to race against people theybhave no chance of beating.

Complain to school that’s cruel to the girls. Say next year the girls mums will let their kids have the day off school to boycott sports day if issue isn’t fixed.

Our primary school separates boys and girls at sports day. I assumed all primary schools did this!

@RedHelenB

My 6 year olds beat the boys at sports days. Only separated once they were at secondary school. Yabu.

That's it. Many 6yr old girls are bigger, faster and stronger than their male counterparts. It's sad to think of little children being segregated by gender.

I missed out.. 'it is not because the girls don't run fast enough, are not sporty enough, don't have the will to win.. these are all learned behaviours that are not changed by telling the girls to look at the boys and see how it is done, they are changed by showing them girls who win, by allowing them to perform in an arena where they are respected, where they have the right equipment, the right coaching and the space to learn without being tripped up, mocked for listening or bullied for being a sporty girl.

The exceptional girls who can over come all these barriers are exceptional. We also have to support every other girl so she can be her best too.

And unless we start to bridge these gaps between boys and girls at this age we don't stand a hope in hell of tackling the pay gap in sport. In 2018, the club fees (not sponsorship or other marketing deals) paid to the higher paid male footballer was equal to the total amount paid to 1,623 top female players from the US, UK, Brazil, France, Germany and Sweden.

Up until the age of about 10 or 11 most timed sports have faster qualifying times for girls than boys. Girls develop quicker than boys so say for example swimming up to that age if it was mixed more girls would win. It’s not until 12/ 13 that boys become faster than girls.

I would complain to the school. Mixed for something like the relay is fine but not races.

I'm taking girls coming away from a highly anticipated, celebrated school event feeling shit about themselves and like they 'aren't as strong as boys' very seriously actually.

Yes, that’s an issue. Why is your solution a sex segregated event? They’re little kids, who needs to know/judge/find out that Ava and Harry are the fastest in the class? Who cares? What’s so great about being “fast”? It’s not like at six it’s going to reflect years of training or practice or a particular skill. It’s not the Olympics.

I agree there’s a problem, I just think the solution ought to be a team based, mixed sex sports day where kids participate in being active and have fun without all this “who’s strongest, who’s fastest” stuff. Nobody ever expects all children to perform mental maths in front of a bunch of parents before declaring Harry and Ava are best at maths and ranking the kids. No one ever seems to think kids should come last in handwriting. Why make such a song and dance about some children who happen to be physically blessed with early birthdays, no disabilities and a genetic propensity to speed/height? That’s what I meant about taking it seriously- it’s not the Olympics.

Research shows that long term it is much better for a talented girl to participate in mixed sports than in single sex sports until at least 11, both in terms of her sporting ability and her confidence. It is also better for boys to play mixed sports in terms of the respect and attitudes they have for/towards girls/women. I did a huge project on this at work and it was super interesting. There is no valid physical justification for separating sex before secondary school at all. So ideally sports should be mixed.

It is also well evidenced that month of birth has a huge impact on sporting achievement. In countries like England with September term dates, statistically you are far more likely to play sport for your country if born September or October.

My niece (September birthday) still beats every boy in all running and strength based sports at 10.

What can stop the above being true for girls is how they are raised (not playing sports, less physical etc) and the attitude of others (boys refusing to play with girls, parents (of both boys and girls) not supporting it, schools not supporting properly integrated sports).

I wonder (with no evidence!) if the issue at your son’s school is not the mixed sports day, but the attitude they have to PE, playtime etc the rest of the year?

'There is no valid physical justification for separating sex before secondary school at all. So ideally sports should be mixed.'

Anecdata! There was one boy at DDs school who went through puberty very young. By year 6 his voice had completely broken, he was I dunno. Very tall! He looked about 14.

Girls also go through puberty earlier as well of course. A few girls in year 6 again were really developed.

On that point both my kids started periods before year 6. are there any considerations around that? I don't know tbh.

I suspect that going off sports with white uniforms might be not uncommon (I don't know though!).

@NiceGerbil - in all of the medical and wider research we had carried out, these weren’t physically issues that meant the kids should be segregated. By which I suppose I mean the occasionally huge boy wasn’t enough to outweigh the benefits to both sexes overall of still playing together. For example we studied numbers of injuries in a contact sport in mixed and single sex versions of each, and there were no differences (and statistically no more likely for a girl to be injured than a boy in the mixed version).

What things like periods etc meant was that separate changing facilities should be provided (although the research also showed that in sports outside of school most girls came in kit and went home in kit - but of course this may be because of the facilities, so it’s a bit of a circular point).

But I realise of course it’s a very complex issue, and it’s easy to say the stuff above and ignore the impact of societal expectations and pressure on performance.

DD is an athletic type. Shes at secondary so races are segregated. They do however give her the choice to run the boys races which she does.
That seems to work well.

That's really interesting shamoo.

Upthread I said it should depend on a number of factors not one size fits all.

At DD primary school they got changed in the classroom together. Which I think is illegal. I suspect none of the kids liked it. They were different sides of the room and supposed to face wall.

I would have kicked up a fuss but the school was tiny and there wasn't another option so that's how it was.

As a parent of an athletic girl who is more than able to compete with boys and win:
Op you don’t even have a daughter. Would you please leave alone those “little girls” who you didn’t even hear saying anything first hand and concentrate on educating your little boy instead? I don’t want my daughter segregated from boys at age 6, and neither do most parents on this thread. In fact dd plays in a mixed football team and swims in competitively in a mixed squad (you’d be please to learn that girls are faster swimmers than boys up until puberty generally speaking, and even after that they aren’t separated in training).

Behavioral studies have shown that participating in mixed team sports is conductive to career success later in life. Segregation at this age and honestly at any but very elite level is doing more harm than good in my opinion.

My sons primary school they have single sex races - short and long distance, mixed relay, mixed ball throw and mix egg/spoon.

I think the issue may be more to do with how sports day is run at your school.

In our school, the whole class competes, divided into 4 mixed groups. It's hard to know who is really sporty in these events as they are team events. The only races are a relay with 2 girls/ 2 boys. The sporty kids get plenty of chance to shine in competitive events vs other schools in cross country, athletics, netball, football etc.

What I mean is I don't think it's helpful for school to be using sports day as individual competition.

At my school only the races are separated by sex , the other events are mixed. Same at DD's school.