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?

IME, girls try to join in, are excluded and made to feel unwelcome by an in-group of sporty boys, and all but the toughest give up.

This term started with most of the class at after school multi sports club (one of very few post pandemic after school clubs). All the girls except two have now left. Why? Well, my dd has had a bat in the face, been told to sit at the side with the other girls because football is for boys, been shoved / elbowed / pushed over multiple times each session and never gets passed to. It’s not much fun, though she loves sports. The TA overseeing it can’t be everywhere at once. So the in-group of sporty boys run every game their way, which is largely about proving their own power through sport.

So next term, that club will be all boys. And people will continue to wonder why girls aren’t as sporty as boys. My dd does girls football, tennis and swimming outside school, at clubs which manage boys behaviour and make sure everyone gets a chance. But not all parents can afford those options (and finding a girls football team locally took a while).

You'd get short shrift if you "didn't turn up" to sports day at our school. How does that even work at primary? School is school, you can't just not go!

Everyone focuses on puberty when they're trying to pretend boys aren't stronger and faster than girls - there are countless statistics proving that this is not the case - boys have an advantage, which is massively increased by puberty - from birth.

Everyone focuses on puberty when they're trying to pretend boys aren't stronger and faster than girls - there are countless statistics proving that this is not the case - boys have an advantage, which is massively increased by puberty - from birth.

Exactly!!!!! Yes some girls will be better than prepubscent boys as the differential is less extreme pre puberty, but the majority of girls will be outperformed by the majority of boys.
The statistics are there.

[quote Moonlaserbearwolf]@EmergencyHaribo I read your OP perfectly well. I’m not having a go at your 6 year old!! It’s a sad state of affairs when girls OR boys who are 6 years old are saying that boys are stronger! It really doesn’t matter who said it first. Your school could have avoided this outcome by sorting the children by ability like many other schools do.[/quote]
Apologies for being rude. I see what you mean. I think separating them for ability would have been better.

It's also about age
We were advised to defer our boy and one of the reasons given (by the nursery staff/teachers) was that as a boy physical strength and height etc is important socially so we wouldn't want him to be the smallest!

The problem is that the socialisation starts before school even starts and the results reflect that as much as actual physical (nature rather than nurture) differences.

Girls are generally leggier for their height (quicker) and obviously don't get wider hips until they start puberty.

My 5 year old has been walking on rough ground since she was 18 months, my 2 year old happily walks a 5k route with no time pressure including a few hills plus detours to leap off rocks...

I expect that both will be competitive at sports day because they have been active since they could walk, including through lockdowns...

My year 5 DD has just had sports day and it was completely mixed. She won the 100 metres and was competing with two boys and one girl. She is quite small as well, second shortest girl in the class and small physically. Her friends two of whi h wear 13 year old clothes and they have only just turned 10, came third and last in most things soni am unsure whether stature is always the important thing. However, the girls didn't do very well in a game where they had to throw a heavy sack of sand, the winner being the longest distance it was thrown.

The thing is you can't use outliers to justify measures for the majority. Because they are outliers.

Girls as a class underperform when set against boys as a class . There's a reason why male have beens or not quite good enoughs are so eager to enter women competitions.

Biology plays a huge part and people might have these arbitrary rules of pre puberty/post puberty or primary/secondary . However it is not the only factor . Opportunities, upbringing, socialisation etc. all play a part and even at (or especially at) an age where you don't think biology is the decisive factor, they are significant enough to make a difference.

However, the girls didn't do very well in a game where they had to throw a heavy sack of sand, the winner being the longest distance it was thrown.

As I recall, throwing is an area where you do see substantial differences between males and females on average, even before puberty. More so than most other areas.

I feel like a lot of people on this thread who are pro boys and girls competing against each other are the ones who are also saying they have athletic girls. So it works for them so they don't think anything is wrong.

And the poster who implored me to 'leave those little girls alone' and wondered why I cared as I don't even have a girl... well, I was a little girl once and can remember instances where I felt like girls weren't as important as boys (a few people have mentioned the girls being pushed to the side of the yard because the boys were dominating by playing football. Honestly, I still hate balls being kicked anywhere me to this day as the memories of being struck in the head with a football are still very strong) would have loved someone (regardless of the sex of their children) to speak up about. I am TTC also so it's possible in future I might have a girl who would naturally go to the same school.

As mentioned before the school is a very physical, outdoorsy one so perhaps it is strange that there were no girl winners as people sending their girls there would have known this beforehand.

Single sex competing was just my first thought really. I am spectacularly unathletic myself it it's really not something that I had ever thought about before. There have been some good reasons mentioned for allowing children to compete together which was interesting to see.

I really just wanted a solution where the girls didn't come away feeling like it was a two tier event and they were firmly in the bottom, which may not happen at all schools but certainly happened at ours on Friday.

It can sometimes be very hard to get schools to see how sexist they are being unfortunately.

@Shamoo... I would love to read your report.

Whatever the biological research showing that there are minimal physiological differences between males and females at primary age, we CANNOT ignore the socialisation and restrictions placed on females and the impact that has on their abilities, the amount of exercise and training they do and the belief in their individual abilities. It is not enough to tell them they should be able to run faster as it is down to their poor motivation or training that they loose.

We also have to address the fact that they spend the majority of their time in clothing unsuitable for an active life, whether its the skirts and mary jane shoes of the school uniform or the Lellie Kellie shoes they are told not to get dirty when they are toddlers or the fact that the activities marketed to girls are dance and ballet not running and football.

And if they have access to sports clubs but they are not represented there.. we have to ask why and address the root causes. Yes, it might be theoretically better for males and females to play together but the harsh realities of being in a minority in a team sport are not pretty.. being fouled more, kicked harder, boys laughing when you are tripped up or pushed, no one talking to you at training, no one cheering when you score, having no friends at training. What actually happens when girls are given their own space, with qualified coaches, role models, decent training times is that more girls play.

It might be that the best do not get to play at the level they might play if they joined the mixed team but only the toughest survive in that environment and that only benefits a tiny minority. It is much better if more girls play because that improves the overall quality of the female game at a macro level and the effect is magnified.

Sport does not exist in the vacuum of a research laboratory where theoretically there are no differences no more than the study of Maths exists in the vacuum of the gender neutral brain which absorbs messages from the time it is exposed to its first breath of oxygen. At the age of 5, girls believe that they are just as good at maths as boys, by the age of 8, they no longer believe that is true but nothing has changed in the actually ability levels. By age 18, only 28% of the candidates taking higher level maths are female and there is no evidence that there is difference in the way that males and females process numbers.

We also have to address the fact that they spend the majority of their time in clothing unsuitable for an active life, whether its the skirts and mary jane shoes of the school uniform
Clothing seems to have become more gendered than when I was a child. I wore lace ups to primary school in the late 80s to early 90s. I was in jeans or shorts with a tshirt and sweatshirt at weekends.

This picture says it all.. I remember there being a similar one where Kate was playing with them. Even with a cool Mum who plays football with her kids, her daughter will never be as keen to play football, the ball will hurt her open toes in those sandals and she won't be able to kick the ball as hard as her brother... it's an uphill struggle from the start.

That picture and I bet if she did get in there and start playing properly she would get told off for getting her dress dirty or the fact that you could see her underwear.

Nothing against girls wearing dresses at all, but when they are playing outside they should be allowed to get dirty and play comfortably.

Why is she in that dress to play football? She looks like she is dressed for a birthday party. Why can't parents just put their children in activity appropriate clothing, then girls can run and play and climb the same as boys?

For goodness sake, the Cambridge children were having a little kick about on the margins of a polo club event as I recall. It wasn’t a football lesson or a sports club it was a picnic where someone obviously brought a ball along. I’m not a royal fan or an enormous fan of sandals and dresses (especially dresses that look too small) on little girls, but it’s not an inappropriate outfit for what they were supposed to be doing - spectating and eating a picnic.

Mixed sex races all the way through at our primary school - I think a bit of “streaming” goes on……

What’s the point of a “non competitive sports day” - it’s supposed to be a competition!! We could make the academic exams non competitive too just in case not everyone can win at those too?! ?! 😬
You can tell which way my kids are gifted!? 😂

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.

At 6, I think this is probably the main reason for any differences in performance between boys and girls. Boys are taught that being sporty makes them cool and popular, girls not so much.

Our primary school always has a teams based sports day which gets around this entirely.

So all teams will have mixed sexes and abilities and will be drawn from a mix of year groups (so there’ll be a dolphins groups from each year, a sharks group etc). So you’ve still got a bit of competition in that one team wins etc but you’re not singling out individuals.

@EmergencyHaribo Look when and if you have a girl your perspective on gender separation might change.
I also was a little girl once. I was very athletic. Our school had separate races. We knew well enough that this is because girls are weaker than ALL of the boys and couldn’t compete with them. This was the message the separation sent. The reality was that even as teenagers and post puberty there were perhaps two-three boys who were faster and stronger than me, but I could easily compete with the rest and I would have enjoyed it but I was never allowed.
Why don’t you care about non athletic boys in your son’s class? There are plenty who will never win any race. Why do you want to separate by gender - don’t you realize what kind of message it sends? You can never compete with boys because you are a girl…

I've never heard of Primary sports day being separated. My DD and other girls still win races, although in Infants they focused more on joining in. Not seen the Junior sports day due to Covid. Could it be to do with the races they do? My DD does things like sack race, egg and spoon, obstacle course.

@234Pepperplant... I am not criticising the outfit or the cambridge family.. it was just useful to illustrate my point.

The average small boy goes out dressed in trainers and shorts, ready to run at any time whereas many of the clothing options available to girls are not suitable. When they learn that they can't kick the ball very well or run very well, they don't know it's because their shoes are unsuitable but they make the link that it is their skill that is lacking and for every missed opportunity, their male friends and siblings are getting better and growing in confidence so the gap widens. There are more factors involved, but that is one of them.

@GertrudePerkinsPaperyThing - yes, they do this in my DD's school to - there are 4 teams across the school.