To wonder why communal parks are so biased towards boys

[arethereanyleftatall]

Looking around our parks, it occurred to me all the normal type equipment paid for by the council is geared towards a certain type of play.
You tend to see a slide/swing type area (great for everyone) plus football goals, skate parks, and basketball hoops.
Of course either sex could play on the last 3, and do, but in general, these 3 types of equipment are occupied by boys.
Or, let's take sex out of it - these 3 types of equipment are played with by energetic/sporty/rough and tumble type children.
Where's the community stuff for the children who prefer more gentle/imaginative role play/dance games.
Where's the netball courts, the fairy houses?
I'm actually not even sure what you would build to make it more even, but at our local park yesterday.... 8 approximately 10 year old boys playing football; about 10 teenage boys on the skate park;basketball hoop unused; swing area equal girls/boys.

Really interesting articles, thank you @makespaceforgirls and @Wimblingwombling

On reading the suggestions, it struck me that many of those things, better lighting for one, should have been absolutely basic requirements from the outset.

It's scary that as a society, we are only just recognising that girls needs are just ignored time and time again.

That's totally evidenced on this thread with an awfully large number of posters (presumably women themselves) pretending this isn't a problem. Or scoffing at things girls might like because anything other than stuff that boys like would just be absurd.

Because to many children, football pitches are equally as 'ridiculous' (or whatever words posters have used to describe them), as fairy doors.

It's just ingrained in us all, put things up that boys will like, and maybe girls will join in too.

Still waiting for suggestions on what stuff for teen girls you think should be added OP?

So many people seem to be missing the point. The fact that we don’t even know what girls would do if they had proper access to these spaces, shows how deeply ingrained the problem is. Maybe girls as a class don’t like team sports because it has never really been possible for them to get together with their friends, in their own time, informally, and have fun playing them. Maybe if women had always been able to do that we would have invented more of our own team sports, that would then have become more popular, because they were invented by women, for women. But we’ve never been able to do that. That’s exactly what systemic discrimination is. A lack of opportunity that is so widespread and so normalised that we don’t even notice it, and can’t recognise it even when it’s highlighted and challenged.

@Fetarabbit

Still waiting for suggestions on what stuff for teen girls you think should be added OP?

I didn't have a clue @Fetarabbit As I detailed in my first post and also subsequent posts. It was simply an observation from my latest visit to the park.

However @makespaceforgirls has detailed links below which details studies that have actually asked girls what they would like.

Exactly @Boood
We cross posted the same thing, but yours was more eloquent!

I totally agree with you, @arethereanyleftatall. But the more I think about it, the more I wonder if it’s actually too big a problem to be fixed by the kind of work @makespaceforgirls are doing. Not that we shouldn’t try, but it’s a microcosm of the entire issue of toxic masculinity, isn’t it? The fundamental problem is that parks, sports grounds, recreation grounds etc are the last unregulated public spaces. And anywhere that’s unregulated, the law of the jungle takes over and the biggest and most aggressive males get what they want at everyone else’s expense. We can’t regulate and patrol everywhere, but we won’t really fix it unless and until we fix the men.

Yes I saw the study, I honestly can't imagine any of that would be just used by teen girls, or that many would find it added much value to their lives- most of them are bench type things too which surely goes against getting them active, and if they're just popped in a park, are they going to be utilised for much of the year? I agree with others who have noted that it's part of a much bigger issue

Maybe we should start with the parents as they are raising the next generation of society.
Abusive fathers create abusive sons
Active fathers create active sons
There is some no doubt some overlap.
Parents are role models, how we behave greatly influences how our children behave.

Unfit, turned off from exercise mothers create unfit non-exercising daughters.
You want your daughter to be active, fit, healthy and to use the park? Start modelling the behaviour, get some sensible shoes for haring around it, stuff your gubbins in a small sports rucksack and start running around. Reclaim the parks for you and your daughters.

'Fix the men.'

This is why parks and children are a good place to start. If you fix the boys, do you fix the men?

Both my boys play tennis. A non contact sport. When they started, at around 5, it was probably a pretty even mix, maybe a few more boys than girls. However, as they’ve progressed, the only girls that now take part are the ones seeming to take it pretty seriously (and they’re really good). The “casual” players have dropped out.
My 11 year old does a selective squad with about 16 children. Two girls. My 9 year old does a non selective squad of 10 children - 1 girl.
I have no idea why girls drop out. There are girls tournaments, girls can easily beat boys at the junior level, the girls’ standard is really high (my sons get beaten by girls, strength is similar at this pre puberty age).
Tennis should be the perfect unisex sport but even there it’s dominated by boys.

@Postdatedpandemic

Maybe we should start with the parents as they are raising the next generation of society. Abusive fathers create abusive sons Active fathers create active sons There is some no doubt some overlap. Parents are role models, how we behave greatly influences how our children behave.

Unfit, turned off from exercise mothers create unfit non-exercising daughters.
You want your daughter to be active, fit, healthy and to use the park? Start modelling the behaviour, get some sensible shoes for haring around it, stuff your gubbins in a small sports rucksack and start running around. Reclaim the parks for you and your daughters.

Exactly. Get down to park run on a Saturday morning with your daughter. Treat your kids to breakfast afterwards but let’s get more active. There was a study during the week that says we are not even doing 150 minutes a week of exercise. We are the role models to our kids. Out of 15 women in my office, only two of us do any exercise.

Can I ask where you live OP (vaguely obvs) also what age range you're talking about as it's confusing throughout the thread?

We live incredibly wealthy town not a stealth boast just do, the council maintained park nearest us is a traditional park but does have some nice sort of shelters I would call them (??) painted by local urban artists...the local teenage girls use these extensively to vape in, make tiktok videos in where like salty sea dogs, drink vodka and (weirdly) Bacardi then they like to show their disdain for the male centric equipment, by smashing the empty bottles of the playground equipment and goal posts. They're always very pleased with themselves so I think they're probably pretty well catered for here.

We have two wonderful play areas which you would probably be very pleased with though, thry include items such as tree houses, mud kitchens, large wooden fixed site percussion instruments, wooden play houses, notably neither of these are council owned but are both forestry commission owned.

@Mayorhum21
The thread has evolved, as posters have added their own insights. It started off as an observation that the areas used for older children were occupied solely by boys. It's ended up discussing the fact that teenage girls just don't use the facilities at all, why not, and what would they use. The latter which, interestingly, no one (apart from makespaceforgirls ) really can answer as the standard stuff of football pitches and ramps is so normalised.

?
YABU

OP so you don’t know what you want but you’re finding an issue?

What do you think should be put in a park for imaginary play exactly 😂

Can we please stop trying to find evening so offensive? Just enjoy the park abs don’t worry and make issues when there aren’t any, too much of that dramatics we have the deal with already.

Reading through your replies I would LOVE to know, as a boy mum, what you think is within my boys that you think needs fixing please?

Consider that they’ve never been big basket or football players and just play on regular park equipment.

Can’t believe that people like love a stereotype but yet your best not to, by trying to say the right thing, your replies show your ignorance though.

Have you seen the Make Space For Girls campaign? They are trying to push for more community/park space for girls, worth looking at their social media and website

makespaceforgirls.co.uk/

These types of equipment are not aimed at boys, they are aimed at teenagers. Young kids have swings, slides etc and older ones have basketball hoops and skate parks

"Parks, play equipment and public spaces for older children and teenagers are currently designed for the default male. Provision is almost entirely in terms of skate parks, BMX tracks, football pitches and MUGAs, which are used almost entirely by boys."

So encourage girls to use them. None of these activities are specific to boys, only those who are still gender stereotyping activities will see those as 'boy things'.

They are activity spaces and equipment, but you don't need a penis to use them.

@MarvellousMonsters Some girls do want to use them, but the boys drive them off - see my post of 18:51 yesterday. The levels of harassment are so high (other girls tell us about racist taunts and stone throwing) that they will go at almost any time when the boys are not there. An Australian academic has done an entire thesis about this 'territorialisation'. Every researcher in the area agrees that this is what happens. It's not the girls' fault, it's not the fault of stereotypes. The boys take over and drive the girls out.

And would you go into a fenced pitch area with narrow exits and a group of aggressive boys in it? I'd think twice, and I am over 50, so no sensible fourteen year old is going to force the issue.

One simple fact. The equipment may not be aimed at boys (that's what my council said too...) but in actual fact all the evidence is that it is currently entirely segregated. We need to fix this. That is all.

I can't see it tbh but have come across 2 different types... in case you want to make suggestions.
Disabled ie wheelchair friendly roundabout and another park near me has an outdoor gym which is long lasting and pretty excellent (heavy metal... no electrics purely mechanical)... it was made from a town/community council.

I don't think that it's deliberate and it probably just takes one voice to suggest something at the right time.

Yes, I used to know a group of teenage girls that met to play football once a week. They got stones thrown at them and verbal abuse shouted at them, by the boys and young men. Its not just a case of not choosing to use facilities.

@makespaceforgirls

One simple fact. The equipment may not be aimed at boys (that's what my council said too...) but in actual fact all the evidence is that it is currently entirely segregated. We need to fix this. That is all.

It may not be aimed directly at boys but what is on offer appeals more to boys.