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.

Have you heard of Make Space for Girls - makespaceforgirls.co.uk/?

They discuss and are campaigning to create more inclusive park spaces for girls. There’s lots of research on their website about how girls use play space differently and want different things out of parks. Setup by a mumsnetter I believe.

Why is netball a girls’ game and basketball a boys’ game? Am I missing something? I agree re: imaginative play, they could have an area with a couple of large Wendy houses, one of them could be made to look like a shop for example.

In our town park, we have tennis courts, bowling green, climbing frame, outdoor gym, skateboard park, boating lake with pedalos, large grassy area (but no goal posts, sweaters usually do the job), a bandstand and a flower bed area.
It had never occurred to me that any of it was related to gender. I guess the skateboard park has more boys, but the rest seems pretty evenly used.

I've already passed on the website details of Make Space for Girls to my local Councillors, with a request it be used for background when designing future playgrounds/parks.

That's a great campaign. Thank you for the link.

@arethereanyleftatall

Thanks *@berlinbabylon* You could use the basketball hoop for a netball hoop, but its just the single hoop. It occurred to me - I have never ever seen a full netball court marked out in a community park, and yet there's full football pitches everywhere.

We don’t have any full ai3; football pitches marked out in any of our community parks here.

Most of the playgrounds here include things to climb, zip wires, sand pits, roundabouts, slides, swings, balancing beams, but we do also have treehouses and little huts to play in. It’s all generally built from wood with an emphasis on being as natural as possible, but not stereotyped towards rough play.

@Waitwhat23

I've already passed on the website details of Make Space for Girls to my local Councillors, with a request it be used for background when designing future playgrounds/parks.

I'll do the same.

@Purplestorm83

Why is netball a girls’ game and basketball a boys’ game? Am I missing something? I agree re: imaginative play, they could have an area with a couple of large Wendy houses, one of them could be made to look like a shop for example.

Exactly. But they currently don't. Some do, which is great.

My Dc always preferred imaginative games in the park (though they are getting a bit old for playgrounds now) and my nephews do too.
They will generally find a way to repurpose the equipment to their game, but if I am taking them out, I try and choose a more inspiring playground.

They like(d) tunnels, climbing frames/equipment in the shape of horses, boats, trains, castles houses...
Stately homes tend to have quite imaginative equipment - perhaps because you have to pay to enter. Hampton Court in particular is excellent.
Council playgrounds need to be robust and value for money, still there are some great playgrounds in parks that can spark the imagination, they are just rarer.

It's very clear to anyone with eyes that parks are designed for the default male; further (around here anyway) that they are designed for the default male football player. School playgrounds are the same, dominated by the football pitch. I'm astonished that so many posters don't see it.

The make space for girls campaign is brilliant, thanks to everyone who linked to it. @arethereanyleftatall if you haven't read Invisible Women then I highly recommend it (disclaimer: it will give you the absolute rage though).

I can't really comment on what girls prefer to play with as I only have a DS. However, at my lovely local park, as well as the playground and football goals they have two Wendy houses and a mud kitchen next to the coffee shop. DS (nearly 2) likes the mud kitchen more than the playground at the moment!

If you built little houses/huts around here (and this isn’t an especially awful area) they would smell of wee, be slept in, occupied by late night drinkers and drug takers, teens would take them over, the doors would be pulled off etc.

Slides and basketball hoops are more robust and don’t facilitate antisocial behaviour.

I think the more recently built parks in large cities do work much harder to install equipment to cover everything - some of the posters here have detailed some marvellous parks.
But, the default, in a small town, remains swing/slide/climbing frame/football pitch/skate ramp.

My boys loved imaginative play at that age and we were lucky to have a park with a huge sand area, with a boat, little houses, as well as climbing equipment.

re: imaginative play, they could have an area with a couple of large Wendy houses, one of them could be made to look like a shop for example.

My word, that's depressing. Let's make the girls' imaginary play chore based!

Because boys and men are the default human - everything is organised around then and their needs.

Even the teeny tiny parts of the universe that used to be organised around women ( eg maternity care, sanitary products) are now being invaded and colonised by men , who want to make sure that it’s about them and centres their needs.

Just like everything else.

@NoYOUbekind
I'll get it - thank you. And get a large glass of wine ready to read it with.

Fairy doors? What are they for and why are they needed?

We managed to play imaginative games when I was a child using our imaginations, and didn't need anything provided. Mind you I don't remember fairies ever featuring in our play. If I had had a daughter, it would have pissed me off if someone had suggested she would have wanted to play games involving fairies, rather than sports.

Your views seem to be more about reinforcing gender stereotypes in play.

Totally agree op. It used to piss me off no end that our 80% of my primary school playground was taken by 20% of the boys to play football and the other 80% of the school had to ply round the edges. It’s the same in parks.

It’s fine to say that woodlands can become fairy gardens with imagination but there are far more parks than woodlands available near residential areas plus they are maintained by the council. They are also often fenced off so dogs can’t disturb the play or run dangerously near of scare children. Or poo there. Woodlands not so much.

Public area for creative or gentle play would be a good start. Skate parks I think could be incorporated, they seem to be used in a more balanced way than football pitches ime.

I will travel a longer distance for a good park - luckily we have two fairly decent ones a few minutes walk each way, but for a couple of hours of entertainment with different things like you describe, we need to venture further. Sadly I think it is down to maintenance costs and upkeep, dealing with vandalism etc.

Fairy doors appeal to very young children, it’s nothing like the equivalent of a football pitch but aimed at girls.

Football pitches are often marked out at my local park but are very well used by people of all ages, and girls/women are free to use it if they want. The footballers are out there every weekend and some evenings, netballers tend to play inside.

There are as many teenage girls as boys that hang around in the skate park.

Personally I don’t like the idea of Wendy houses in parks, I’d rather be able to see my child and they’d end up being used by drug users or homeless people.

Not really @Sirzy.
I'd LOVE to see a group of teenage girls playing football at the local park or on the parks skate ramp.
I've never ever seen it though.
The girls who want to play football/skateboarding tend to have to go to the paid for clubs/indoor ramps.

Our local play parks arent really as you describe. They all have playhouse type elements with windows with shelves that are perfect for pretend shop/cafe counter type play.

I've always assumed that the reason parks feature mostly stuff geared towards energetic play is that we want kids to get plenty of exercise and that means encouraging energetic play. There are too many fat children because they eat too much and don't do enough energetic heart rate raising activity.

Well the ramps here are equally used by both girls and boys.

If their is issues with girls feeling they can access what is their that’s a completly differnet issues that won’t be resolved with a fairy door!