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.

@DeepaBeesKit

Clymene Show girls lots of role models in active physical sports where there's plenty of running and energy.

Get out and exercise with our daughters ourselves, let them see women having fun, getting sweaty, not worrying if their hair is a mess.

I don't disagree with you but that has nothing to do with provision of public spaces.

Surely the point of imaginative play is it is the imagination. I was both boisterous and did a lot of sport and as an adult as well but also did imaginative play, acorn cups were fairy cup, picking grass seed heads to scatter as chicken feed immediately spring to mind.

My park has tennis, netball and basketball courts, baseball, football, rugby and cricket pitches. I have played all those sports bar rugby and not baseball but only rounders which is similar.

Parks are set up for formal sport and few girls play sport in comparison to boys. You only have to look at the school sports and who liked PE as a child threads that pop up over the years. There have been a few and positive respondents are always really low.

[quote SunShinesBrightly]makespaceforgirls.co.uk/[/quote]
I like the range of bars and seating suggested from that link and it's something practical that can easily compliment existing equipment. There is a lack of seating at playgrounds anyway.

I still like dangling around on bars and they are a rareity. There's an old-fasioned village playground near me that we tend to graviate to and my DSs enjoy handing around upside down on a simple old bar. The toddler slide does have a den on. TBH my DSs like to swarm around the different slides/ climbing equipment and play "snipers"... maybe not the exact kind of imaginative play that OP is envisioning...

There are some parks/ country parks near us with fairy doors, but the reality is that they are often easily damaged by nature alone without the behaviour of other humans/ dogs factored in. I'm not fully convinced that they're a great boon to imagination; as a child my imagination was well fed on books, cartoons and using toys as props. Tree carving sculpture trails tend to be more resilient.

In January, I struggled for space to exercise my DCs. There was river flooding in the low-lying parks and all pitches were slippery swamps of mud on the higher ground. The same for our small garden. The basketball court type areas were all padlocked off. I ended up taking the DCs to a rather less than salubrious unfenced urban "rec" that was plain like a small playground. Large amounts were out of bounds due to copious amounts of broken glass and dog shit, but it was the only open space I could think of that was not swamp-like. There is a case for more open "hard" surface play spaces, possibly with the softer surface that you get on playgrounds which would be suitable for gymnastics/ dance in a greater range of season compared to on grass.

Trail/ balance type equipment tends to be good anyway as it encourages a free-flow of play without the jams building up that you get on swings/ zip wires.

Play area design is slowly recoving from a phase of overly sanitised, unstimulating "safe" design. Many children beyond infant school find they've outgrown many playground spaces and that's not good for either sex.

I’ve not had time to read the whole thread, so sorry if someone has already said this, but the book Invisible Women by Caroline Criado Perez covers this topic, and others. It’s fascinating and eye-opening. Basically men are in more positions of power - in local councils and government - and men make decisions that advantage men. Probably not deliberately - it’s just that men thinking “What equipment would be good in a park?” will think of things that most boys would enjoy, because they were once boys.

Similar things happen in all sorts of areas of life, from town planning to office temperature to decisions about what medicines to develop.

As someone has already pointed out teams pay a lot of money to use the football pitches, therefore the football area needs to take up the space of a football pitch.

Teenage girls however sporty have always preferred just sitting around chatting when socialising with their friends.

its a shame to read some posters sneering at fairy houses. Is that an inferior style of play then?

No it's an inferior form of exercise. Public funds tend to get prioritised on what we need as a nation, and we need more exercise.

I'd prefer they made play parks accessible for all children before complaining that there are no "girl" things on offer.

We have one park in a 5 mile radius that has 1 piece of equipment suitable for my daughter. Most can't even provide a proper surface so she can get in to it. There are bigger problems with parks than the lack of netball hoops.

@DeepaBeesKit

its a shame to read some posters sneering at fairy houses. Is that an inferior style of play then?

No it's an inferior form of exercise. Public funds tend to get prioritised on what we need as a nation, and we need more exercise.

But girls aren't using parks. Shouting they should do more exercise isn't changing that. You really should read the website linked to up thread.

All of the items in the OP are suitable for boys and girls. Imaginative plsy is just that, using their imagination. As a kid and when my own kids where younGerman a climbing frame could be a rocket, a car, a fairyhouse basically anything you wanted . They don't need a specific fairy house. Maybe you should work on getting your kids to use their imagination.

Sorry but the Make Space for Girls just reinforces gender stereotypes.

OP - fairy houses in a park?? Really? Surely this is just reinforcing the notion that boys = rough and tumble and girls = quiet and sweet.

Parks are for active play, for both boys AND girls. You don’t need special equipment for dance games.

We should be strongly encouraging active play for all

This x 100^

I used to be a girl, I have 4 daughters and have taught many many girls. What's this "fairy house" business? I know some children (boys and girls) may enjoy some sort of play house and have one at home, but the 'girls need fairy houses' theme here is baffling. Even if true (it's not) a public park is not the place for them for all the reasons other posters gave; and that they should be "fairy" themed is sexist gender-stereotyping crap.

Parks are for running about and being active.

@BoredZelda

I'd prefer they made play parks accessible for all children before complaining that there are no "girl" things on offer.

We have one park in a 5 mile radius that has 1 piece of equipment suitable for my daughter. Most can't even provide a proper surface so she can get in to it. There are bigger problems with parks than the lack of netball hoops.

Exactly.

It's sad but not surprising to see women falling over themselves to deny this is a problem. Recognising female socialisation is not "sexist" and we don't have to pretend everything is equal between female children and male children.

No fairy houses but it does acknowledge that girls and boys often interact with one another in different ways.

DD didn't until she went to school. Probably because she grew up with older brothers.

@BoredZelda

I'd prefer they made play parks accessible for all children before complaining that there are no "girl" things on offer.

We have one park in a 5 mile radius that has 1 piece of equipment suitable for my daughter. Most can't even provide a proper surface so she can get in to it. There are bigger problems with parks than the lack of netball hoops.

Fully agree. We had a brand new play park last year but still no wheelchair accessible swings or anything.

Sorry I haven't RTF yet, I'll come back and read fully later.
But in case this hasn't been posted already I wanted to post this link, because you are right, public spaces are not designed with girls in mind.

makespaceforgirls.co.uk/?utm_campaign=Invisible%20Women&utm_medium=email&utm_source=Revue%20newsletter

newsletter.carolinecriadoperez.com/issues/invisible-women-welcome-to-the-gfp-verse-724920

Heaven forbid we include anything in communal areas that don’t appeal to bo... both sexes.

One think I have noticed, maybe due to the Tokyo Olympics, but several of the skate parks near me have more girls using them which is fabulous. Everyone is just hanging out together and cheering each other on. Everyone is having a go at doing their thing on a board without judgement.
Long may this continue!
Same with girls, especially young teens getting into football.

We had a brand new play park last year but still no wheelchair accessible swings or anything.

We challenged the council on their latest park, which is one in quite a big tourist attraction they spent millions on. "We're waiting for additional funding for accessible play equipment" Because of course, when you are spending millions on some sculptures and a pond, you can't spend a few thousand on accessible swings and roundabouts and stuff, can you! It's been open 3 years now.

Our local park (average sized I'd say) has a play area for preschoolers, a preschooler bike track, some weird "funnels on a post" ball game, a basketball/football court and an outdoor gym. Plus trees. There's also a flat expanse that used to be a bowling green. Football pitches are marked out but they are only used on, say, Saturdays for clubs. Same for the all weather cricket things (the narrow bit they run on!). I know for a fact the girl's cricket team uses these.

Is the issue the fact that there's "nothing for girl's" or is it a problem with our attitude as to how girls should play?

we don't have to pretend everything is equal between female children and male children.

But we do have to challenge the sterotypes and instead ask why girls aren't skateboarding and playing football and apparently prefer to sit and socialise rather than exercise in public. I'd like to see that change before I agreed to see money ploughed in to making sure girls don't exercise.

I find this idea that there are different kinds of play for different genders rather disturbing. All children need exercise and all children have imagination, surely? My boys (and myself when a girl) spent many happy hours running round parks and climbing in playgrounds using our imaginations…roundabouts became boats, houses at the top of slides were dens and seesaws were elephants to ride on. My boys have never used a skateboard in their life but used to play regularly on the skatepark climbing the jumps etc when not busy with skateboarders and pretending they were mountain climbing. There might be an issue of not enough green spaces or equipment for young people to use in general but please don’t promote such damaging stereotypes about children’s play.

The park I grew up near had a 400m cinder running track around it and I absolutely loved it. I used to just run lap after lap for fun. I think those are the kind of things that are missing from parks as well. Any running tracks there are tend to be owned by universities or are private and require payment.

The teen girls at our local park use the outdoor gym, running tracks, cycle tracks, tennis courts. They lounge around on the bars, balance equipment and chat. I rarely see them play basketball)netball/football. I see younger girls on these pitches, playing with both boys and girls, and particularly often, when their dads are there. Maybe dads need to understand the importance of encouraging this? Lots round here clearly do, but perhaps there is a wider need.

@makespaceforgirls

Hello, thank you for all the praise and references to our campaign. It's so good to hear that we are getting the word out. And for all those people saying, we are going to take this to our councillors: THANK YOU. There's only two of us and although I feel like we might have spoken to every council in the country, in truth we've barely scratched the surface.

I can't say too much now because I have to go into a meeting now, about a park. But I will try and come back later or this evening to answer the points which have come up. In the meantime, though, for a basic summary of the situation, we produced this research document:

makespaceforgirls.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/Make-Space-for-Girls-Summary-of-Research-findings-December-2020-web.pdf

We are on Twitter and Instagram and have a newsletter you can sign up to - and you can find all of this on the website.

@makespaceforgirls I can’t quite believe your campaign TBH. You are setting gender inequalities back decades. Pink?? Seating areas because ‘girls like to talk face to face’??

Girls aren’t ‘overlooked’ in parks, they choose not to use the equipment which is there for ALL to use.

I am gobsmacked at this thread.

I assumed skate parks were built to remove youth from skateboarding in other public places.

Our local park has a fenced off area for the play equipment for under 5s. It also has play equipment for older children. It then has a huge green space that isn’t permanently set up as football pitches but is used for football for children’s league at the weekends in the football season (both boys and girls). I have seen this space used for impromptu games of football, cricket, rounders etc. People having picnics. It’s used by males and females. There are also some woods with paths going through them. There are your normal benches and also a number of covered structures like old fashioned bus shelters where you can sit, but unfortunately these are often taken over by the anti social element of the town. Apart from the latter we are very lucky to have this park.

There are also tennis courts and hockey pitches that you can hire. These are also used by local clubs, again boys and girls. There is also a skate park and bike park.

We also get youth just hanging around and causing vandalism because there is nothing for them to do!