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.

This is interesting. Watching in primary school play ground, girls tend to stop physical play games as they move up primary. Our school is diverse that they have different playground games each day and only in one area so on different days - football, netball, rounders, tag, bull dog etc. However girls tend to stop playing. Its keeping girls physically active and engaged in sports seems to be an issue

Why should girls who prefer to sit and chat in the park be ‘encouraged’ to skateboard?

Because as a nation we are unfit and overweight. There are a million cafes and the like for people who want to sit and chat. If girls want to chat in the park why can't they walk around and talk?

@BoredZelda

Why should girls who prefer to sit and chat in the park be ‘encouraged’ to skateboard?

They shouldn't be. But it should be explored why they are choosing to sit and chat rather than exercising, which is what parks are supposed to be provided for.

I exercise in the park . I walk and chat to a friend who is walking with me exercising her dog. Should I be running or playing some sort of team game?

We also sit around on benches chatting.
It’s great. Good for the soul.

[quote smoko]@icelollies your parks don't have toilets?

So what, the boys are just all pissing in the bushes?

Madness. I bet pedos are lurking in every corner at parks where kids are weeing out in the open

I'd be rallying the council to put some bloody loos there![/quote]
None of our local parks have toilets- not the ones in the villages. The only playgrounds around here with toilets are the big playgrounds that are in bigger park areas.

I can't imagine our parish council has the funds to maintain public toilets as we're not a big place and can imagine the costs mount up with cleaning and maintenance.

Complete side issue but what bugs me isnthe lack of private shower facilities in high schools where I live. No teen girl wants to shower and show her body. Why cant we have separate shower and changing cubicles in schools. It just another barrier for girls and sports

I don’t think showers are used much, either by boys or girls. DS has never used a shower after sport at school, although I think there are showers available.

I can't get het up about this when schools, which is where kids spend so much of their time, are so biased towards girls.

Imaginative play shouldn't need tons of props. And girls should be just as into playing physically as boys. It's 2021 and we are asking where the flowers are for the girls. And I don't know what park you go to, I can't think of a single one with football or basketball places that don't also have a big play area and general green space. Football pitches need space, is the only way it's equal be if the girls have a football pitched size space for dancing??

I have only sons but they both favour imaginative play and hate football, and yet I've never had an issue where the football area of a park is in the way of their play.

Haha - should have said I can't think of a single one in my area!! Obviously not saying I know all parks

@Hankunamatata I doubt teenage boys want everyone to know the size of their developing penis either.

Having open showers at a school is grim

Installing a petition can't cost much. That's pretty tragic

Bring back the Maypole, I say

Why they ever fell out of favour will never know.

Our parks have lots of gentle imaginative play areas too. I'm not sure it's a gender thing tbh.

You could argue much of their lives are spent in gentle environments (schools) rather than rough play places.

@621CustardCream438

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.

That's exactly what I was thinking, houses or enclosed spaces would become drinking dens with broken glass bottles.

All children need active play, boys maybe more so than girls, boys are more likely to be in the park in the rain!

Imagination can work wonders, very un PC, but anyone remember playparks which a climbing frame in the shape of an army tank we use to pretend it was a family car and go places in the car

@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.

Probably because there are so many football clubs and to be fair they do pay for their use of the parks.

You get tennis courts too because people pay to use them.

We have 3G pitches outside our local leisure centre and I know there are netball teams based there but nothing in the parks as you say.

A couple of our local parks have trim trails and outdoor gym equipment which might be more attractive to girls and women?

@arethereanyleftatall

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

Good points are being made about the upkeep though.

It’s not sneering, it’s just a ridiculous idea that reinforces gender stereotypes. Not all girls and Princessy types who enjoy this kind of thing. I was a tomboy who loved climbing, rough play etc and would have balked at the idea of something like that . Likewise not all boys are into traditional masculine stuff like football. I thought it was the 21st a century where we’d move on from the all girls wear pink and play with dollies and all boys wear blue and play football crap? Women’s football is huge now, a lot of schools struggle to put a netball teamtogether because the girls would rather play football

You also don’t need special areas imaginative play and dance. I used to make up dance routines with my friends easily on the local park and didn’t really need any equipment. Stop looking for slights where there aren’t any.

I'm not sure why girls give up sport - I guess starting periods and having to deal with them is part of it, and also being sensitive about their bodies and stupid remarks from boys.

I saw a really stupid thing today though - someone (a woman) saying that she can no longer use her local athletics track for running because it is booked out to a couch to 5k group, and even though there would be plenty of room for her as well, they won't allow anyone else in because the women are too self-conscious. How did we get to that? It used to be the argument of Race for Life as well for not letting men do it.

I wouldn't have gone near a fairy house either. Interestingly a few weeks ago before my son went off to university we went to Coral Reef in Bracknell together. For those who don't know, it is a pool which has flumes and tyre rides and is great fun - it had been renovated before lockdown but I'd not had a chance to go. That evening I did an outdoor fitness class and everyone was incredulous that I went as an adult without kids. Are adult women not allowed to have fun? There were other adults there without kids though they were probably in their 30s.

Back in my day play equipment could kill you. Those of us who escaped without broken bones were the lucky ones.

You dance, do gymnastics & practice imaginitive play at lunchtime. We made up dance routines at school.

The park was for physical play.

Do we really need specialised equipment to encourage your child's imagination? I thought children were naturally imaginative. It sounds like they are spoonfed now to the point of being idle to have lost their imaginations.

Call me unimaginative but am really struggling to understand what kind of play equipment encourages dance. If you want your kids to dance, just send them to a dance class!

We have two decent parks in our village. One has a full sized football pitch as the local team play there. They now have a women's team and mixed/ girls teams so they are catching up.

There are no fairy houses etc. As other have said they'd be used for drinking/ drugs and would smell of piss after a fortnight. We have 3 MUGAs around the village (multi use game areas) and they're well used by older teen boys. We have a skate park and we're the only people there when we go.

I have a 7 year old girl who loves climbing so plays with anything she can climb on. She is naturally very sporty so hope she continues.

Her tennis club had a competition recently and there were double the amount of girls to boys there in all age groups.

I manage thirty play areas and am responsible for selecting the designs when we replace them.

There are just as many young girls on their scooters as boys at the skatepark. We have solar powered music equipment, castles for imaginary play etc… Goals can be used for hockey or football, hoops for basketball or netball.

I’ve had a look at the Make Space For Girls link but it just seems to be asking for a variety of seating for girls?

I think some posters are missing the point. Yes, the communal equipment provided could be used by boys or girls. The reality is that it's not, and girls are disappearing from parks around the age of ten. We do need to address why that is, and look for ways to accommodate them.
Also, lots of suggestions for what should be done for those who prefer dance/imaginative play etc are 'bring your own stuff' 'pay for a dance class' 'do it in your own garden'. That's kind of the point - the children who prefer football/skate park type activities are catered for for free from local councils. Those who do not, are not.

@elbea that sounds awesome. Have you ever seen in any of your parks a group of just girls playing hockey? Also, yes, young girls like the skate ramps too, but they're disappearing from the ramps as soon as they get to teenage years.

Make Space for Girls is a campaign you might be interested in, they have a thread on the Feminist board;

makespaceforgirls.co.uk/

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/4181054-Teenage-girls-and-public-space-facilities-an-update

@Waitwhat23

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

Yes. Why though?

I mean, we can continue designing and implementing playparks which girls won't use, because they feel intimidated, or dominated over, or self conscious and then wonder why girls choose not to use public spaces. Or we can keep shouting that girls need to do more active exercise and wonder how they do that exactly when they won't use the public spaces.

Or we can look at ways to make public spaces more attractive to girls in general and the exercise part of it will follow on from there.

@Waitwhat23 they’re hardly going to be exercising in a pink fairy house or sitting around chatting 🙄

Most parks don't have marked out basketball courts (they're 90ft), it's just a hoop which anyone can use to practice shots or invent a game around. I would say it's more of a society/social issue why girls don't tend to play with them as much, especially as teens. Not sure what sport would encourage, football is a good one for both as its non contact, fairly easy to understand, and you don't have to be super fit. When young seems to be girls just as much as boys climbing on the equipment and going down the slides, the real question is why does this stop when they get a bit older? Do they genuinely not enjoy it anymore (and why?) or are there other reasons. I'm not sure what equipment would negate those reasons.