Guest post: “All women and girls should be able to experience the joy, fulfilment, and lifelong benefits of sport”

[JuliaMumsnet]

"When someone says the word "sport" what’s the first thing you think of?

For me, it is gazing longingly out of the window at the netball courts during French class. But our charity Women in Sport knows that for many women the opposite is true. "Sport" brings back horrible memories of school. Whether it was being forced to wear “gym knickers” or a leotard when you were on a period or never getting picked for the team because you weren’t “sporty”.

And yet the word sport means “being carried away from stress and responsibility”. It’s about having fun. I don’t know many women who would reject the idea of less responsibility and more freedom.

Now think about exercise. What do you first think about when someone says the word “exercise”? Many women we talk to wince because they think they should be doing more of it. For others, serious exercise conjures up pain and suffering. But when we actually get around to going out for a brisk walk or even a run, we feel great. Our bodies release endorphins when we exercise, which is the healthiest way to get high.

Women in Sport has been looking into the lives of teenage girls and women during the last year and finding out how lockdown has affected women’s experiences of, and views on, exercise and sport. Before the pandemic, Sport England statistics showed that the gap was closing but women were still slightly less active than men overall.

The biggest gender gap was in team sport – with 25% fewer girls than boys involved in teams and paltry opportunities for girls at school. That’s why the closure of schools affected boys’ sports the worst.

Why should we care about team sport? Because being in joint endeavour, in a team, trying to win while having fun brings lifelong benefits. If more girls had positive experiences of team sport at school, more women would enter the workplace and wider society trained to lead, to take risks, and to be resilient if they lose.

So, what did we find out about girls in lockdown? During the pandemic, the Government put exercise front and centre as one of the few ways we were able to leave our homes. This opportunity has released some girls into new worlds. We talked to teenage girls going for walks outside with friends for the first time, and 82% of girls said they would put more effort into being active when life returned to normal. Teenage girls we spoke to recognised the value of exercise for their physical and mental health, some for the very first time. They may not know that research shows a positive impact of outdoor sport on body image, but they are feeling it.

Then we spoke to the women. We know that women have borne the brunt of pandemic redundancies and that home-schooling has exposed ongoing stereotypes and gender inequalities in the home. The women we spoke to were time deprived. 32% of women said they could not prioritise exercise during lockdown as they had too much to do for others. But on the positive side, the crisis has led people to reappraise. People have been resetting their priorities and there is more motivation to exercise than there used to be. 85% of women in our research said they would either put more effort into being fit and active or would keep up being active after lockdown.

Our recent new research into women around the menopause showed that this too can prompt reappraisal. So, the double whammy of an unprecedented pandemic and an unprecedented change in hormones seems to be triggering a bit of a revolution amongst midlife women.

One of the most fascinating insights we gleaned even before the pandemic was how much teenage girls cherished time alone with their mum or mother figures in their lives. They saw such relationships as ‘safe spaces’ without fear of judgement. Lockdown has exaggerated this feeling and girls have appreciated time being active outside, in nature, in a safe context without toxic commentary from peers.

Last year we launched our #TimeTogether campaign based on our understanding that midlife women and teenage girls both face unique physical challenges and pressures, and that they want to support one another. Women and girls also know they ought to be more active, but many find it hard to act on that. So, we’re inspiring women and girls to team up, to get active and have fun together outside. As we go back to some normality post lockdown, this special relationship may well help overcome shared concerns about loss of fitness or being in large groups.

The pandemic has led to a growing intolerance of inequality, whether racial, economic, or gender inequality. At Women in Sport, we’ve been intolerant of this for a long time. We know that less wealthy women from certain diverse backgrounds are the least active of all. How wrong is this, that society is denying these girls and women joy and health?

The pandemic exposed underlying inequalities in society across the board, and elite sport was no exception. In August 2020 a BBC survey of elite British sportswomen showed 86% earnt less than £30k from sport, and 60% less than £10k and one in five believed they may have to give up their sport due to the crisis to focus on having a normal job. At the same time women’s sport all but disappeared from our screens. The women’s football Euros were pushed back to 2022 to make way for the men’s Euros to be played in 2021. The Women’s Six Nations was never completed, the 2020 Netball Super League, Football Women’s Super League and Championship were all cancelled. In contrast, the top three tiers of men’s football continued their 2019-20 season; the men’s Premiership Rugby 2019-20 season restarted in August, the men’s Six Nations was completed.

So it is hardly surprising that half as many girls as boys dreamt about reaching the top of sport (30% cf 60%) in a survey we ran with Sports Direct in March 2021. We should not be denying our girls the chance to dream.

We want to redefine the relationship that many girls and women have with sport and exercise. This should be about fun, and we have a right to fun at every time in our lives. Yes, we could be drawing joy from sport, even as teenagers when everywhere you look people are commenting on your appearance; and even in mid-life when that pressure cooker of responsibility means our own needs come last. We want the legacy of the pandemic to be a break down in negative gender stereotypes and the emergence of a new normal in which all women and girls can experience the joy, fulfilment, and lifelong benefits of sport."

EDIT: Stephanie will be coming back onto the thread at 11am on Thursday 17th June to answer your questions.

Regarding the points raised about transgender inclusion in sport, we recognise that attitudes to gender have shifted substantially between the generations. As a charity with limited resources we are working hard to understand how we can add value to the sports organisations that must ultimately take the decisions, and often in the context of the organisations that run their sport internationally. We are aware that the UK Sports Councils have commissioned some research to inform updated guidance and advice to the sports governing bodies.

There were never mixed classes at my school - girls did netball/hockey, lads did football/rugby. Everyone did athletics in the summer but we were also separated for that.

One of the biggest issues I faced was the accusations of ‘not trying’, as I have mentioned before; I’m 5’2” and had a school friend who was a foot taller, unsurprisingly she was much better than me at the high jump, yet the teachers would still insist I should be able to do as well as her, even though she could literally step over the bar. How was it reasonable for a supposedly intelligent adult to think that?

Thank you for your engagement and the interesting points you’ve made. This is a complex issue and we have much more to do to give girls and women the opportunities they deserve. Ultimately, we believe no one should be excluded from the lifelong benefits of sport and exercise.

Please do continue to engage with us across our social channels. To find out more you can sign up to our monthly newsletter through www.womeninsport.org

Thanks for coming back and engaging further. I doubt it can have been easy.

You are right that the whole system of teaching and coaching sport or physical exercise is terrible and must change because whether you are competitive or not, the bullying culture is counterproductive and off putting. Unfortunately, far too many PE teachers that I ever encountered seemed to think that all they had to do was shout and yell from the touch lines, often directing the worst of it at their least able students, and then bingo! Those less able students would have an epiphany and start playing perfectly. Suddenly all would be well. That is quite clearly rubbish and is insulting when you are on the receiving end.

I can say from experience that you never forget the feelings of inadequacy that arise from such treatment. It is abusive.

I would still say that other forms of exercise should still be considered for those who prefer different and more individual ways of keeping fit. Like the gym, cycling and running machines, weights etc. I don’t think that lack of these is down to budget in all cases, although in some it may be.

One of our local council run sports centres is on the campus of the local comprehensive school. At times during the week public access is restricted as the facilities are timetabled for the school to use.

@StephanieHilborneWomenInSport

One of the issues many of you raised was around clothing and facilities and at Women in Sport we certainly want girls to be allowed to wear more comfortable and less embarrassing clothes for PE and to have time to change and wash. Our research with teenage girls shows that girls need much better support from the right people in managing their periods and so they can the right sports bra. 42% of teenage girls avoid sport and exercise during their period, and around 50% of girls feel paralysed by the fear of failure at puberty which stops them trying new things. Being physically uncomfortable in what you’re wearing and how you feel about your body is clearly a major issue. We’re currently working on a project with teenage girls to tackle some of these issues.

I have to say that there are some very good points here. Especially with regard to having time to change and wash.

When I was at school we were almost never given sufficient time to get changed at the end of the PE lessons and it was part of what made them such a horror show. We would be sent back into the horrible changing rooms where we had no privacy at all with maybe less than 5 minutes until the next lesson bell.

We would then be made to strip naked in front of everyone and file through the communal showers, which the teacher would turn to cold to keep us moving. Any girl who did not wish to do this because of her period would be marked down in the "period register", again in view of the class. This could sometimes involve letting the teacher inspect the sanitary towel in your pants in case you were lying. Awful. Violating and abusive in my opinion.

There would then be hardly any time to get dressed at all and if you hadn’t made it you were thrown out into the corridor even if you were still in just your knickers, at which point the whole school would be passing by.

I am harking back to my own schooldays in the late seventies and early eighties there. For more up-to-date experiences I heard from my own three daughters (one of whom is extremely sporty) that thankfully the communal showers were no longer a thing for them, but everything else still has a way to go.

'The battle of Waterloo was won on the playing fields of Eton'. This might not be true and the Duke of Wellington might not really have said it but it is a well known and oft-repeated quote.

There there was the 'muscular Christianity' movement and its role in upholding British Empire.

The relationship between competitive sport and war is pretty powerfully established and hard to miss, in British culture.

I'd relate this back to the traditional British workplace too, with all its rank, hierarchy and cheerful obsequiousness (a very masculine trait IME). As I said near the start of the thread, sport, work and the military, with all their institutional masculinity, are intimately intertwined.

That was a response to You're absolutely right that sport as a whole, as well school sport, has generally been designed by and for men and boys, although the preparation for war element is a new angle for me!

It shouldn't be. Delighted the posters of MN were able to give you something new to take away though!

Thanks for coming back.

I really think that all sport in school has to be 100% optional. In my mind the only way that you can prevent it from taking on that abusive quality is if people are completely free to walk away from it altogether. Then for people to do it, it would have to actually be fun and worth doing.

@ATieLikeRichardGere

I really think that all sport in school has to be 100% optional. In my mind the only way that you can prevent it from taking on that abusive quality is if people are completely free to walk away from it altogether. Then for people to do it, it would have to actually be fun and worth doing.

My DD (12) would have given up years ago. Her reason for hating school PE is the school skort is too short (there are rules for uniform skirts that have to reach the knee and be worn with opaque black tights at all times, but for PE the skort can show the crease of your bum?) and the horrible changing rooms.

@ATieLikeRichardGere

I really think that all sport in school has to be 100% optional. In my mind the only way that you can prevent it from taking on that abusive quality is if people are completely free to walk away from it altogether. Then for people to do it, it would have to actually be fun and worth doing.

That is a very sensible post.

There is a reason sport wasn’t removed from the curriculum or made optional years ago though.

It’s there as part of a healthy lifestyle- we do need to include exercise as part of our lives, and some kids do nothing apart from school pe- drive to school, sit in classrooms, computer games at home.

So I disagree with making it optional, some of the kids that need it most would be the first to stop. As already mentioned, if you find maths or english hard and disliked it you wouldn’t be able to drop that. My maths teacher was a bully and I used to try and get out of his classes whenever possible.

There still needs to be PE, but we need to offer a range of activities. Even mixed sports like Korfball, crossfit, c25k… we just need to find better ways to engage rather than just give up

Yes, we could make all school subjects optional unless they were fun enough to attract voluntary participation...

Or PE could be turned into what it claims to be; physical education. A subject that educates children about their bodies and how to use and maintain them healthily, setting them up for life.

@WorkHardPlayHard1

My daughter is top of the league in her year 12s but we've experienced not being able to play on a pitch on a saturday as its being saved for the boys teams on sunday which didn't happen anyway because of bed weather! Unbelievable! Thats just the tip of the iceberg and what message does that send to girls and women's teams? :( Message received and understood: Girls sports are still considered second to the boys,

I would kick up a massive stink about this. Who's rule is this?

Or PE could be turned into what it claims to be; physical education. A subject that educates children about their bodies and how to use and maintain them healthily, setting them up for life

But it doesn’t do this. There’s only theory stuff in GCSE. The rest is just making them do crappy team sports that a lot dislike intensely.

alllottiegarbanzo
Yes, we could make all school subjects optional unless they were fun enough to attract voluntary participation...
....
:-)
I'd have loved to have gone to a school like that. So would my children but the difference is, they adopted that attitude anyway. I can honestly say I never knew kids like mine (& a few of their friends), who were so good naturedly casual about some lessons. I wish I had had that confidence!

There's no doubt that sport, as a subject, is anathema for some kids. There are many ways to have physical exercise, they just have to find what they like doing (eg cycling, swimming, hiking).

I thought history was awful at 12. No way would have I have chosen to do it. Even if I had have enjoyed, it wasn’t a “cool” subject amongst my peers.

By 14, I loved it
A star gcse
A a level
First class BA

We should apply the logic of the adult brain to children. We forget how children approach “options”

We should NOT apply logic of adult brain I meant to say

Firstly, having PE in school in many cases seems to be counterproductive to purposes of healthy living, because it puts people off sport for life. I also don’t think “this is the only exercise kids do” works as an argument because PE isn’t that frequent as to make a difference in the absence of other forms of exercise. There are probably much better public health interventions we could make in order to up children’s physical activity like more spaces to walk in cities etc.

To the question as whether everything shouldn’t then be optional I would say no, PE is different because it has so many downsides that other subjects don’t have. And there are so many subjects that aren’t on the school curriculum that could be. Farming? Ecology? Personal Finance? Nutrition? So I just don’t see why PE should win out over the many other possibilities.

And if pe is the “only sport” your child does, then something is remiss at home

And if pe is the “only sport” your child does, then something is remiss at home*
That’s a bit harsh. There’s lots of reasons why children don’t do sports at home. Maybe they’re disabled and there’s no support at home. Maybe they have no garden or access to open space, especially if they life in an unsafe area. Or maybe they have nobody to play sports with, which might particularly be the case for children with ASD or SEN, or children who are bullied. Access to organised sports is largely determined by how much cash the parents can spare to pay for classes and sport sessions, which in many cases might be £0.

What I would really like to see in secondary education is for academic subjects - maths, English, science, humanities and languages taught in the mornings and then a massive range of activities available in the afternoons where you have to do a specified number of hours per week but you can choose whatever you want - so music, drama, technology subjects. You could make certain courses compulsory over the 3 years of Key Stage 3 but give young people a choice of when they do it.
PE would have a minimum number of hours per week but you could choose dance or Pilates or whatever rather than team sports. If you could get dance schools, sports associations, riding schools/stables etc registered and hours spent there could count as well.

@Tobermorie

And if pe is the “only sport” your child does, then something is remiss at home* That’s a bit harsh. There’s lots of reasons why children don’t do sports at home. Maybe they’re disabled and there’s no support at home. Maybe they have no garden or access to open space, especially if they life in an unsafe area. Or maybe they have nobody to play sports with, which might particularly be the case for children with ASD or SEN, or children who are bullied. Access to organised sports is largely determined by how much cash the parents can spare to pay for classes and sport sessions, which in many cases might be £0.

Did I really need to preclude disabled children from my post and those with neurological issues that may make team sports difficult?

And what you have listed…. Excuses.

I am a single working parent with no support and have had some pretty serious health issues. Every single weekend…. We are out. And often just free stuff. Food in a rucksack and a long walk. Out on scooters or bikes.

And yes I can afford to pay and recognise other cant. But many local organisations offer help to those on reduced income. Full season of Saturday rugby for my son at full feel £62. Covering the entire winter season.

My daughter does free local football (they charge for boys!!!).

If your child’s level of activity is limited to one or two school pe lessons a week, then I stand by my point - that the parent should raise their game and put in some effort (obviously barring the many situations that you will now raise… terminally ill parent, paralysed children etc)

If your child’s level of activity is limited to one or two school pe lessons a week, then I stand by my point - that the parent should raise their game and put in some effort (obviously barring the many situations that you will now raise… terminally ill parent, paralysed children etc)

You do know there are parents who will not “raise their game and put in the effort”?

Yes ok you do, despite being single parent etc. But you have the best interests of your child at heart.

There are parents out there that simply don’t care. That can’t be bothered, have better things to do- the same parents that feed their 6 month olds macdonalds.

Schools have to cater for the bottom line. Yes your child may eat healthily 99% of the time so they should be allowed that mars bar in their paced lunch, but the rules are there for the parents who would give their kids a mars bar, bag of crisps and a can of coke every day.

Same with exercise. It’s ok saying we should stop school Pe because parent should raise their game, but truth is some won’t. The only exercise those kids might get is hanging round the streets

I’ve worked with kids and can tell you that many parents do not raise their game. They sit in the house because they choose to. Or they’re out at work. Plus as you mentioned, the parents/carers who aren’t fit enough to play with kids because they’re disabled or ill or obese or elderly. The kids are sent out to play by themselves. That affects a surprising number of kids - 28% of adults in England are obese.

And many families barely afford food never mind activities. There are thousands of families using food banks - maybe £62 for a full season of rugby doesn’t seem much but many families have £0 to spare.

And if pe is the “only sport” your child does, then something is remiss at home

I bloody loathe sport. My kids are fine thank you.