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.

OP, you lost me the moment you started talking about team sport. My experiences of this at school were uniformly negative and one of the benefits of being an adult is never having to engage with such activities ever again. I have no interest even in spectating. There were more enjoyable ways for me to participate in team activities, such as debate and drama. All that team sport taught me was that other girls were nasty, intolerant and selfish.

When it comes to being and remaining active, there you have a point. That is important for physical and mental health, and it starts at home and school. PE has improved in some schools but not enough. TBH it needs a massive overhaul and a huge reassessment. It does not meet the needs of those who are less naturally athletic, it ignores the impact of puberty, and too many teachers simply have no idea how to teach the skills required. They should not be in the profession, in my view. It would not be tolerated in any other school subject.

That's interesting. I remember at secondary school, thinking that maths and English should be taught by people who were not naturally good at those subjects and had struggled to understand some concepts, so gained insights into how the subject looked 'from the outside', thereby how to explain it to pupils to whom it did not come naturally. I suppose that's true of all subjects but the reliance on natural ability, on seeing the thing as a person for whom it comes naturally sees it, was particularly obvious in those subjects (or perhaps with the particular teachers I had at that time).

That was in the 1980s and I think teaching methods, curricula and assessment have been overhauled out of recognition since then. Could PE possibly have escaped that process?

In my school, which prided itself on its academic reputation, PE, art and music were Cinderella subjects, not taken seriously at all. That's partly why the poor PE teachers focused on imparting basic skills, then cobbling together a team for each sport from the most able, not on individual development and teamwork. They didn't have time or resources to do more. There was no apparent connection made between pupils' physical and mental wellbeing and their ability to perform academically. Though, PE in the sixth form was more fun and a release, with a wider range of options and more freedom of choice.

I don't like team sports, my hand eye coordination is poor so anything involving catching, throwing, kicking isn't much fun for me. People who are good at team sports are utterly incapable of understanding this - don't try and increase participation in team sports, there's nothing in it for me. Being the weakest link letting the team down doesn't benefit anyone.

Focus your efforts on making sure PE teachers give everyone the opportunity to find some form of exercise they actually enjoy.

This thread is a broad sample of the barriers face to making physical activity a regular part of their lives. That is a good thing.

I am glad that people are talking about this - most women and girls want to be more active. Thing is, we really need to bring PE teachers on board with this as well. I really want to see more engagement from them - surely there are PE teachers and PE teachers in training on this board?

Personally, my best team exercise experiences have been doing individual activities, in groups
Me too. In those situations my lack of natural ability didn’t matter because I was only competing against myself, to improve and better my skills. Being pitted against others was always a negative experience because there was no way I could win. Being told to work with others was also a negative experience because I held them back. In both cases the result was me constantly failing and being criticised and rejected. The problem with sport is there are winners and losers, and due to physical constraints some kids will always be the losers. PE needs to evolve so kids aren’t being compared and they can make individual progress. It should be possible for everyone to be a winner if they work hard.

@Maxboy maybe start your own thread?

Building on that I’d also like to emphasise the purpose of sport. A lot of men relax by doing some competitive activity. Video games, football whatever. They seem to need that dopamine bit of fighting and winning.
Women however relax by having a chat with people or working out alone. After spending all day at work competing with people - why would I go to another competitive thing to relax? It just doesn’t make sense

Sweeping generalisation, and sexist to boot.

I need a competitive element for motivation. Working out alone there’s no accountability and I just don’t bother. It’s boring, not relaxing.

Even non competitive activity- a gym class for example, I am motivated by being able to do one more rep, one more kg than the person next to me.

Sport is individual. It isn’t as simple as men this, women that. Competitive women are often socialised out of competitive sports, focus on appearance, learning to “give way”, especially to males. I was a swimmer and the amount of times I was told I would need to stop when I was older or I’d get “big shoulders”, and boys wouldn’t be interested in a girl who smelled of chlorine…

Hi everyone. Thanks for all your comments, we're blown away by the reaction on here and are glad the post has started such a broad and fascinating discussion. Stephanie is keen to come back on the thread to answer your questions - we'll let you know when we've got a specific date and time.

In my school, which prided itself on its academic reputation, PE, art and music were Cinderella subjects, not taken seriously at all

My (competitive) 10 year old dd went to a race at a local indie school. The PE dept looked amazing, high level kids, big successes, incredible facilities. She expressed an interest, as they did full scholarships for sport.

It was a boys school. There was a sister girls school, but no sports facilities or sports scholarships, the focus instead was drama/dance/art.

The gender divide is massive when you see it…

Yes, I'm sure that's true. The school you've quoted me talking about was a mixed comp, so sport (and art and music) were pretty rubbish for boys too.

I played on a team for a while. I wasn't good but willing and once they'd taken up all the naturally good players, they had spaces to fill with anyone willing to turn up to matches outside school hours. There was minimal practice, very little team development. We were pretty bad, compared to fellow state schools and indies alike!

I think the only way team sports could work for schools, as a way of giving all children exercise and a positive experience, is if there was massive investment in fields (oops! sold them off), equipment and teachers, so there could be tiers of teams, operating at every ability level, coached appropriately to that level, in every year group. In state schools, without the multiple fields, resources or time in the timetable, it just doesn't fit. The whole thing comes across as a Blytonesque fantasy.

It doesn't give children the legacy of fitness knowledge, motivation and self-sufficiency that individual sports and exercise do, either.

The gender divide is massive when you see it
But maybe it’s there because it’s catering to the interests of the majority? Your DD may be competitive but judging by this thread she’s in the minority. I don’t think it’s helpful to try to make women more like men, particularly if they aren’t interested - and particularly if that means the things the majority are interested in (dance) are defunded in favour of things the majority aren’t interested in (sport). What we should be doing is promoting non-compulsory sports for those (of either sex) who are interested and providing non- competitive alternatives for those (of either sex) who aren’t.

But maybe it’s there because it’s catering to the interests of the majority? Your DD may be competitive but judging by this thread she’s in the minority

Agreed- like you say though we need competitive and non competitive options for both sexes. There are many boys/men who don’t like competitive or team sport, and many girls who would like to compete. Unfortunately socialisation and the way society is about sport means those non competitive boys and girls just give up, and there aren’t the opportunities for girls who want to compete so they give up as well.

It’s all about boys being the best, as ever.

I hated team sports at school, but have taken up a variety of fitness activities after recovering from cancer in middle age and have discovered that I love zumba and yoga.
I have noticed that the lack of availability of good sports bras is a real barrier for women doing sport or fitness.

I'm with Lexiloo on this. I don't think that it's any coincidence that equestrian sports,where men and women compete on an equal basis,but where the majority of leisure riders are female, is poorly served at every level.
My daughters are keen riders,and can't believe that in the 70's and 80's, show jumping was on TV almost every week. The most we get these days is coverage of Burghley and apart from racing ( again,male dominated) that's it.
I'm also concerned about what your definition of 'women and girls' is,and the safety,privacy and dignity of natal girls and women both on the playing field and off.
I loathe sport,always have,nothing would convince me that it'd improve my life/ career ect. I have an active job and lifestyle and don't have time for the luxury of exercising for the sake of it. I'm evidently not alone in this.

There are many boys/men who don’t like competitive or team sport, and many girls who would like to compete
My son does ballet. We aren’t campaigning for a boys ballet class because we know most boys aren’t interested - and that’s fine, he just dances with the girls. Ultimately it’s about creating opportunities for everyone, and I acknowledge there is a lack of competitive activities for women. But that’s perhaps due to a lack of demand? I don’t think that answer is to try to push more women towards sport. We need to create opportunities for those who want to do it and alternatives for those who don’t, of both sexes.

I agree with many of the other posters: part of the problem is the narrow vision of what is considered "sport" at schools, of what the range of positive effects on girls and women can be, and of the normalisation of (stereotypically) masculine interests and activities.

For most of my schooling, the emphasis was on track and field, and on ball games of various sorts. I didn't particularly hate sports, but always assumed that I was mal-co-ordinated and mediocre. The one school sport that I was good at was long-distance running, but that received precisely two weeks of class time in 9 years of compulsory PE, although at least it was offered as an extracurricular team. Like others have said, the effects of puberty were at least sometimes problematic, and not helpfully addressed in the curriculum: a cross-country meet would take us out of school for hours, and I well remember frantically calculating if my tampon was likely to hold, and trying to overcome disgust at the public washrooms in the parks where the meets took place. It never occurred to me to talk to a coach about this; I assumed I just had to figure out how to deal with it...

Outside of school, I was a rather talented rider (I still have horses), I was a strong swimmer, cycled everywhere, did cross-country skiing with my family in Winter, participated in martial arts, and later have turned out to be rather a good dancer: none of these activities were ever relevant to school PE, and thus didn't figure in my image of myself as a "sporty" person. They do share in common that although there can be a competitive element (I'm bloody competitive, and I do like to win!), it doesn't have to be central to the activity. Riding is fundamentally (after not falling off) about communication through body language with the animal, and can then be utilised for an exploration of the countryside. Dance, likewise, is expressive and communicative, where discipline of the body serves these aims. Cycling doesn't have to be about racing and beating personal bests; it can be about going to new places (or communting) in an environmentally friendly fashion. And in my swimming lessons, while we did participate in races, a lot of the focus was on competence in adverse weather conditions and skills to rescue other swimmers in trouble (this was already at ages 7-9).

If school sports focussed less on who is the best, and more on learning to find pleasure and utility and health in the movements of the body, perhaps less girls would be put off by the experience. A holistic approach would include a less prude attitude to teaching girls about the effects of puberty and how to manage them, especially in the context of group activities that can't take account of individual menstrual cycles. And the recognition that "sport" can encompass a huge variety of activities is also important: most schools won't find it easy to access horses on a regular basis (if at all), but perhaps could collaborate with others to access bicycles or climbing walls or trampolines or a martial arts tutor or any number of other facilities. For all I know, this is already common practice among British schools, but many of the PPs seem to suggest that the focus is still on ball games!

But that’s perhaps due to a lack of demand?

How much of that lack of demand is socialised though? Focus on looks, make up slipping when you get hot and sweaty, not looking “cool”, coming across as try hard, fear of putting themselves out there and making a mistake or losing…

Like I said, i was a competitive swimmer but was constantly warned about “big shoulders”, smelling of chlorine, having to train when peers were shopping, and also there being “no future”- i wasn’t going to win the olympics so why bother putting all the effort and hours in?

I gave up. Especially as I felt I was burdening my parents them having to take me training when there was no point.

Didn’t occur to anyone that I enjoyed the training, it kept me super fit, and I was quite happy with local gala’s and county medals.

Lots of kids sports also don’t have non competitive routes. You start as a kid and if you aren’t super talented by 12 you quit. There’s no concept of doing anything for fun or fitness.

Good point there - what happened to televised equestrian sport? Ok, needs shedloads of cash but is gender blind.

I think schools stick to antiquated ball sports because they’re cheap.

When l was at secondary we could go ice skating.

My dd spends her lessons doing as little as possible. Zumba, dance, horse riding might inspire her more. And martial arts should be mandatory for all girls.

I just do not get how netball and hockey are even relevant. So many sports and girls sport concentrated on these two.

There used to be a lot of wrestling on the television in the 70s too! (Be careful what you wish for?) I think that, showjumping and snooker were to do with colour, movement and easy framing, as more people moved to colour TVs.

Sports are not much fun for women, in my opinion.
It’s the way that the majority of sports are created by men, for men, or for men to watch.

The sports enjoyed by men are suited to their physique and mentality. They also often have equipment that isn’t comfortable for women.

Sports that are supposedly for women have been pandering to male judges for years so we get gymnastics or ice skating with young women in revealing clothing with lots of moves involving splayed legs.

Even new sports like snowboarding for women have evolved into women trying to catch up with learning the same tricks as the men, instead of developing into something different.

Then there’s the violence, sectarianism and nationalism etc. associated with spectating.

Finally, there’s the way that it’s totally acceptable for men to spend extended periods of time spectating or doing their preferred sport, or training at the gym, and opt out of family responsibilities and chores, leaving women with even less leisure time.

Finally, there’s the way that it’s totally acceptable for men to spend extended periods of time spectating or doing their preferred sport, or training at the gym, and opt out of family responsibilities and chores, leaving women with even less leisure time

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