Girls and outdoor activities. Where am I going wrong?

[BarbarianMum]

Would really appreciate some advice.

I work for a charity that (amongst other things) promotes outdoor play for children. As part of this we run structured outdoor sessions during school holidays.

Sessions for the under 8s have proved really popular, so we have started some for the 8-13 age group. These are also proving really popular but (and this is the problem for me) overwhelming they are attended by boys only (maybe 80%+). The Junior sessions attract equal numbers of either sex.

So what is going on here. The sessions involve a good deal of bush craft type activity (fire making/den building), but also wildlife type stuff (making bat boxes and bird feeders, minibeast hunts, tracks and signs), plus other stuff like geocaching, orienteering and woodlandy arts and crafts. All stuff that I've always considered as pretty unisex.

We are always careful to advertise in a gender neutral way (images of both boys and girls taking part are used), primary colours. The leaders are both male and female.

Feedback from the girls and their parents who do come is very positive and we are careful to ensure that everyone gets to participate fully (so no chance of girls being pushed to the back).

So why am I not attracting more girls? Or rather, why am I not attracting more parents of girls, as the decision to book on sessions is obviously very parent led? Any thoughts, suggestions or opinions welcome. I only have boys and sometimes worry that I am fundamentally wrong about what girls will like (I would have loved something like this as a child but I was a 'tomboy' whose ended up in an outdoorsy job so maybe I'm not representative).

God Outraged a 'boys only' ballet class would be fantastic. Our nearest one is 30 miles away - ds2 is lucky and has 2 other boys in his class (and 25 girls) and we had to search for a school with even those ratios. Ds1 is the only boy in his Street group.

The Hunger Games theme is a brilliant idea. You could also do a 'The Maze Runner' type one and focus on the orienteering and geocache. I believe there are three more Maze Runner films being made, so it could stay popular for years.

Actually, I want to go on a Hunger Games theme day now.

Rather gobsmacked at the idea of a 'Hunger games' theme.

You might find if you run a girls session, even if you do exactly the same activities and advertise it the same (i.e. it doesn't need to be pink and glittery) you'll get more girls coming.

In fact, if you made it even slightly 'pink and glittery' I'd be pretty sure that you'd put off more girls than you attract. I know that my DD would have been outraged by such a notion (mind you, she's always been perfectly happy in mixed activities anyway).

there is also the celebrity get me out of here angle

This is often popular with Brownie/Guide groups. Some of it is more play-outdoors though (e.g. eating "worms" i.e. cold spaghetti). But you could add that to challenges like building a raft to get you off the island etc.

kelp - my DD is also keen on sailing and windsurfing. The latter was nearly all teenage females last year, despite the fact that it's much more physically taxing than sailing (especially when you're learning). The instructors are all 40-50 ish blokes. I'd have said the girls are actually better at getting down to the rigging and clearup - parents/grandparents are expected to help with this, whether they stay or not (many do, often on the water themselves). So I don't think the factors you've noticed are general rules. Except for the lack of pinkification, of course. (some of our wetsuits have had pink on them - but that didn't stop a younger lad visiting borrowing one of DDs castoffs! )

kelp I wonder if the parents of the girls just have a more fixed idea of when the session should end - whether that's specific to those parents (more rigid/less flexibility due to other factors by chance) or is gender-related (less willing to overrun on activities for girls as they are less worth "investing" in) is hard to say.

Interesting, as DS has also commented that when he was looking for youth sailing clubs, almost every website showed equal numbers of boys and girls (as far as you could tell beneath all the kit, anyway).

Bother, meant also to say - given that sailing and windsurfing are fairly pricey activities, and the OP seems to be working through youth services and possibly therefore with families who can't afford expensive extracurriculars, there might be a "class"/money thing going on - I've known lots of Brownies and Guides whose families have been very badly off but who've been gung ho for outdoor activities, and tried their very best to kit their girls out, but for example it is not massively surprising that the girls from better off families have more outdoor equipment and more changes of shoes, so are going to enjoy outdoor activities more.

The other thing that occurs to me is that kids are very influenced by the 'is this for people like me?', and gender is one of the main criteria for deciding who that is. Sailing is often a family activity - too often dad helms, mum crews but at least they're both doing it. Well, thinking about the OP's activities - are they more like things (stereotypically) dads would do or mums would do?

'The other thing that occurs to me is that kids are very influenced by the 'is this for people like me?'

That's so true. When reading 'You Choose' DC4 (age 3) think he's only allowed to choose the activities that the boy is doing. He can't be a zookeeper (even though he wants to be) because in the picture the girl is doing it. It's so frustrating!

DH helms and I crew. Oops. I like to think that it's because I fit under the boom and he doesn't, but it's not ideal, is it?

I find this very interesting. My DD is little but would love it. I suspect that at 12-13 the girls see themselves as too old to be mucking about with 8 yr old boys?

Oh Hunger Games would be brilliant. Yes I agree initially it's a bit but there is a Hunger Games mini game for Minecraft so even my 6yo has heard of it, though I wouldn't let him watch the films or read the books, and he doesn't know what the actual story is. He just thinks it's a game where you run around and the last one standing wins.

(Lancelottie -me too, it used to be confidence/strength, but now it's more that DH is rubbish crew. DD prefers helming because she likes to be in control! )

I'd have hated this from age 10 or so. I grew up on a farm in the middle of nowhere and was heartily fed up of the great outdoors. By that age onwards I just wanted to be left alone with a book.

Two comments from dd - firstly, how many children are involved and over how long a period, ie, could it just be statistical clustering? Second, do your sessions clash with a local activity that is popular with girls?

Bit more info, for the various people who've asked.

We've run 9 sessions so far.

All sessions run once a week in school holidays (not Xmas) and are 2 hours long.

Sessions have attracted b/w 12 and 25 kids (lower numbers when they were new last summer, 25 for the last couple).

Boy:Girl ratio is always about 3:1

Participants come from across the city (these are urban kids)

Participants, as far as can be judged (haven't surveyed yet) are very white, British middle class (as a pose to teen sessions when we work with the youth service/youth groups when they are much more diverse in all ways).

I'd like to sort the gender balance before looking at things like race and social group because both of the latter are often tied into things like car ownership/cultural expectations which are harder to unravel/solve.