Play equipment is a feminist issue

[artisanparsnips]

I've posted the message below on chat, but would really like your perspective on this as well. I'm starting to talk to people who might be interested in campaigning on this, so would love feedback.

Quick question, what outdoor play facilities are there in your local area for older children - skate park, graffiti wall, pump track? And how much are they used by girls? And is there anything else that the girls use?

I'm asking because my eyes have been totally opened by the Caroline Criado Perez book, where she points out, almost incidentally, that almost all facilities for older/teenage children are used mostly by boys. I looked at what was on offer in my town and lo, it was all the above, and a football/basketball pitch. And I watched all summer and they were all used by 80% boys at best.

So I really want to know how usual/unusual this is, and any other thoughts that you have.

And yes, I have name changed because anyone who knows me will recognise this issue straight away....

I would love to know if there is any research into this sort of thing around rock climbing. 20 years ago it was very heavily male dominated. There are far more indoor walls now, but participation has tipped into over 50% female. Not sure how this has evolved, but it would make an interesting case study.

Toilets is a massive issue for teen girls - either because there aren’t any or they’re gross or don’t feel safe. Matters less with kids still young enough to pop behind a tree or boys who’ll do that at any age...

I read Invisible Women a while back and was struck by this chapter too because it was something I had never thought about.

Going back to school playgrounds, when I was at both primary and secondary school the girls were actually not allowed to play games at lunchtime. Football, which was pretty much all that was going on, was strictly for boys. I remember my friend and I being hauled off the playground by the playground supervisors, reported to the principal and made to sit indoors once because we had joined in.

I was fortunate enough to attend both primary and secondary schools with large grounds and separate football pitches (one blaze at primary, two blaze and two grass at secondary) so there was never a conflict between those who wished to play football, including some girls at both, and those who didn't.

What did strike me as very different with my own children was how young the girls stopped playing in the playground in favour of 'hanging around'. We played skipping games, elastics, ball games against the walls etc right up to the end of primary school, only becoming too 'cool' for such things when we went to high school. My daughter and her friends had stopped by primary four, aged around 8. There was no reason for this in terms of space. They just considered themselves too old for such things, which I always found sad.

*IMO, Pinkification is to blame. And yes, that's a serious observation.

Look at how we (as in society) 'sort' and categorize our kids from birth. Aisles for girls: pastel pinks and lilacs resembling an explosion in a sugared almond factory. Boys' aisles: bright primary colours. As recently as the 70s and 80s, the latter category were the generic colours for children. This [marketing] division has happened recently.*

Couldn't agree more. Something has happened that has wimpified girls. My childhood/teens was the 1950s and none of my friends or I would have put up with boys taking over spaces. We fought our corner where necessary - took enormous risks on tipper swings (illegally pushing them over the bars), played football, hung upside down from any horizontal bar that was available and if you fell off and the boys laughed so what?

Strange that in a decade when there were serious restrictions on girls' opportunities jobwise, sportwise etc. we were actually much more free and self-confident than girls seem to be today. We certainly took no shit from the boys.

It is really counter intuitive. I honestly don't understand what has gone wrong.

No one is collecting this data for parks, at least as far as I can tell - and I've been talking to some of the big lobby groups in this area.

You could probably make a strong argument for doing this. It might make a nice thesis project for someone studying recreation of something similar, if they could get funding for a project.

I would also argue that the decline in activity levels in teenage girls is something that would require, at very least, equality in funding. Gothenburg did a study which showed that a) they were mainly funding sport for boys, and if they redirected some of the money to girls sport, not even half, it would pay for itself in terms of less osteoporosis in later life. That's in the Caroline Criado Perez book.

That rather assumes that redirecting the funding resulted in more girls playing sports or being active. But if you don't even know what those girls are doing instead, I don't think you can assume that. You don't really even know they aren't doing other kinds of activity away from parks in your area.

Also, it's not like that round here. No mainly girls sport activity, at least not that receives funding. And I think, in terms of what you describe, a lot of the girls activities are funded by parents. Perhaps that's because they can't go to the park...

It's not just sports though, girls do all kinds of other activities that compete for their time. Many teens begin to reduce their activities because they begin to concentrate on a few that they prefer, and each requires more time to continue to participate.

Girls might be reducing their sporting activity because the parks and rec facilities aren't designed with them in mind, but you don't really know that. It could also be because they are more drawn to different kinds of activities, they are more involved in school, or they prefer more organised pass-times. If there are more girl-specific activities in your community that would draw more girls away.
It could also be that the reasons are related to sport but not in a way you can address directly - in my experience one reason some girls give up sports is related to struggles with menstruation.

If someone was advocating to get more funding directed to girls activities in parks, these are the things I'd want them to be able to tell me - I'd want to know how they intended to spend their funding in a way that would be more effective in big picture terms.

What did strike me as very different with my own children was how young the girls stopped playing in the playground in favour of 'hanging around'. We played skipping games, elastics, ball games against the walls etc right up to the end of primary school, only becoming too 'cool' for such things when we went to high school. My daughter and her friends had stopped by primary four, aged around 8. There was no reason for this in terms of space. They just considered themselves too old for such things, which I always found sad.

I think maybe this has followed a general cultural tendency to rush kids into being "older" in terms of behaviours.

I can't remember the last time I saw kids skip though. That was big for girls and it's very healthy but it seems to have gone out of style.

Still thinking about the 7-11 year olds spontaneous play.
I would like to see something like a small amphitheatre with grassy banks maybe with climbing wall grabs to clamber up to the top where there are logs to jump on or sit. Kids could skateboard down one side.

An aside
Netball can be played by boys too.

I think it's massively linked to the increased societal pressure on girls to look nice and behave 'gently' for want of a better word. Everything is increasingly about looks and this will be fuelling a lot of the 'self selection' as activities tend to ruin your make up

The focus on nails and jewellery and clothes etc for my DDs 5th birthday presents made me want to cry.

Plus they are shown this ideal version of 'woman' with fake hair, fake nails, glitter, make up etc so equate that shit with being 'grown up'

They don't want to look sweaty / ugly particularly in front of boys so no, the spontaneous games of girls football aren't there as there's an expectation from society that girls behave a certain way and enjoy certain activities.

So the rigidly enforced stereotypes mean that this is what girls do as they don't want to stand out.

So here we are again.
We can assume that women and girls are unlikely to be consulted, and the default is for boys.

I think maybe this has followed a general cultural tendency to rush kids into being "older" in terms of behaviours

Not saying this isn't the case in some respects but I have often thought the opposite, that children and especially teenagers are infantalised these days.

I got berated on another thread recently for saying groups of 6 or 7 year olds don't need adults holding their hand while out guising. It was bizarre to me, in my very working class town this is still the norm, as it was when I was growing up. They're only going round their local neighbourhood, the same place they play out in summer and on Halloween there are numerous adults looking out their windows, keeping an eye. I've never known any problems.

Teenagers today don't seem to have the freedom we did. We used to go into the city, or wander off up the hills, we were drinking in pubs at 16, missing the last train home from gigs, having impromptu raves up the forest. All before mobile phones (we did usually have a phonecard between so could at least let our parents know if we were spending the night in Dunkin Donuts). Leaving home for a grotty one bed flat at 17 or 18 was normal and if you lived at home you paid 'dig' money. We made our mistakes and we learned from them.

Haven't read the whole thread but a thought struck me Is one of the reasons so much is spent on facilities aimed more at boys than girls because boys are more likely to be anti social - loitering in large intimidating groups, vandalism, graffitti, letting off bloody fireworks so need distraction from this? Certainly where I live you hear about much more bad behaviour from boy teens than girls. I have both

I think it's massively linked to the increased societal pressure on girls to look nice and behave 'gently' for want of a better word. Everything is increasingly about looks

This is very likely a huge part of the problem, agreed.

Not saying this isn't the case in some respects but I have often thought the opposite, that children and especially teenagers are infantalised these days.

Weirdly I also agree with this.

It's so strange to me that in certain things we infantalize children, so for example my 9 year old son taking the bus would be looked at as inappropriate. And teens are even worse, we don't let them do all kinds of things they are perfectly capable of.

On the other hand, we push them into wearing clothes that look like adult clothes, pop culture, dancing in shows to look like sexy op starts.

Or another strange example, when I look at some films made originally for kids, something like Goonies, or Adventures in Babysitting, I don't think they'd be made for kids now. I've known parents to complain about E.T. And yet at the same time I see kids watching shows that are way too adult, really meat for adults, with significant content that is conceptually not right and I think must also be stressful.

It's a very strange combination but I think somehow each side must all feed off the other.

Agree Goosefoot
Especially true when you think of the comfy stretchy clothes and trainers they wear. Great for running around.

Far less clothing restrictions nowadays, yet not allowed go to the park unsupervised.

Perhaps it's a 'clean thing'.
They prefer to stay looking clean and fresh, not get sweaty and muddy, especially with long hair.
All at a much younger age.

What Arnold says above about girls simply stopping playing at a certain age, reminds me of my teenage years.
I was at secondary school in the late 80s.
Around 13/14 we did just stop. I don't think it was because we wanted to look nice and non-sweaty for the boys (I wasn't interested in boys at that age).
I think we just considered it childish. I remember thinking the boys were juvenile for running around playing all the time.
We wanted to sit around and chat and have a laugh, and be more grown up.

One of the issues with council funding such activities is that it is almost wholly dependent on who applies, and you need a history of operation and established bank accounts.

This is the difficulty I found when I realised almost all our small grants were going towards male sporting activities. In order to redress the balance, I had to find people who offered female sporting activities and introduce them to the idea of applying for council funding. And this is outreach work, and not really part of my role. Then because I had done this work, I then had to recuse myself from the vote, which meant I had to lobby behind the scenes to ensure the grant would pass.

For one small grant of £500 to pass, it took me about five hours of lobbying other councillors (taking people out for lunch to talk through the issue etc) and two of those votes were quid pro quo, so I will be expected to vote for one of their pet projects at a later date.

A lot of male sporting activities have been going for years, have established histories, and clear accounts, plus they usually have someone in board that understands council funding and usually someone on the board with a connection to the council. So their applications tend to come in complete, and pass easily. Again, they are "recognised" sports, so it is easier for councillors to understand what they are funding.

I do have to say, part of the problem is that there aren't enough females councillors in many areas, so different perspectives don't always exist. And where there are female councillors, they can often be restricted by party lines and cannot operate independently on issues. And there's way too much national politics at local level these days, and it just wastes time and focuses on stuff local councils cannot do anything about at the detriment to things we can actually change.

Around 13/14 we did just stop. I don't think it was because we wanted to look nice and non-sweaty for the boys (I wasn't interested in boys at that age).I think we just considered it childish. I remember thinking the boys were juvenile for running around playing all the time.We wanted to sit around and chat and have a laugh, and be more grown up.

This reflects a lot of my own experience. Girls do tend to enter puberty and want to feel grown up earlier than boys do, and for some reason many sports are seen as "playing". I don't think it's helpful to assume that developmental differences don't play a role in what's going on.
I also found getting my period at 12 made a difference, as I had a heavy flow sometimes and tampons weren't reliable, and also some significant cramping in the early teen years. It means that I wasn't keen to participate on certain days, especially anything like dance or swimming. But it wasn't really the thing to join any organised activity and then back out a week a month.
Then I also became much more heavily involved in some other types of activities.
All this stuff kind of came together to push me in another direction.

I think there's a lot of truth to what others have said about girls entering puberty earlier and abandoning physical activities they associate with childhood. Weightlifting has become very popular with young women thanks to Instagrammers, I think this could have a lot of appeal for young girls. You could argue it's catering to the male gaze (how to 'grow your butt' and lots of glamourous unrealistic shots in sportswear etc), but if it hooks them in does it really matter? Appealing to boys is going to be part of their focus at that age anyway, but the wonderful side effect of weightlifting is that no matter the reasons for starting, it raises self-esteem and makes one aware of the amazing ways a body can develop and push past limits, both psychological and physical.

I wanted to report that, on the back of this thread, I've put forward a brief to be discussed at council level about viewing our ward's playgrounds and green spaces through the lens of the Public Sector Equality Duty.

I've come up with an idea to be costed that could very well broaden green space appeal to girls, the disabled, and the elderly, and solve an ongoing anti-social behaviour issue.

This thread really caught my attention, and I've taken the action that is currently available to me.

Lets see how it goes.

What Arnold says above about girls simply stopping playing at a certain age, reminds me of my teenage years.

Going through the Wellcome Play exhibition made me think how much the school uniform interfered with some of the very active play. Eg, having to wear a full-skirted below-the-knee dress interfered with leap-frogging over obstacles.

A spontaneous pick-up netball game wasn't practical because of the same dresses/tunics.

I recently noticed that when I had to use a publicly-funded Outdoor Education Centre's boats not one of them was sized to fit me and were in danger of injuring me. I'm a small paddler, I'm not a small woman.

I would like us to stop attributing lack of participation as indicative of lack of interest. We don't spend public money on equipment that fits women, so women try something it, they can be more likely to injure themselves or perceive that they're not good at something. Sometimes, it really is the tool, not the person.

I'm a Guide Leader (don't shoot me) and our unit are very active and outdoorsy. One of the things that strikes me about the girls is how they almost get younger when they come to Guides. I think it's a combination of things - no boys, all female companions, uniform and the opportunity to do activities in a non judgemental environment. No one judges you on your abilities or appearance. Meanness is discouraged by the Leader and actually reinforced by the girls.
Girls do enjoy sports and activities - even the ones who probably don't at school, actually they probably enjoy it because they're not at school.
It's really heartening to see.

@Packingsoapandwater That's fantastic. Do let me know how you get on.

@ArranUpsideDown I agree. But what I'm also increasingly thinking is that girls feel excluded simply because nothing is built for them. The message from the whole infrastructure is that their voices don't count, they don't matter and they might as well go home.

I would like us to stop attributing lack of participation as indicative of lack of interest. We don't spend public money on equipment that fits women, so women try something it, they can be more likely to injure themselves or perceive that they're not good at something. Sometimes, it really is the tool, not the person.
That reminded me of something I heard many years ago (so may be different now).
Ski hire places usually only have men's boot to hire. Boots that fit women are wider in the calf (or such like) so the boots we rent are often very uncomfortable for women. I certainly found this. I was so happy to discover cross country skiing as it was like wearing slippers in comparison.