Teenage girls and public space/facilities : an update

[makespaceforgirls]

I posted a while back about how rubbish my local council's reaction was when I pointed out that all of their park facilities for teenagers where predominantly used by boys.

Things didn't get any better, so I did some research. And then I co-opted my feminist lawyer friend, and now we're a campaigning group, hoping to be a charity soon. So welcome to Make Space for Girls.

Our website is here, and that will also give you our Twitter. We're on Facebook too.

We'd hoped to launch ourself with a pilot project working with teenage girls, but COVID has put the brakes on that - schools have enough to think about right now as it is.

Even so, we've had an amazing reaction from everyone we've spoken to, and these range from academics to big public bodies to architects. And everyone both agrees and can't believes that the problem hasn't been noticed before now. Well, everyone except my local council. Who are now going to be quite embarrassed as they are about to be our case study of the town which spent £175k on equipment for boys, and nothing for girls.

We will keep you posted! And if anyone wants to know more, there is a contact form on the website, or DM me here.

Colours sounds good. Cheerful not macho. Also, perhaps have two walls, a small distance from each other, out of each other's line of sight?

If boys are genuinely interested in climbing (and they will be! In my favourite park, mixed sex groups, groups of girls and groups of boys played on the climbing wall that was part of a concrete play-fort), the group of boys will naturally gather around one for any muscle macho contest.

Which means they're out of range to intimidate girls off the other one, right?

But how would you get funding for two climbing walls?

Thank you everyone

If anyone is going to build a sodding skate park, it needs to be positioned so a medium sized group of teens (which 9/10 is mostly male with a couple of current girlfriends awkwardly hanging out on the fringes) don't have a vantage point over the rest of the area

@PotholeParadies. You are spot on here, and some of the guidance for how to build an inclusive skatepark says exactly this: construct smaller areas for the less confident to practice, don't give a commanding view. Otherwise women and girls are too intimidated even to begin.

@YetAnotherSpartacus Thanks for the link. The National Lottery and Comic Relief are people that we don't only want to get grants from, but also to get to change their grants culture. They both currently fund a lot of skateparks.

But how would you get funding for two climbing walls?

By pointing out that it's an equality issue and that until teenage boys stop being dicks, it's the best answer we have.

Also, someone posted this on our FB page and I think it is a great idea.

" Our local park has a weekday group where people volunteer and they do general maintenance jobs like clearing areas. They should do a weekend one purely for teenage girls. Girls like to socialize, many like a good cause, and eco stuff is popular. They wouldn't be alone and vulnerable as it would have a lead volunteer. it helps them feel a belonging and helping society. Includes fresh air and exercise in the park. They will meet like minded people who they could form a voice with."

Getting outside and being active doesn't have to mean sport. If we don't look at it from the point of view of the default male, there are many more possibilities. What else have we been missing?

Wow! Congratulations! I wish you every success.

I think that you do need to be careful about sightlines. They may allow boys to intimidate verbally but areas that are divided up to avoid this allow places for people to lurk who may well have more nefarious purposes. Girls are usually safer in areas where there are good sightlines throughout and from surrounding housing and streets.

I love the idea of using colours to discourage the macho boys - thinking about it why is it that playgrounds always have wooden forts rather than fairytale castles? I guess painting climbing walls and other equipment with stars and rainbows would discourage the macho boys (or would it encourage them to vandalise with graffiti to claim their territory?).

@makespaceforgirls you might also find this interesting - it is looking more generally at the inequalities of access to green space for some elements of the community but I think that they might well be open to taking your points on board.

localtrust.org.uk/big-local/events/towards-resilience-improving-access-to-green-spaces/

@Londonmummy66. Yes, completely agree about sightlines and all the good practice says this too. I have had another war with our council about random tree planting which they LOVE but never think about what the mature trees might do to sightlines.

And thanks also for the link, I will sign up. We've actually been talking to one of the panel members already so I think they may be receptive.

This sounds like a brilliant project. I teach at a girls secondary if you are ever in need of a focus group...

This is such an inspiring thread thank you

Such an inspiring thread.Please keep us in touch with developments OP.

@makespaceforgirls This is absolutely brilliant! We have a village playground with a bike track beside it, which is currently being terrorized by a bunch of teenage boys on electric bikes tearing up the surface.

I’ve got a couple of things to say to the OP. Firstly, regarding girls in competitive sport, my husband made a point to me last month. He coaches the local town’s girls cricket team, and was shocked to find out neither of the local secondary schools have a team sport for girls on their summer PE curriculum, while the boys do. Boys move from football and rugby in the winter to cricket in summer, while girls do dance, tennis and athletics. Competitive team sports are beneficial for both sexes, and if one sex is not even offered the opportunity for a whole term at school they have to be motivated to seek it outside of school.

Secondly, I’m very interested in your other interest - “In my other life I am working on a book about writing women back into the countryside.”

I have been chatting with friends a lot about this recently. I’m a horse rider, and many of the rural leisure bodies focus very much on providing routes and networks for cyclists apparently at the expense of horse riders. 75% of cyclists are male, 85% of horse riders are female. Recent surveys by Ordnance Survey, Forestry England and Sustrans have asked what they can do to get more people walking and cycling in the countryside, whilst completely neglecting to even mention horse riders, let alone make provision for them. It’s considered that these omissions are symptomatic of a greater misunderstanding of the way women want to use the countryside. Near where I live there are lots of lovely off-road byways and bridleways, which would be much safer and nicer for running on than the busy main road (which has no footpath) but I see a lot of women choosing to run by the side of the road. When I’ve asked them, they say it’s because they feel the risk of being struck by a car is lower than the risks they take running through the forest, although they are not able to articulate what exactly they think might happen to them in the forest. I don’t know if either of these points are things you’ve come across, but I’d be interested in what you think if you have.

Wishing you every success .. such a great idea.

@backinthebox as a runner, cyclist and ex-horse rider your post really struck home with me. Women do access the countryside in different ways. I see loads of female horse riders when I’m out on my bike, very few male riders. Unlike cycling which is very male dominated.

OP this is a marvellous initiative. A local councillor approached my women only cycling club to run some sessions for teenage girls in our village park as she was so sick of it being dominated by boys on the skate park to the detriment of the girls.

So many interesting questions raised by this discussion!

I'm also a horse rider, and was ruminating about the way that over the course of the past century, the gendered associations of competitive horse sports in general (outside of racing) have shifted from predominantly masculine to feminine, but also wondering to what extent factors such as the media presence of a sport might have an influence on gendered perception; for example, I'm wondering what relationship there might be between the greater TV presence of Showjumping in previous decades (as a very viewer-friendly sport easily appreciated by non-equestrians) might correlate with a greater prevalence of male riders (even Eventing is heavily female-dominated, which suggests that female risk avoidance isn't exactly the full picture! ;-) ). I'm sure someone has studied this, though!

Another question prompted by earlier posters: why is there so often a core assumption that whatever the (shifting, in the big picture) interests of male youths are, these should be the aspirational interests of female youths? "Girls can skateboard too!": of course, but is there an underlying assumption that skateboarding (being stereotypically a masculine interest) is inherently more worthwhile than gymnastics equipment (being stereotypically feminine)?

Given the inversion of gendered associations that can happen over time, e.g. as mentioned in equestrian sport, perhaps it's wise to keep in mind that fashions do change. I do think that girls as well as boys like doing things that they feel they can be successful at, and I really like some of the psychologically sophisticated design ideas mentioned by previous posters, for subliminally steering the attitude of the users of the various facilities.

Facinating thread and wonderful idea. Best of luck makespaceforgirls and I'd be another one interested in your book about the countryside

Hello, I am coming back to answer properly in a bit, but @PotholeParadies I have found our climbing wall. It's in the Olympic Park and is actually used as a route between two levels. I defy any group of boys to dominate this:

www.alamy.com/stock-photo/people-climbing-wall-queen-elizabeth-olympic-park.html

That's really interesting backinthebox. Where I live there's a real tension developing between people in our heavily used countryside (lockdown related) I often encounter women and girls on horses - who are usually cautious and careful as they navigate their way along sometimes crowded forest tracks, thanking people for putting dogs on leads etc. In contrast many of the predominantly male cyclists swerve their way through groups of people - sometimes with thanks but often with shouts of "mind your backs" etc. The dog walk becomes an interesting exercise in observing stereotypical sex based behaviour.

@persistentwoman I politely spoke to a bloke on one of our rural green lanes out for antisocial (and possibly illegal) behaviour the other day. I subsequently saw on our village FB page that he was accusing me of being threatening and intimidating, because I was on a horse. A bunch of other men had also piled on, agreeing with the original man that women on horses were intimidating. I commented in as dignified a way as I could that a young man who has been asked to moderate his speed and behaviour is not being intimidated by a middle aged woman with 2 children on ponies, but being asked by a woman to stop, and he doesn’t like that.

As a horse rider and walker I have often been subjected to the ‘mind your back’ yell from cyclists. I had assumed this was because cyclists are rude, but now I come to think of it, I’ve never had this from female cyclists, indeed I cannot recall seeing many female mountain bikers in all the time I’ve been out on my horse on well-used routes. And I have never come across a female motocross biker or 4x4-er, and these are some of the most entitled, damaging and aggressive users of our local byways.

Right, I'm back. Back, back, back in the immortal words of Smash Hits.

Firstly, I'm very happy to talk about the book and women in the countryside until the end of time, and other people have written good stuff about this, but don't want to derail this thread. So if you want to know more about the book, there's a new thread here for @backinthebox and @FlaviaAlbiaWantsLangClegBack and anyone else who is interested:

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/4182726-writing-women-back-into-the-countryside-a-book?watched=1

@ValancyRedfern We cannot have too many focus groups. Do you want to DM me, or use the contact form on the website. Someone mailed today and said they want to use our campaign for their International Women's Day work at school and I am beyond excited.

Another question prompted by earlier posters: why is there so often a core assumption that whatever the (shifting, in the big picture) interests of male youths are, these should be the aspirational interests of female youths? "Girls can skateboard too!": of course, but is there an underlying assumption that skateboarding (being stereotypically a masculine interest) is inherently more worthwhile than gymnastics equipment (being stereotypically feminine)?

@Trivium4all Yes, I think that is spot on. It's not the equipment which is wrong but the users. Girls are seen as inferior boys, who need to be fixed so that they can want to do boy things. Some of them do want to skateboard, but it's fine if they don't and let's build the climbing walls and gymnastics equipment too. And even just a safe place to walk.

The riding thing is interesting. From what we have seen so far, most of the focus at the moment is on urban green space, post-covid, and on barriers to access. Which means that riding tends to be ignored because it is both rural and expensive to take up. However, it's clearly important, as not only have two of you raised it on here, but someone else has also already emailed the website.

But on the bigger issues of women riding and intimidation and so on, this very much crosses over with what I am writing about in the book (which is very much spiritually linked to Make Space for Girls). Just as boys police girls' access to parks and equipment, men like to police women's access to the outdoors. There is a great Rachel Hewitt essay about this which I will dig out and link to. We don't acknowledge that we are afraid of men, but this is what governs so much of our behaviour: why women don't run on trails, or cycle on their own, or write books about walking out into the countryside.

The problem with a woman on a horse is that you can't bully them. That's what's intimidating. That's his problem.

I do cycle on my own, and walk, but one of the stories of the book is how I had to build up courage to do that.

It's a brilliant report, @makespaceforgirls Thank you so much for your eloquence and research!

Thank you! And also thanks for all the other thank yous. I am, as you may be able to tell, having gun.

Here is the Rachel Hewitt essay. I think you can register to read it for free.

www.economist.com/1843/2019/04/29/for-women-running-is-still-an-act-of-defiance

FUN.

Thanks for this. Really good initiative, really good duavussion here. Will follow on social media too.

*discussion haha

The accessibility of riding I think depends very much on where you are. For example, there's a riding school near me that specifically has programmes with local schools to enable kids from disadvantaged backgrounds to have lessons, and that has a formalised system to earn "lesson tokens" for helping at the yard. They also run a Pony Club branch targeted at children that don't have their own ponies. In general, this area is also comparatively cheap for livery prices. Many of the horse owners I know have decidedly ordinary jobs, e.g. cleaner, waitress, dog walker, receptionist. Compared to other countries I've lived, riding is far more accessible here, which I think is wonderful! There are very few boys/men, although I do know some.

I have to say I've not usually been worried about walking anywhere alone, as a child or an adult. If I weren't too lazy to run, I would happily run alone on forest trails. But on horseback, I do worry about the scrambler bikes, which appear to be ridden exclusively by teenage boys/young men. I have yet to meet one that is not inconsiderate and entitled, and I keep my eyes open for escape routes if I hear one. We had a big problem near the riding school with boys on scrambler bikes deliberately scaring horses, and actually targeting groups of ponies on lead reins with small children on them! There's always signs up in the forests, asking people to call the police if we see people on scrambler bikes or ATVs.

From childhood, I do recall the schoolyard being taken over by the boys playing football, and making it clear that girls weren't welcome in the game. The wooden fort/castle thing on the playground was used by girls and boys, but sometimes, groups of older boys would take over, scare the younger kids away, and leave cans and other litter all over the place. Nothing was done by any adults, that I recall.

There was one incident, however, when boys from our class built a treehouse and wouldn't let the girls in it...the girls' response was to build a lean-to at the base of the tree, and refuse to let the boys back down. They didn't like that. This siege lasted a while (but then we had to go home for lunch).

Just wanted to add my wholehearted support for your Initiative.
You might be interested in the way girls play and use space in single sex schools where the boys are not an issue.
I’ve recently been pleased to see that the 12-14 year olds have started up a football game at lunchtime (or had before lockdown). After all there are no boys to tell them they are not allowed!
Good luck.