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.

This is such exciting research. I'm a secondary teacher and whilst covid rules are in place at break and lunch our students have to be outside. What has happened is the boys take over the allocated year group space and the girls hang out at the edges (or sneak in an hang out in the toilets because it's too cold to stand still). One day I told them to go climb the really awesome tree next to the boys' football pitch. First they said 'do what Miss?' a few tried and had a blast but then they (and I!) got told off because it's 'too dangerous' and 'unseemly' in their skirts (knee length so not short-short). We make the girls wear skirts by the way... they have to identify as trans to be allowed to wear trousers.
Sports kit for girls is a big barrier to sport as well on that note. They are harassed for wearing leggings - either being told (usually implicitly but not always) they are asking for it ('distracting') in tight clothing or getting snarky comments about the size of their bums/legs or the boys giving them not too subtle marks out of ten.

Can't you ban ball games during covid? (So while the smaller-than-usual year-group spaces apply). Presumably it's ball games i.e. football, that are causing / enabling the boys to take over the year-group space?

Isn't there an obvious safety issue there? Ball games in a too-small shared-use space presenting trip hazards to everyone else?

Fantastic work OP. You've identified a gap in our public facilities, and have taken concrete steps to address it. Future generations of girls will benefit from the work you've doing.

@lottiegarbanzo you can, but their Head of Year is an alpha male PE teacher and encourages them.

The timing of this thread is great, the parish council here are looking at replacing the old decrepit skate park with... a new skate park, a MUGA or outdoor gym equipment.

Hello again. Yes to all the school playground stuff; it is a real issue and I have found one amazing research paper which sets out the sexism in the way that these are managed. However, we are just going to focus on public space for now because it is a clear legal issue and, with a bit of luck, it will raise awareness elsewhere. And also because there are only two of us and we are already overwhelmed!

@lottiegarbanzo can you give me a link to their play strategy, either on here by DM. We love to collect these...

And yes, I completely agree about men's sport. My theory - for what it's worth - is that this is another example of the default male. Most of the women I know don't do 'sport' under the usual definition - team based, competitive, organised. But they all exercise: doing yoga and pilates and cycling and running and walking. But most campaigns want to make them do sport, as though we are broken men and need fixing, just like the girls who don';t want to skateboard.

@InflagranteDelicto If you could also tell me where you are, that would, be great. Can I recommend our research document:

makespaceforgirls.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/Make-Space-for-Girls-Summary-of-Research-findings-December-2020-web.pdf

The first draft of that got written when I was having the argument with our council. Details of my argument are in there too...

Two other things to say. One is that I wrote a blog post last week and posted it on twitter, and the response has been insane.

twitter.com/MakeSpaceforGi1/status/1367770350507986948

We had 50 followers on Monday, now we have over 550, and they are all the people we want to talk to, architects, planners and council people. We've had offers to chat with public bodies, it has been amazing, and it's all we can do to keep up. It feels as though we are very much pushing at an open door. Well except in the case of our local council...

The other is a brief thought about the health benefits of just going to the park. My brother is a journalist and has just written a book called The Miracle Pill, about how even basic levels of exercise have huge health benefits. This, it strikes me, is of particular importance for teenage girls. They don't have to take up football, or go for runs. Just walking to the park is much better for you than not walking to the park. He's going to write a blog about this for us, so will let you know when that is up.

And finally, thank you again for all the thank yous. It really does make a difference to know that we are not monomaniacs and that lots of other people believe in what we are doing.

This is so interesting and I'm writing this with the intention of coming back later. In our village an upgraded skate park has just been commissioned, I suspect with S106 money, very expensive, group of teen boys got together and drove the whole thing which was impressive but no one, me included to my shame, thought about it from a gender equality perspective.

My daughter joins in with the boys in riding bikes and scooters, she's 13 and the only girl in their year 8 group and most of the boys are supportive, but a few have been downright nasty and I'm not sure how much longer she'll continue to fight for her space in the group.

She is involved in a girls football team, which us fantastic and the local teams commitment to girls teams has really increased female participation locally. The FA female football drive seems to have been led by universities and although we're still driving quite a way for matches the number of girls teams has increased noticeably over the last 3 years. Dd tried rugby at school and enjoyed it, I looked for local girls teams and there was close to nothing.

Going to go away and think about what can be done locally for girls.

@makespaceforgirls I'm in bucks. It's a small town near Aylesbury and I expect a large amount of the extra money the parish council is receiving is HS2 bung money hs2 passes very very close by. My dds go to school in this parish, we live just outside but are equally blighted and have lost most of our countryside walks.

Funnily enough, I asked younger dd (13, often meets with her friend for "exercise", either up a tree in the park in our village or in the stream in her friends village) what she thought our park needed and she said a climbing frame for big kids. The village park here has a kiddy playground, basket ball net, outdoor gym, small skate ramp and tennis courts🤔

This thread seems highly related, especially the UN safe spaces campaign

Almost all young women in the UK have been sexually harrassed www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/4187958-Almost-all-young-women-in-the-UK-have-been-sexually-harrassed

Yes, thank you. There's such a cross-over between teenage boys hassling girls out of spaces and sexual harassment. In fact it's a Venn diagram which mostly overlaps. And why we should have to be designing their misogyny and entitlement out of the system I really don't know but here we are.

Op I'm going to email you today, I volunteer for an organization that would love to publish you on our website.

I’ve shared your research with a local fitness group which was originally for women only (aged 13-80.+) it does now have a male group. They recently bid for use of a council sports field for a variety of outside community sports use, (running track, cross fit, gym, kick boxing etc) but lost out to a football club.... we already have multiple football clubs in the town 🙄but apparently there’s still a shortage... oh the irony the female group has 300+ paid members!

I feel very lucky. There was a big campaign locally a few years ago and the main park was redesigned. Yes there’s a skate park... but there’s also a play park with equipment suitable for use by adults too - zip wires, many types of swing, a huge climbing thing. There’s also tennis and mini golf, and an excellent coffee shop which sells the tokens for golf. Plus the huge field.
It’s used by all age groups and although boys might dominate the skate park area, the mixture of other age groups means girls are not excluded.

When I was a teen, my friend group was mixed-sex, so we never really had this issue as we would all just go hang out at the parks together. I quite liked going to the skate park to eye-up the attractive older boys too.

In primary school, the girls used to join in playing dodgeball and bulldog with the boys, too.

I appreciate the need for it though, as clearly can't argue with the evidence. It's so far away from my experience though which made me initially think "wtf?"

Apology - This is somewhat off thread, but the Government survey on violence against women has been reopened if anyone missed the opportunity to complete it, and would like to now. Closes on 26th March

www.gov.uk/government/consultations/violence-against-women-and-girls-vawg-call-for-evidence

A very important thread at an important time.

Not off thread at all, each separate thing is part of the whole picture.

I'll update next week properly, but the response has been amazing - our emails are being answered by everyone, we're meeting all sorts of public bodies, being asked to speak to their meetings. We've got as far in three weeks as I thought we would in nine months.

Great news OP. Glad to see this fascinating thread near the top of the board.

So thrilled to hear about the progress you're making. Absolutely fantastic!

Great news

So pleased someone is doing this.

This is fascinating OP, and I must admit I haven't really thought much about it. Looking back, the sports spaces in the park near where I grew up was always dominated by boys and I never considered using them.

I live near a large park with a very popular playground at the bottom near the main road. The playground is huge with lots of different equipment, and people with children come from miles away to use it. Opposite the playground is a modest-sized skate park, which is also very popular. It does seem to be dominated by boys, but I have seen girls using it. I will make sure to have a proper look next time I am there. DH has taken DD to the skate park to practice on her scooter, and he says that the kids there are always encouraging and considerate. I don't know what it's like later in the evening once the children & parents in the playground have gone home. I know the lighting there is an issue, so I can't imagine girls feeling very safe there.

Lots of food for thought - thanks OP.