Teenage girls being ‘pushed out’ of sport, survey finds

[JoyousAsOtters]

www.theguardian.com/education/2022/mar/07/uk-girls-lose-interest-in-sport-as-teenagers-women-in-sport-survey?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

I know some of you don’t want to give the Guardian clicks, but this is an important issue and I think it’s highly relevant to the questions we discuss on this board.

For example,

‘The study, by Women in Sport, found that a fear of being judged and a lack of confidence were the main reasons cited for a waning interest in sport among teenage girls. Its poll of more than 4,000 teenagers found that 43% of girls felt they were sporty at primary pupils but no longer saw themselves this way. This would equate to 1.3 million girls across the UK, the survey pointed out.

Out of these girls, 68% said that a fear of feeling judged prevented them from taking part, while 61% said they lacked confidence. Just under half (47%) said they were too busy with school work to carry on with sport.

And teenage girls were much more likely to say they used to be sporty but were no longer keen on exercise than boys (24%). A report on the findings concluded that girls may need more support to engage with sport as they go through puberty.

Nearly eight in 10 (78%) of girls who said they used to be sporty admitted they avoided taking part in sport when on their period – higher than those who had never been sporty (69%) and those who were still passionately involved in sport (64%).’

This was an issue for me and it was largely about periods. I had very heavy periods and it took some years before I learned to manage them well, and I also had bad cramping. Though I figured out early on that physical activity would resolve the cramping if I pushed through it so I used to go on power walks during lunch if that was an issue.

Looking back, for me a big help would have simply been that I would have been able to sit out on the few days that I had quite heavy bleeding. These days period underpants might have helped a lot but they weren't available and even now they are quite expensive an outlay. Tampons with pads would have been better too but I wasn't able to wear them until after I had kids.

But there was a real narrative around the idea that girls needing to sit out was some kind of old fashioned myth, and it made me feel like I was doing something wrong because I couldn't manage things.I'd have been happy to do walking or something too rather than just sitting out a lot of the time.

My DD is in some ways the opposite way round. She was never 'sporty' as such as a little kid(small, not a fast runner, not particularly well coordinated) - same as me. So - she never had any competitive pressure, but her schools (private junior, girls' grammar) were pretty good at getting the balance between fun inclusive school PE vs competitive team sports for those who had the talent and inclination.
But we were able to do activities she enjoyed as a family - hill walking and watersports mainly. She didn't have time for sports at uni (though obviously walking and cycling as transport) but now she's got into some watersports again, plus walking for leisure.

How any of this translates... families doing activities which girls enjoy, schools doing more for fun and not excessive focus on team sports?

Yeah, I think more things like hiking etc would be really good. Team sports do have some nice elements but one thing about them is a lot of people don't carry on with them once they finish school.

My eldest daughter who is 16 has yoga as an option at her school for physical education, which seems like a great option. And my youngest's school does a lot of outdoor stuff like snowshoeing.

My teenage daughter has played rugby since she was 4, she played on a mixed team until the end of year 6 and then moved to a girls team and has since changed clubs to one with a much bigger girls team. As there are low levels of participation in the sport, her team have to travel a lot to play and often will turn up expecting a match and the opposition have 7 or 8 players.
It's getting to the stage where we will have to travel further to get a decent game and because very few schools run girls rugby then it isn't seen as a cool sport to play. Rachel Burford is doing some great work on increasing the visibility of girls and women's rugby.

She also plays roller derby and there are even fewer teams around, we regularly travelled hours for scrims pre covid.

Her school does offer gym and just dance for PE, she is in the group that isn't doing GCSE or BTEC PE so they don't push them to do sport.

@MrsPnut My DD is currently the only girl in the whole Minis section of her Rugby club. (U8-U11s). Shes only in U9s so a few years off the girls section. Her club had a mini tournament with two other clubs and each club had one girl...

I have an issue with the GCSE PE curriculum. Whilst the theory side covers lots of stuff that would be relevant to anyone interested in exercise and fitness, the practical assessment requires pupils to participate in 3 different competitive sports which effectively excludes any child who doesn't participate in at least one team sport out of school. The list of approved sports excludes quite a lot of fairly popular activities too. I get the impression that it has been chosen to make assessment easy rather than actually encourage participation.
Take my DS for example. He does 2 sports competitively out of school to a reasonably high standard. He is also a fairly competent sailor and kayaker as we do watersports as a family. But he doesn't compete, so neither of them "count" as far as GCSE PE is concerned. As it happens, the requirement has been reduced to 2 this year because of Covid so he is ok, but otherwise he would have had to take up something else competitive transiently to meet the requirements. How silly, when he already has skills in and enjoys other sports.
I know several girls who have not taken PE for this reason - girls who are skilled skiers, have cycled coast to coast or run long distances etc are excluded from a subject that they are interested in because they do the "wrong" sports, or at least do their sports in what is perceived as the "wrong" way.
The current requirement is 3 competitive sports, one team, one individual and one of either. If I was in charge I would change that to make at least one of the sports non competitive so that even the uber competitive kids had to learn more about the benefits of sport and exercise in a non competitive context.
I'm not anti competition, or anti team sports - done well they have a huge amount to offer. But sport and exercise is not all about competing with others and unfortunately the school curriculum seems to perpetuate the idea that it is. That isn't good for either sex, but it hurts girls disproportionately.

@Aroundtheworldin80moves DD was the only girl on her team for most of the time in minis.
Our club though does allow the mini girls to come to train with U13's from U10 upwards during the week, we have about 5 U10 or U11's come along but we have managed to attract 11 U15 players this season and quite a few U13's too.

Girls rugby really is one of those sports that you can come along to as a teenager and learn the game. If you can run, throw and catch then you are halfway there.

I think what could improve is the notion that you have to be good at sport to participate. That’s where you lose girls (and indeed boys) - when the only option is team sports and you are crap at them. PE and Games should definitely set. It is soul-destroying equally for the clodhoppers and the talented to have to play together.

I was awful at sport (genuinely disastrous - totally uncoordinated) but enjoyed walking, or aerobics-type stuff. What happened to the Ladies League of Health & Beauty?! It should make a comeback!

Times have not changed since I was at school - in fact I would say it’s actually worse now as dd can easily get out of Games whereas we were forced to play; no excuses tolerated….

Yet another survey about the blindingly obvious thing that we already knew about.
Who commissions these surveys?
Couldn't they find someone who knows how to analyse existing data and design a project that would look at outcomes from different strategies to improve things?
Nothing is going to improve with the added stress of being forced to compete, shower and change with men and boys though.
This particular issue will be steadfastly ignored though, so I can't really see the point.

I think what could improve is the notion that you have to be good at sport to participate

This

There's no real emphasis on enjoying the fresh air or exercise or being part of a team. Kids that aren't great aren't picked and feel rubbish, and girls have so many other barriers on top with periods, needing sports bras etc etc. It would be great if doing sport for the fun of it could be the main goal, and that would foster confidence which would drive more young women to continue in sport.

Caroline Criado Perez talks about the lack of data gathering when it comes to women in sport in her newsletter today : newsletter.carolinecriadoperez.com/issues/invisible-women-has-anyone-informed-jordan-peterson-1062424

She says: 59-77% of papers studied only men versus 0-8% that studied only women. Only 34% of studies included “at least one woman,” which is much lower than the figure found in the 2016 review despite the bar of “one woman” being laughably low.

And of those that included women, most didn't disaggregate the data.

And: Meanwhile, “99.5% of studies including female participants involved an inadequate methodological design around the categorisation and standardisation of menstrual status,” with** only 14% of studies including women bothering to even try.

Bloody hopeless

It seems such a collective thing. Dd was at state secondary and refused to show any sporting aptitude at all despite being very good at sport. Embarrassment, kudos etc. She then changed to an independent school which puts a heavy emphasis on PE, ie try your best and oodles of encouragement. Lo and behold she loves it. Has great skills in football according to the teacher despite never having played.

Girls need a lot of encouragement from school, especially if they aren’t getting it at home. Dd was never a ‘tomboy’ so wouldn’t play football with the boys for example. The primary school never got girls involved in football, which is so wrong. By secondary as team skills haven’t been honed in the girls, they lose interest completely and couldn’t give a fig about hockey, netball etc.

Has been a common issue for over a decade.

Likewise the common issue, addressed with a lot of expensive input from Local Authorities, that women from minority groups, cultures, faiths, disabilities, also encounter more barriers to leaving their home, having equal access to community resources, and particularly accessing sport and leisure for health and fitness.

About fifteen years ago now I sat in meetings where local and national government targets and actions saw the funding and setting up of women only swimming sessions for example, as this was the only means by which those women could access swimming. And by women, everyone meant 'female' and knew this meant 'female only' for accessibility.

But this was before male people wanted those resources and sharp elbowed their way in front of those women, and government and other groups were stupid enough to believe that it was ok to exclude these females again if it made those male people happier.

So it had nothing to do with an actual value of 'inclusion', or any real understanding of female needs and barriers, or any real care of equality. No ethics. It was merely about mindlessly chasing the next currently fashionable target on the action plans.

What the TQ+ lobby don't realise is that this means that the fashion will move on, and they will become as old hat as female need has become when the next Thing comes along. And there won't be anything they can do about it, because hurling aside the values that would protect them and everyone - such as real inclusion, real accessibility and equality - was a big part of their campaign. They have worked very hard to devalue and disempower those concepts for others.

Changing cubicles in PE changing rooms at school.
I wonder whether the 'go in wearing PE kit' due to covid will have accidentally led to more girls continuing to participate?

I also agree re non-competitive fitness activities.

I write to my DD's secondary after lockdown as they were making the dc do PE in their school uniforms rather than get changed. Teenage girls in white shirts and kilts.

It was absolutely ridiculous, especially after a year of no PE whatsoever. If they liked sport before that they definitely didn't afterwards.

Thing is the boys always had communal changing rooms too.

Which weren't the best but we got on with it despite the awkwardness amd discomfort of puberty. Until of course kids started to be bombarded with the idea that puberty was optional..a.disease you can treat. And that there's something wrong with you if it didnt make you practically suicidal.

I mean now at least the girls can wear joggers akd sports leggings rather than the skort or shorts.

I grew up in the pe knickers era at primary and we had to wear cycling shirts with a netball skirt in secondary. No jumpers either. Unlike the boys who git to wear the rugby tops.

This is one of the major pros of my daughters all girls school.
Sport is big and the school has attracted some really high quality coaches (professional sports people themselves, playing for GB etc) it’s going to be amazing for my youngest in particular.

I think what could improve is the notion that you have to be good at sport to participate

Yes... I guess part of the problem is PE teachers tend to be good at sports and may not understand the applicability of the adage "if a thing is worth doing, it's worth doing badly".

www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-60646352

BBC have it on their website as well.

I wonder whether the 'go in wearing PE kit' due to covid will have accidentally led to more girls continuing to participate?

DD2 was very reluctant to stop going in with PE kit on - she's Y8 so spent all of year 7 going in PE kits. The school were threatening crack downs on PE kit even just bottoms and only way I could get DD2 to stop was with thermal leggins under uniform - which also worked for the cold school then later a thermal top. I've no idea what will happen come summer when it will be harder to wear such items.

DD1 was badly hurt with a mixed PE lesson they suddenly started doing - it mortified both her and boy involved. I think before that they'd manage to keep her already limited interest after that she really hated the lessons.

I do agreee though there's little new and no real surprises.

Yes... I guess part of the problem is PE teachers tend to be good at sports and may not understand the applicability of the adage "if a thing is worth doing, it's worth doing badly"

DS and DD1 were seperated into ablity groups - and they were quite good at offering a range of sports/activities unfortunately that quickly went when that head left - so DD2 never had that. With DD2 they keep saying she needs to improved her confidence in PE with no suggestions as to how - being constantly pitted against better players probably isn't helping.

My daughter was a keen footballer and played for a club and trialed at county level. She left becuase she was bullied out for being gay. the irony is that her bullies later came out themselves.

We've bought tickets to watch England play at Old Trafford and really enjoy women's sports. The 100 series women's teams was far more exciting than the mens. I hope the greater exposure will promote investment in women's sport.

The issue with competition being a disincentive is a problem. I suggest mixing up the teams and not selecting them base on ability because teamwork is a great lesson to learn, even if you are not successful

My dd enjoys sports, and when she gets into it, she can be really competitive. Shes complained several times though that when at school, when playing basketball etc, she often gets comments like omg no need to play so aggressively, when shes just playing to win and focused. She says the boys play far more 'aggressively' than she does and thats completely normal.

It wouldnt surprise me if this is one reason girls get put off. How do you even get anywhere or find what you like if the others are socialised to be kind and girly even in sports matches

Girls also don’t follow the same sports trajectory as boys - boys will (barring injury or some other setback) improve in a linear way - a boy at 17 will be stronger and faster than at 12. But for girls often girls are very good young, then struggle in puberty. The old saying used to be “BBB” (bum, boobs, boys) pushed girls out of sports (a disgusting saying) and because training techniques are developed on men and boys the particular developmental needs of girls aren’t taken into account. Girls who were winning at 12 get very discouraged at 16 when they’re now losing to 12 year olds and then often develop ED as they try to compensate. And a lot of coaches can’t stand when obedient little girls start developing personalities as teenagers and see that as “attitude.”

There need to be real studies of how to train girls, not just “do the same thing as men, just slower/lighter.” We have no idea if maybe girls would respond to totally different training techniques as bodies develop.

And girls need to be allowed to wear whatever makes them comfortable. Tons of girls don’t want to wear a swimsuit or tight shorts in public. And then there’s all the fuss with shaving etc. and being terrified of smelling or inadvertently showing pubic hair - girls should be allowed to wear whatever they can safely move in.

When DD1 was at primary she did something called 'multi-skills' for a while which was actually teaching skills like how to run, how to catch a ball etc. It really helped her get from awful to just bad! (Turned out later to have dyspraxia.)

As another poster said - if only those who are good at sport (or in affluent private schools) have avenues to take part, is it any wonder kids can be reluctant?

Even in a city the sports options for kids can be limited, if they just want to play for fun or try something new.
Fine when dd was younger but by 9 if she wanted to start gymnastics or dance or tennis she'd either be turned away or in a class with 4 yr olds.

Rugby she enjoyed up to 7 but there were no girls only clubs and playing mixed with boys much bigger than her who had no interest in passing to the minority girls wasn't much fun.

No girls football teams to try anywhere near.
No cricket anywhere near at weekends or evenings.

Everything is either super competitive or difficult logistically for working parents.