Fact: fewer women & girls are taking part in sport & fitness than men & boys. Clearly something isn’t right either in terms of the opportunities available, the way they are promoted or the message portrayed about sport & fitness in the media. Or perhaps it’s a combination of all three.
In the news this weekend, Tory MP Helen Grant spoke out about girls taking up more ‘feminine’ sports like cheerleading or rounders to keep them interested in sport. She talked about how girls don’t want to get sweaty in P.E. but if they take up ballet or gymnastics they can still look radiant and feel girly at the same time.
Her comments were heavily criticised in the media, which is a shame because I really don’t think she meant it in a negative way. She isn’t saying that all girls should do only ‘girly’ sports – she’s merely saying that those that don’t take part because they don’t like the image of traditional team sports like football or hockey should be offered an alternative. I completely agree.
The problem: some women & girls do not like traditional sports or activities like the gym, they don’t like the idea of participating in mixed gender activities and/or they are not especially competitive and this has resulted in 1.8 million fewer women being engaged in physical activity in the UK compared to men.
The solution (short term): offer more varied activities and not just traditional sports; offer female-only activities (and male-only activities too of course); make them as competitive as the participants want them to be (maybe they want to compete against each other because they feel comfortable in their own environment but perhaps they don’t want to compete against other groups); and make them beginner-friendly because beginners are the people who need the service we are offering.
The solution (long term): change the way we think about sport & fitness. Let’s change the way the media portray traditional sports like football, rugby & cricket so they aren’t considered masculine. Let’s promote more female participation – only 5% of media coverage promotes women’s sport. Female sporting role models are not on the back pages of newspapers and very rarely feature on billboards or TV commercials like their male equivalents – only 0.5% of commercial sponsorship is spent on women’s sport – so there are fewer opportunities for women and girls to be inspired to take part. And finally let’s make it ‘cool’ to be active. Let’s get the latest pop bands talking about how they like to keep fit, let’s get children’s TV characters talking more about being active and healthy and let’s get children excited about running around in the playground or in the garden rather than playing on computer games.
There’s a lot to be done but I think with organisations such as the Women’s Sport and Fitness Foundation backing this cause we can definitely make progress and I definitely want to be involved!