Playing sport at school, especially if you’re good at it, can be a brilliant escape from the drudgery of academia. But to be a girl who is interested in sport, it turns out, is less of a teamwork-building break from the classroom and more of a battle. According to Girlguiding, which is about to launch a campaign to make more school sports available to girls, only 43% of schoolgirls are offered the same sporting options as boys. Rugby, football and cricket tend only to be offered to boys, while girls tend to get dance, gymnastics and netball.
Being one of just three girls to take PE as a Scottish Standard Grade (GCSE) in my school year meant that, even if I did want to play football, there were never enough girls to make up a team. And playing with the boys? Well, it simply wasn’t allowed. Even if I had forced my way on to the pitch, I doubt the ball would have been passed to me.
There is a lot of work to be done in changing the perception of certain “masculine” sports such as football and rugby. We need to make sure girls feel able to pursue what they are interested in, without being made fun of for doing so and without teachers just assuming a lack of interest. In particular, teachers need to support girls to carry on with sports beyond the age of 14, which is when girls start to drop out of sports at one-and-a-half times the rate boys do.
All sports would benefit from being less gendered. I loved the grace and elegance of dance and gymnastics when I did it in PE, but always felt a faint pang of jealousy watching the boys trudging in from 30 minutes of muddy glory on the pitch, while we suffered carpet burns from doing forward rolls on ripped-up old mats. I imagine some of the boys would probably have much preferred to have been indoors with us, too.
The good news is that women’s football has seen a significant injection of cash ahead of the Women’s World Cup in Paris this June. England might win – which would be fantastic – and Barclays’ sponsorship of the Women’s Super League will see money go back to the grassroots women’s game. Just imagine what these girls will be capable of in a few years’ time.
