In search of the reach of women’s sports: Looking backwards and forwards across the UK

– Sarah Oxford –

Modern sport, meaning the team-organised variety with “a set of strict, precise rules which needed to be respected everywhere in the same way, in spite of local conditions and features”, appeared in 19^th Century England as a way to organise the masses during the transition to industrialisation and democracy (Bouzou, 89). Sport in the British colonies ensued and as such historians have argued that “sporting practices are historically produced, socially constructed, and culturally defined to serve the interests and needs of powerful groups in society (Bandya et al., 3).”

Since inception sport and the cash-cow elements of professional sport have been male-centric; however, because sport reaches all levels of society as a leisure activity, it naturally created (although grudgingly) a pathway to challenge gender norms. Oddly, it appears that due to modern circumstances, breakthroughs in gender stereotypes via sport happened less in the UK than in the USA.

The biggest surprise I’ve encountered as an American living in UK is the inherent sexism within sports. Besides Jessica Ennis, I rarely see women athletes in the media. Moreover, the idea of me as a footballer (regardless of awards or capability) is repeatedly questioned as if preposterous.  My own co-ed football team (note: I was the only girl this year) even fit the bill offering perverse ‘compliments’ such as you’re good for a girl and Sarah’s basically a guy.

Peace Studies FC

The backwards comments are disturbing, yet logical considering their role-models, such as Sir Bobby Charlton, are making similar delusional remarks. In reference to the British women’s football team, he said:

I have been watching women’s games on television and I have had to remind myself I am not watching the men. And I mean that as a compliment…

I need to do further research on feminist movements in Britain as I’m unclear what happened to allow this far-reaching male chauvinism in sport to exist in 2012. It’s especially ponderous because much theoretical debate about women and sport took place in GB and the First World Conference on Women and Sport took place in Brighton in 1994. More puzzling is that GB’s role in development and peace that I have seen here in East Africa includes top-down funding to socially inclusive sports programs. Fascinating hypocrisy?

This response to my first question, leads me ask:

Why did the USA move towards sports equity faster than the UK? Are there comparable laws like Title IX in other countries? Why is women’s football in USA, Japan, Germany and Brazil more advanced than other nations? Where is the impetus in the UK to fund women’s athletics in LMIC’s coming from? What is the importance of top-down legislation compared to grassroots efforts when it comes to developing a culture of acceptance and equality in sport? Does inclusion of women in sport create pathways for increased female participation in education, business, government? And if so, does social inclusion in sport lead to a more peaceful society?

Works Cited

Bouzou, Joel (2010): Peace Through Sport: When Myth Becomes Reality. Armand Colin/ IRIS, Paris.

Susan J. Bandya, Gigliola Gorib & Dong Jinxiac (2012): From Women and Sport to Gender and Sport: Transnational, Transdisciplinary, and Intersectional Perspectives, The International Journal of the History of Sport, 29:5, 667-674

The Ripple Effect

– Sarah Oxford – 

I can’t tell you how many times on the playground as a kid I heard a boy defame another by saying “you throw like a girl”. As a super-athletic girl, it baffled me. When I thought about it, it never made sense: I am a girl and I’m good at sports. I often beat boys at sports. So why wouldn’t he want to throw like me? Where is the link between my private parts and anyone else’s throwing skills?

Gender discrimination in sport is something every female athlete must face from novice to professional irrespective of nationality. As most female athletes know, when confronting sexism of this nature it’s empowering, uncomfortable and exhausting.

Swish!

To be blunt and elementary, sexism is stupid. It belittles the individual and then society-at-large by discouraging and thus not maximising on 50% of a populations potential. In sport it’s in all levels, but most destructive is structural sexism which deters the creation of youth programs, obstructs professional women’s athletic endorsements and therefore largely reduces the existence of female role-models.

Luckily for me, as mentioned here, I’m a Title IX girl. So even though many of the boys on my playground repeated jeers learned from their adult mentors in attempts to disparage my athletic career and boost their insecure egos, I had a message from the top-down that I could succeed. And with leaders like Secretary of State Hillary Clinton promoting sports as a vehicle for female empowerment abroad, that message keeps getting stronger all over the world.

A recent Washington Post article revealed that at the 2012 London Olympics the US Women won “two-thirds of the U.S. team’s golds and nearly 60 percent of the overall medals.” Judo, boxing and football (soccer) are only a few of the internationally male-dominated sports of which the US team dominated at the olympics, disproving stereotypes of frailty liken to femininity. (The next sentence is to be read in haut-voice.) “If the U.S. women were their own nation, they would have finished third in the gold medal table with 29 medals.” That’s beating the US men (15), China (17), and Great Britain (16).

Expanding upon the above numbers, The Huffington Post published an article discussing the imagined potential of societies where women’s rights and opportunities expand to every “sector of society, government and business.”

The World Economic Forum has found that those countries where women and men are closer to enjoying equal rights are far more economically competitive than those where women have little or no access to medical care, education, elected office and the marketplace. Imagine the progress we could make in economic and technological development, in global health, in democratic governance, if the potential of women in each of these fields could be finally and fully unleashed.

Supporters of women’s sports and female athletes are rejoicing at this monumental victory in women’s athletics and expect a ripple effect throughout the world. But exactly where does this ripple go and for how long? Where should the line of expectation be drawn?

To be continued…

 

Girls on the bottom- How do we break the cycle?

– Sarah Oxford –

I’ve observed girls sports programs throughout East Africa for a couple months now. And although evidence is mostly anecdotal, I wholeheartedly believe that these programs make a big difference in girl’s lives.

Research concerning girls and the impact of sports hasn’t been conducted to the extent needed. What has been done is research in Western nations that can be used as insight to the importance and benefit in the lives of adolescent girls there, and thus as a motivator for more research to be done in places with budding youth sport programs like East Africa.

In 1997 The Presidents Council on Physical Fitness and Sports researched and documented a positive correlation between girls and regular participation in sports. The report stated that these girls “tended to do better academically and have lower school drop-out rates” and “showed reduced symptoms of stress and depression…”A follow-up report revealed that female athletes in the United States “tend to become sexually active later in life, have fewer sexual partners, and, when sexually active, make greater use of contraception than their non-athletic counterparts.” (MYSA, Letting Girls Play, 2002).

Let’s not assume that there is a direct correlation between athletes across the globe, as people face various challenges in studies of this nature, but let’s also not ignore what sports can give a child.

A typical child raised in a slum is born into a world of disadvantages. Her health, sanitation, and nutrition will not be of standard. She will be less likely to attend school and more likely to be introduced to violence and sexual promiscuity. It’s the brutal cycle of poverty.

Mathare Slum, Nairobi, Kenya

However, give her an organized sports team and many of those ailments can be alleviated. She can face challenge without dire consequence (decision making on the pitch), she can form a family away from home, and she will partake in exercise that benefits her health. Now couple her team’s practices with an educational curriculum that uses an interactive educational methodology to teach about Aids prevention, puberty, sexual relations and conflict resolution. On top of that she is given a free number to call for any reason (most often domestic or gender based violence) and told she has free access to lawyers. Being a part of a program of this nature definitely beats idleness or remaining in an unsafe environment all day. The cost to her is nothing, the gain, everything.

MYSA U-13 Football Champions

I’m not saying this team won’t make up for child-abuse, because nothing can replace a loving and providing parent. No it doesn’t make up for rape and it won’t give her dinner money that she can find by partaking in forced prostitution.

But it will give her the opportunity to see that there is more to life than the world she knew before joining the team and more importantly it will provide her with the skills needed to move away from—or improve—her world.