Around 860,000 girls play fewer team sports than boys in England, more than the combined capacity of all 20 Premier League football stadiums, according to a recent survey by the charity Women in Sport. It found that 22% fewer girls than boys participate in team sports, with 61% of teenage girls reporting that they feel judged when participating. Worryingly, 38% of teenage girls said they did not feel safe exercising outdoors. That needs to change so that the benefits of sport can be felt by all, so what’s missing?
The missing years – when do girls hang up their boots?
Over 40% of girls who were previously active in elementary school said they turned away from sport when they went to secondary school. The link between exercise and mental and physical well-being has been known for years, but the benefits of exercise extend to the workplace as well. A remarkable 94% of women executives exercise regularly and it is known to help focus and improve academic performance. Even if you don’t become a top athlete, sport can change your life.
Body awareness during puberty and fear of sexualization, as well as sometimes unconscious coaches’ prejudices against female athletes, can be deterrents. Comments about running, throwing, or kicking “like a girl” are still common and can lead an otherwise motivated would-be athlete to decide to give up their sport. Advances in women’s sport, such as blue shorts for the England soccer team to reduce the risk of a player seeing her period on the old white shorts, are rightly praised. However, this alone is not enough and there is still a long way to go.
The missed opportunity – why is the women’s sports market only now being noticed?
It’s also a missed business opportunity. Studies have found that women spend around 21% more on their hobbies than men, and that women sports fans are 25% more likely than men to purchase sponsored products. Logically, in addition to the moral view of increasing women’s participation in sport, sport funding should be much more focused on women.
Unfortunately, this is not the case yet. It is estimated that if an athlete ran a marathon with an ill-fitting bra, they could effectively end up finishing the race at the point when they would have run 27 miles in a fitting bra (effectively one mile slower). The Tokyo Olympics marked the first time Team GB offered fitted bras for female athletes. This happened in 2021.
In the 1990s, male footballers began to be paid to wear specific football boots; In the 2000s, they received bespoke football boots reflecting their style, such as pace or passing distance. The 2010s saw a real boom in football boots named after star players like Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi. Yet in 2023 between 25 and 30 women missed the World Cup due to anterior cruciate ligament injuries, including key England players Leah Williamson and Beth Mead. The ACL Women’s Football Club estimates that 195 elite women players suffered the injury in the last year. Women are 2.5 to 3.5 times more likely to suffer a knee ligament injury than male athletes (some commentators even put the number closer to 4.5 times).
Missing the essentials – how must sport be redesigned for women?
One reason for the high prevalence of this injury is the boots. Until recently, football boots were only designed for male feet, without taking into account the different body shapes and biomechanics of female athletes. Some argue that men are more likely to have more contact with the grass when jumping, landing, or sprinting, which means they need boots with more grip. There is debate as to whether females actually need an easier connection with the grass, and that the longer lugs or stalks may actually put greater strain on females as they maintain contact with the ground longer.
Women are also twice as likely to have a concussion as men, but are less likely to be diagnosed because women experience more sub-concussions (one-fourth the severity but 500 times more likely). To understand this and to protect women in contact sports, technology needs to evolve.
In addition, more comprehensive research is needed on the most efficient training method at different points in the menstrual cycle. Women shouldn’t be expected to train 100% on days with particularly high blood flow. There are sad cases where female athletes exert themselves so much through an intensive training program that their menstrual cycle starts too late or is interrupted. British middle-distance runner Bobby Clay didn’t have a period until she was 20. As a young athlete, she also developed osteoporosis after exercising too much and eating too little.
A missing link – can the law provide clues to change it?
Gender and maternity/pregnancy are protected characteristics under the Equality Act 2010 and as such a number of legal rights can arise in relation to abuse of women in sport, including:
- Direct discrimination – sexist comments or negative treatment by teammates, coaches, staff or even third parties such as the audience based on the complainant’s gender or because she is pregnant.
- Indirect discrimination – when a provision, criterion or practice (e.g. a team’s decision to have only one stall in the dressing room and more urinals, even though these are used by both men and women) is applied to everyone , those with a protected characteristic at a discrimination makes disadvantage compared to those without this protected characteristic.
- Harassment – unwelcome conduct related to a person’s gender or maternity and/or a sexual advance (including social media messages) that has the purpose or effect of violating a person’s dignity or of a hostile, degrading, demeaning or Creating an offensive environment would amount to unlawful harassment.
- Victimization – If a player suffers disadvantage (for example, not being nominated for a game) as a result of making an allegation of discrimination, this would amount to victimization.
Claims for vicarious agent liability can be asserted against the association where the discriminatory act took place if this occurs within the scope of the complainant’s employment relationship.
However, it is important to note that while this could benefit athletes who are employed by a club, such as footballers or rugby players, but this does not apply to those who are typically self-employed athletes training for and participating in a national sports federation (including athletics and field athletes) – as recently demonstrated in the cases of British high jumper Laura Zialor, who unsuccessfully claimed payment for her medical treatment after suffering an injury, and British cyclist Jess Varnish, who failed to prove employee status in her discrimination claim against British Cycling.
Successful discrimination claims can result in unlimited damages and potential claims for personal injury depending on the impact on the individual’s physical or mental health. However, given the relatively short playing careers of most sports stars, the challenge of continuing to play after filing a lawsuit can discourage most players from turning to an employment tribunal and avoiding discriminatory behavior in sport, at least in the first place, contribute significantly to changing perceptions at.
Mission statement – what can we do to create a level playing field?
The sport needs to change and achievements like the England women’s football team’s victory at the European Championships, the Women’s Six Nations where Twickenham hosted their first standalone women’s game and the fight between Savannah Marshall and Claressa Shields which sold out the O2 Arena, raise the profile of women’s sports. The football video game from EA Sports (formerly known as “FIFA” but now called “EA Sports FC”) now includes women’s teams in the main game, further increasing the prominence of the women players. Sport England conducted a survey that found 100,000 girls now play football regularly than five years ago and England Football saw bookings for football training by women and girls increase by 196% after Euro 2022.
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