Getting girls into sports where you can be pretty?

Not having to worry about boys sniggering was at least one of the advantages of attending an all-girls' school! The knickers thing was bad, though. At least for hockey we had to wear hockey shorts.

Oh God! School sports, how I loathed them.

I wasn't built for speed in those days, being very well developed for my age, but added to that our sports/PE kit was simply our brown school knickers which we accessed by just removing our skirts.

The school was co-ed and all the boys would be learing out of the windows at us in our knickers.

The embarrassment was terrible. After all, you wouldn't normally let a boy see your underwear (in those days).

In the light of this reported comment concerning prettiness, I wonder about the only sport I was really good at – fencing.

I really enjoyed sport at school - it was a chance to be outside and it gave me a feeling of freedom. Hated the sports hall though. Too small and smelly.
Every now and then I have happy-running-dreams in which I effortlessly run long-distance through the countryside.

Now I just walk - lots, and do a bit of prancing around with Zumba Gold (cheerleading for over-50's perhaps?) - and gardening. Doing physical activity still gives me the same sense of release as it did when I was a child.

Perhaps that's what sport is for. The feel good factor. Certainly works for me.

As for what's worn - it never worried me and still doesn't.

I think it is right to ask what sport is for. I have yet to come up with an answer!

It could well be that the minister was misreported, or at least that the emphasis was distorted, but under all the fuss there is a serious point.

I think we need to separate out the purpose of sport and PE. Is is to produce winning international teams of sportspeople or is to make the nation fit?

If the former, then inevitably the majority of people, probably more women than men will drop it as swiftly as possible for all the reasons mentioned up thread. If the latter, then it's important to offer as wide a range of physical activities as possible. And to accompany that, clean, attractive private changing rooms and sportswear which is warm comfortable and not unattractive.

And, I'm the girl who skived off every games lesson and then climbed Kilimanjaro when I was twenty five. So there's always hope.

When we were children we walked 3/4 mile to and from school - including going home for lunch - which made three miles a day. From 11 onwards I did it on my bike. Stayed after school at least once a week for hockey practice which I enjoyed. We played tennis and went swimming in the summer, again, cycling everywhere. As an adult I played tennis and squash and went swimming with or without the children. I don't think it ever occurred to any of us that playing games was un-feminine but then we weren't subjected to films where the pretty cheerleader got the football captain. I don't think I ever aspired to the rugby captain!

Despite being nifty and fit (as a kid rather than now), if your school report says you could be in the team if you grew 6inches, you give up! I also felt so sorry for girls who had huge boobs who couldn't run at all! Sport is for those built athletically. If you always get picked last for whatever reason, you are going to be demoralisedbefore you start.
I could never dance either, but could have been a cox or a jockey potentially! Am still only 5'1" and now shrinking!
Have now started canoeing! Yeah!

I heard the minister on Woman's Hour this morning. She said she had been misrepresented by the Telegraph and had not advocated more feminine sports activities. What she was really suggesting was a wider range of physical activities - not only for girls. She was, herself, a junior judo champion!
www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b03vh0c4 about 30 minutes into the programme

I suppose it is about getting fit rather than competitive sport. I am not particularly competitive when it comes to sports/games etc and I enjoyed dance. Dance is a popular form of exercise for both boys and girls.

But I agree ballet and cheerleading are not sports..though there will be a certain amount of competitive behaviour to get picked for the team /corps!

At the same time as cheerleading.

When did ballet become a sport?

Ann Elizabeth Packer MBE (born 8 March 1942) is an English former sprinter, hurdler and long jumper. She won a gold medal in the 800 metres at the 1964 Summer Olympics in Tokyo for Great Britain.
Packer was born in Moulsford, Oxfordshire. She was a member of Reading Athletic Club when she was selected for the British Olympic team, and working as a physical education teacher, at Coombe County Girls' School, New Malden, Surrey, where she was welcomed back by the whole school on her return from Tokyo[citation needed]. She was in the 4 x 100 metres relay team that won a silver medal in the 1962 Commonwealth Games and a bronze medal in the 1962 European Athletics Championships.[1]

And I was one of those girls at Coombe County! She was my teacher..I could not rise to her high expectations so slunk off to the back of the sports field with other non-sporties for unsupervised 'rounders'!

So agree with all those here who loathed school sports. My best friend and I had it down to a fine art though. After a terrifying experience when two hefty girls thundered down the hockey pitch brandishing sticks (we thought we were safe being right back and left back on the team with strongest forwards) we plotted. There was no sports field so every hockey afternoon we simply hid in the loos and then sloped off to the nearby park to spend a pleasant afternoon chatting. Then we rejoined the class as they returned in the bus. We both got Satisfactory on our reports. Mind, we did have a couple of encounters with dirty old men, but even though we hated hockey we could still run and scream!

Mishap, my DD was an excellent cross country runner and represented the county but didn't come first as she stopped to say hello to a little cat who wandered across the route.

Roses I shared your problem - I was tall, slim and fit-looking and was in constant trouble for not being good at sport, because I looked as though I should have been.

I have always had poor balance and the gym was a nightmare for me - and as for hockey, I was so short-sighted without my glasses that I could not see the ball!

And I truly did not have the urge to win - I really found it pointless.

My DD1, in her first sports day, stopped to pick a daisy - good on you girl!!

roses we must have gone to the same school!

mishap I agree with your posts; I hated all sports [although I was fit and very slim] but I would have loved dancing classes.I think a lot of PE teachers were on the sadistic side, as mine was and also the one who taught my daughters, hideous woman in every way.It doesn't matter how you stay fit, and if children are more comfortable with dancing or zumba [or anything] then so be it.

Same here Mishap - but I consoled myself by saying my shape made me a faster runner. I too had a tooth chipped by hockey Gagagran & it has cost me dear in 'crowns' ever since - but it didn't stop me playing hockey to a high level.
If only Heather Grant had thought more about how to express herself. It has to be faced that many people never engage in sport because they don't find it appealing for reasons to do with image. I hated gyms which always seemed macho & grim, full of lycra clad fit women or sweaty big muscled men, until I discovered women only Curves. I was gutted when it closed & took ages to find a 'least worst' gym. It's at the Rugby club & I choose when I go carefully to avoid the awful smell of 'sweaty man' & others who intimidate. It's not that clean either but is cheap & not too far away so for the sake of my joints I stick it. Still haven't got Mr Gad to go & many men I know would never enter a gym for the same reasons as I don't like them.

In Ys 10 & 11 at my last school there was a great variety of sport type activities, including dancercise and kick boxing. But there should not be any suggestion that sport is not for girls. As for majorettes.....ugh!

I hated every minute of games and PE at school - coupdn't see the point of it. But I have learned so much from DDiL1 (the team GB athletics coach and former PE teacher) about attitude to sports. She says that what needs to be inculcated is "body confidence" i.e. trusting your body to do things; this leads to awareness of your body and its capabilities, and thence, one hopes, to a good body image. Obviously, some young women just have this, but many don't. Her two DDs have it in bucket loads! Bit late for me, I feel.

DD1 really enjoyed volleyball at school. At last she had found a sport she enjoyed. And then the teachers let the boys muscle in on the girls' games and it turned into football. She excused herself from PE ever afterwards by having a flute or piano lesson just when PE was timetabled – i.e. she skived when she didn't have one of those.

I would wince if i saw men boxing too, but i never look at boxing.

Really an equalities minister should have been advised better!

The issue is that in our society women and sport do not make money! men and sport do.

Women looking decorative makes someone money but men looking decorative make less !

As a society we are still entrenched in gender stereotypes..hence it is still considered 'OK' for the Sun et al to put semi naked women in their papers for tittilation and goons like Jeremy Clarkson to macho it up!

I think it works both ways - I think many boys are disadvantaged in the classroom because sitting around and studying does not suit them.
I think all adolescents are pretty obsessed with how they look - I know I was. The fact that I was the last to get bra made me very miserable. ut certainly the media do not help at all.

Any sport that encourages girls o exercise is worthwhile.

I don't think schools do a great job encouraging girls to be active because ball games are not everyone's cup of tea. But shouldn't we be encouraging girls to be a bit less bothered about looking radiant (and sparkly) rather than saying "if you take up roller blading you can look gorgeous while you are doing it" - which reinforces the sexist view that the priority is looking attractive to men, not being fit and healthy and enjoying activity?