Getting girls into sports where you can be pretty?

I know she's wrong in her approach but I have to admit that sometimes I wince when I see girls boxing or weight lifting or playing football and rugby. I'm glad the girls feel able to - I always wanted to have a go at carpentry but thought it was a man's thing so never did, my loss - and I'm glad there is competitive opportunity for them. But I still wince.

I have to say I also wince when I see girls boxing but that is probably down to the generation I come from.

I think what Helen Grant was trying to say (very badly) was she would like to see more girls and women take up a sport and perhaps if they didn't like football etc. then they may feel more comfortable with cheerleading. Personally, I hope she doesn't mean we should follow the American model. I don't like the idea of women wearing clothes which appear to be several sizes too small jumping about in a bid to encourage men to win a game!

If a woman wants to take up boxing, football, rugby or any other sport then I would certainly encourage that.

When I was at school the only sports we had were netball, rounders and (my pet hate) hockey! Does anyone else remember the pain when a hockey stick hit your ankles on a cold day - ouch!!

Hated hockey, loved netball, tennis, rounders. My DC are all more sporty than us.

If I take up cheerleading will I be pretty? Worth a try as I wasn't before.

I loved hockey, rounders, tennis and swimming and was in all the teams. Netball didn't seem to do it for me.

Cheerleading????? I'd rather wave a football rattle.

I lost a tooth to a bad tackle from an opponent in hockey and hated it thereafter. Loved netball, tennis, badminton, rounders and athletics though. I do think girls reach a point in adolescence where they become very self-conscious wearing sports gear, unless they are slim and pretty, and I suspect that's why a lot lose interest.

I hated sport with a passion, and so many children do. I remember running an arts outreach project for secondary aged young people and was very conscious of the fact that the girls in particular got very little exercise so I set up dance classes where they worked out disco dance routines with a dance teacher and they worked up a sweat and kept fit. And the boys also joined in the breakdance classes and loved it.

Better than trudging round a freezing wet hockey field! More of this needs to happen in schools. It is non-competitive and inclusive - we had some very large young ladies joining in and having a great time partly because they could wear what they liked and did not have to feel stupid in gym kit.

Personally I would make sport optional in school and provide dance classes as an alternative. If the government is serious about wanting young people to develop the habit of keeping fit, they need to give them the opportunity to do so in ways they enjoy.

This gung-ho attitude to sport is a hangover from the army and public schools and needs to be updated.

I speak as one who suffered at the hands of sadistic PE teachers; and who seems to have missed the competitive gene.

'Forced to play football at school'? DD2 was most upset to find she couldn't play rugby at senior school having played in the juniors. So she joined a football team.
Both DDs did ballet though, - great for posture, poise and strength.

I do remember standing on the sides of the rugby pitch at college with girlfriends, but all dressed warmly and shouting a lot. Really can't think what the attraction was

I went to a mixed school and cannot remember body image being the issue that it is for schoolgirls now.
We certainly were not allowed to wear make up and the skirt lengths were watched. But T shirt and navy blue nickers were the standard PE Kit and we were only a 'bit' embarrassed at 'that time of the month' with the evident bulk. I don't think the boys even noticed.
Oh the days of nativity and sexual ignorance
I loved all sport and still do as much as I can. My kids do none.

Should say naivety - stupid spellcheck!

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?

Any sport that encourages girls o exercise is worthwhile.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

roses we must have gone to the same school!

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!!

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.

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'!

When did ballet become a sport?

At the same time as cheerleading.