GTS Girls Sports and P.E. Part 2

The second half of our examination of Girls Sport.

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Transcript

Matt 0:05

Hello, everyone. Welcome back to another episode of Gaming the System, the podcast where three intersectional feminists examine gaming and games through a feminist lens. Today, I am your host, Matt, and I'm joined by my friends Alex and Jem. Before we get started, if you want to support us, you can subscribe to our Patreon at patreon.com/gamingthesystem for some exclusive content, or you can send us a one-off donation via PayPal to our email address wearegamingthesystem@gmail.com. So today we are continuing our deep dive into the world of girls' sport. We've immediately come up with the, the revelation of, oh yeah, some teachers do some horrible things, and that trauma from childhood still has a massive impact on the adult life. What a surprise. So if, if you're, if you have a story that are similar to the ones that were shared in our last episode, do let us know, because the, the worst... another thing about childhood trauma is it can be very, very isolating. And to, to just know that you aren't the only one who's experienced these kinds of things can, can help. So for this episode, we are going to take a... So we've had a very, very personal, like, exploration of the topic. We're going to look at it as, I suppose, maybe as our, our adult selves appraising the system itself and what we see there and what, what we should change. I'm gonna pick on you, Jem, as you're the only one who has a, a child, and see, see what your experience has been there.

Jem 2:04

So my daughter really loved playing football at school and really enjoyed playing football. But she enjoyed... She loved PE. She's always been really physical since she was tiny. And, and she, she played in the football team, and she played football with the boys, and it was mostly the boys. I mean, it was a tiny primary school, so, um, so there wasn't a lot of them. But yeah, she really enjoyed it. And then, and she did... We also took her to... She did tennis lessons from the age of five through to 11. Um, and yeah, she was, she was really involved with the football And she did all of these things, really enjoyed them until she got to high school. Um, and yeah, once she hit high school, she carried on with the, um, gymnastics until the pandemic sort of put a close to all of that. Um, and she Still enjoyed the sport, but she didn't enjoy team sports. Um, that was She really struggled with that, but that, that has more to do with, with her neuro spiciness than, um, than I think anything else. Um, because she just would find it hard to work with other people in that, in that way that team sports, sports do. But I think it just became a thing, you know, like girls don't do sports. You know, this, this whole thing just really came in there really fast, and it was so sad when she did the shift from primary to high school because she started at primary, and she was at Sorry, she was at primary playing football with the boys and running around in the playground, and then they go to high school, and suddenly the boys are carrying on playing football in the playground, but all the girls do is walk around in, in a, in a gang, in little gangs, you know, chatting and watching the boys. There's It was, it was so sad to see this massive shift that suddenly they went from primary, where they were all running around together and hanging out together, and to secondary and high school, where they're all segregated down gender lines and very gender sort of specific behaviors. And they were There was, you know, the boys play rugby, and the girls play netball or hockey in the winter, and in the summer the girls play netball, and the boys play football. You know, it was just so sad that so quickly it got, it, it got segregated. Um, she went to a different school, which was much smaller, and then they had other things like outdoor pursuits and things where they did, um, rock climbing and s- um, canoeing and things. But by that point she'd already stepped out of, out of that mindset and, and that, that moment had been lost, I think, for her, which is a shame because she, up until that point, she was kind of embarrassingly sporty. You know, I was not sporty and suddenly I had this daughter, and I was That was dragging me to stand on touchlines and in cold tennis r- uh, rooms, and l- you know, or tennis halls and all of that. So, yeah, I th- I think, I think attitudes have changed from when I was at school and from when you were at school, Alex. I do think that there has been an improvement, and I do think that there is a, a greater effort made to include kids in, in Sports as much as possible. And certainly at her second school, her sets of her teachers, her sports teachers were all really nice and very caring and did what they could to include as many people and make it as accessible as possible. But, um, I don't think it could undo the damage that had, has, had been done by previous schools and also by society's attitudes to, to sport. And as a parent, I think it's so frustrating because you look at it and you go like, "We did everything that we could to nurture and support her in her enjoyment of physical activity and sports and all of these things." You know, we, we, we did as much as we could to do that without sort of, um, enforcing it. And, and yet it didn't matter when, when it came to, to, uh, the social expectations and social attitudes around girls and sport, just railroaded everything that we'd done. So even, even when you've got sort of the best will in the world, it's, it's very difficult

Matt 7:23

It's, yeah, and the-- even, even if you have-- So like best case scenario, you've got two-- I don't even this, this is the best case scenario. Whatever the case, um, children spend the majority of their time at school. That's their life, and so they're going to base their, their world view and how they engage with the world on that school environment. And that is where the external society gets to come in and still forms the basis of, of school society. And One thing, a thing that the system should do is remove luck from the equation of life as much as possible because the the like in terms of economic status. It shouldn't, it shouldn't matter how much money your family has. You should be able to have a school experience where you're not being, uh, going, "Well, we don't, we don't have... It'd be nice if we had a treadmill so you could do this, but we don't 'cause there isn't enough money." Then some, some schools have insanely high-quality gyms that you could do. Um, and the, like with, with gender, if you're a, if you're a boy, then it's, it's lucky that there is a, a sporting infrastructure that is there for you when you go, oh, if you, if you're a girl, you're unlucky. Then no, because your, the system is there that, it isn't there that you should have access to. So it's got nothing to do with your personal luck. Um- Where it's just what-

Alex 9:34

Yeah, it's interesting how, um, we talk about obviously just the things that we can access within the school environment and the culture of that school environment as well. Um, I was looking up one of England women's, um, women's rugby, uh, people, even in the team, um, because one of them in fact went to my secondary school, uh, Jess Breach, um, who's currently playing for England Rugby. Um, she is very, very good, and I have watched her quite a few matches now 'cause of course it's the Six Nations at the moment. Um, but reading her Wikipedia profile, I see that she actually accessed a lot of that sport outside of a school environment, uh, which is interesting as well. So it's talking about her, um, playing for Chichester Rugby Football Club from the age of six, and then Pulborough Rugby Football Club at the age of 14. Um, and then obviously went on to play for national teams. Um, and then it says she was also a keen athlete and competed in sprint hurdling at the English Schools Athletics Championships, so given that is at school as well. She played netball, hockey, and was a county-level gymnast, so incredibly sporty person. Um, but I wonder also whether the access to sport, um, then perhaps also the enjoyment of sport is some also down to perhaps your family's position in society and access to, to those sports outside of the school environment, because those come with a cost as well, don't they? A lot of the

Matt 11:21

time. And, uh, another part of the coin of the, the being lucky is, uh, you shouldn't have to be special either.

Alex 11:31

No.

Matt 11:32

Yeah. We used... The, when the... And I, I listened to a podcast about, um, criminal athletes, and 99% of them are American because the, the podcasts are American, so that's what they know. And the- The... So a, a n- a, a huge portion of the, the highest quality athletes in America are Black. Um, and when, when you look at the... So you see now you can, say if you look back 60 years ago to segregation, and then you take, take, uh, the, the average Black person then and then compare to the Black person now, you can go, "Oh, look at this, this, uh, this Black quarterback is the most highest paid quarterback ever. Um, aren't Black people doing well?" When he is incredibly lucky to have the talents he has, but if you get these, these athletes that they pick from, like in the, the, like kids who are living in poverty. If there's a child who can make the, the powerful people money, they'll pluck that child out because they're special and give them access to the resources they have. But then everyone else just gets left where they are, and that is, that is a, a, another damaging stereotype that can happen in, in something like women's sports. You go, like we look at role models like, uh, professional athletes when something like Gladiators TV show is, is a, is a critical part of it as well because we only get to see, for the longest time, a certain perspective on women's sports when it was like, "Oh, look at Maria Sharapova. She's so-- She's great at tennis, but she's really sexy." And having that, having... And again, that's something I think is interesting about, um, girls. Another thing that, uh, that impacts in secondary school is puberty, and the, it not just being about what the girl is going through, but about how they s- they feel seen by the society. So there's a, a, a common experiencing of, um, a girl realizing the first time that a man looked at her in a, in a, uh, sexual way, and how all of a sudden you come out of primary school and all of a sudden you're in that world, and that, that, that has a, an impact as well. And Yeah, just the, the, the system just being so broken and damaging. Uh-

Jem 14:41

I think talking about the system, I One of the facts I came across when I was looking at this topic was that Black British children have the most positive attitudes to sports and exercise, but Black British girls are substantially le- less active, and that there's They are not just less active than Black British boys, but l- less, 11% less active than White British girls. So we're talking about girls who are, who are actually very positive about sport, and yet are still even, even less likely to engage with it, um, than other girls. You know? And, and th- this is a sort of intersectional, um, ethnicity gap that we're, we're seeing. That just And what that says to me is that this isn't, this isn't just about, you know, girls not wanting to do sport. This is a v- a bigger thing because these girls do want to do sport, and yet they aren't. They're doing even less sport than White girls. And so what's going on? There's a, there's, there's a big distinction there, and I think that And it, I think to just You know, so many people say, "Oh, it's because they don't like the way they look when they're playing sports." You know, they don't want to wear the, the PE kits or they don't want to be seen to be sweaty or, you know, running or, you know, girls are worried about building muscle. Or, or, or the, you know, or will they get their They get, they get periods. They're menstruating, so they're finding So they can't do, do sport because, you know, nobody wants to run around when they're on their period. All of these things are I, I have n- I have personally not experienced this la- these excuses, these reasons why girls don't want to do sport. That, you know, and the girls that I've come into contact with, both when I was younger, but also whe- around my, my daughter growing up, the reasons that they have not engaged with sport have not been because they were worried about how they looked in this, in the uniform. I mean, you know, if you, if you look at the s- the clothes that most of the girls are wearing when they, when they're outside of school or when they're, you know, even in their, whe- what they do with their school uniform is it's, it's all about how short can it be? And, you know, it's There isn't a, a fear about that. So there's something else going on, and it's something about Yeah, I don't know what it is, but it feels to me like it's more than the reasons that we're so commonly given. Um, and yeah, that, that bit, that, that fact came from, um, the Women in Sports, um, womeninsport.org, who did some research into, into this and yeah, I just thought that was really interesting.

Matt 17:54

Yeah. It's another, an- another- Mm yeah, e- eternally exhausting example of the Let's go, you look at the, the inequalities in society and go, "I wonder how, I wonder how those segments of society are fairing in this other area." So children's sport, so surely they're just kids. Surely everyone's sort of in the same mix. And you go, oh, even though So again, you go, oh, Black, Black boys, they, they're really enthusiastic about sport just like the white boys. Hooray, isn't, isn't, aren't we solving racism? We're in a post-racism society. You go, well, that m- that can make sense because, again, like I said, the, a huge amount of the most athletic people on the planet are Black people, and sort of like people like Michael Jordan, Usain Bolt, LeBron James. There's this, there's this like decades and decades of, um, some of the most iconic athletes ever being Black men. And- But the, the, the misogynoir, the, the racism and misogyny that Black, uh, women face is, is the other side of that coin to the misogyny that women fa- uh, white women face and non-Black women face. And so he goes, "Oh yeah, so it makes sense that Black boys are more, uh, uh, into sport." And then when you take the, the, the way that Serena Williams was treated when she gets angry on court. Mm-hmm. That is the, that is the, the messaging, the s- the, the... She's the most accomplished tennis player in history, and the, the, the perception of Black women athletes i- is still so catastrophically racist. So that is how, um, Serena Williams was treated. And then there was that, uh, Olympic athlete who was banned from competing because- Hmm she had too much testosterone or something And-

Alex 20:18

Yeah. I mean, that was a whole other episode, isn't it? But the, um, banning of trans women within women's sport, which is... Yeah, we can save that for another episode certainly. Um, but yeah, I think inter- like every area of life, intersectionality always plays a part, and we talk about it a lot on the pod when we talk about, um, gaming and, and things, but it obviously has an impact on sport as well. Just before we, uh, started these episodes, I'd sent you both a little, um, reel from Instagram about a woman who interviewed Coco Gauff, who is another Black female tennis player. Um, and she asked her once about how she manages, um, looking after her hair when she-- 'cause she play- when she plays, she gets really sweaty. Um, and, and since then, um, uh, the journalist sort of felt like, "Man, I hope it's not my fault," but she's been asked about her hair pretty much in every tournament. Um, and you wonder, well, do, do other women tennis players get asked about their hair in the same way? Or do men get asked about their hair when they compete at tennis tournaments? Um, there have been some pretty interesting,

Jem 21:35

um,

Alex 21:36

hairstyles on both sides of, of the game.

Jem 21:39

I can say that

Alex 21:40

having watched some of them play live. Um, but yeah, I mean, is it really what we've come to talk about? Are we here to talk about a professional athlete's hairstyle, or are we here to talk about the game that they or the match that they've just played? Um, does it-- is it important to talk about those aspects of a professional athlete's life to present them as more than just a tennis player? It's a question that's quite interesting, I think, but it definitely makes you think about the difference in perception between male and female athletes as well.

Matt 22:20

You've just reminded me of the f- the third side to a coin. So I don't think that's how coins work, but it's, it's, it's-- it'll make sense enough. Um, that Not every- again, like w- with the, you sh- not every... You shouldn't have to be lucky to get a good experience with sport. You shouldn't have to be special to be, to have good experience. You also shouldn't... Not every single female athlete needs to be the, the trailblazing, like going, "Don't ask me about my hair." And the, the people that their, their natural way of dealing with things is that, "Don't talk to me like that. You think you are. You're talking to me like that because I'm, I'm a girl." And you talking, talking about a, a- asking a, a white person having, like, any interaction with a Black woman about their hair is a very storied troub- uh, uh, trouble- Yeah troubling topic. Troubling topic.

Alex 23:26

I should clarify. Yeah. So the, um, woman in the, in the reel, um, was also of African American, um, um, ethnicity as well. Um, and so she was kind of asking it because she struggled with managing her hair in, in sweaty conditions, and she was like, "Coco, how do you manage your hair?" Um, just to, to kind of give some context there. I realize I missed that out earlier.

Matt 23:49

And that's the good, that's the good thing, 'cause then that is the, that's the authentic richness of diversity that, that you can, you can, you can, uh, you can dredge from that. Whereas, where if it's a... There's a, a book that I, has the most fantastic title that I have not yet read, um, which is, No You Can't Touch My Hair, which is, um, written by a Black woman who clearly that's something that Black girls get asked all the time, is that fixation on their hair. And it is a gameplay thing. If you go, "Oh, your... How do you, how do you deal with your hair?" You go, "Your hair looks fantastic, by the way. Um, how do you, how do you keep it like that, uh, while you're playing sport?" But then when every other reporter asks it for, for it not being about them, and I think it, I think we are in a better place than, say, 20 years ago with, uh, Maria Sharapovas and the Anna Kournikovas where the, the-

Alex 24:53

Yeah

Matt 24:53

being on their, what their Playboy cover was gonna be like was was the, a big thing on everyone's minds all the time. Whereas I think the, the experience of Emma Raducanu has been, uh, a really good example because she does nothing that she doesn't want to do. She won that US Open when I think she was 17, and now is fabulously wealthy, and she doesn't get asked the kinds of questions that I imagine, uh, the young female tennis players would've been asked in recent history. Um, so what can, what can we do? I don't know of what we can, can do. What, what do we think would take steps to solving some of these issues or mitigating their impact?

Jem 25:54

I think that, um, being a bit more creative about how we teach fitness at school would probably be the first step to You know, I think that there is a huge amount of value in team sports and, um, competitive sports, and I think they should absolutely be encouraged at school. But I also think that in a time when we are seeing a, a definite rise in, for whatever reason, f- in, um, in people struggling with neurodiversity, you know, and, and having and being neurodiverse that, you know, when you factor that in and you factor in physical disabilities, they're asking, asking everyone to participate in competitive sports at a sort of level that is sort of equal enough that you can actually have those competitions, you can have the teams, is, is a huge ask. And so I think that what we should be looking at doing is leveling the playing field, to coin a phrase, but making it so that people are more able to engage in healthy activity through school and gain an interest and an enjoyment in, in the benefits that you can gain from being active. So you know, it doesn't all have to be about team sports. It can be about things like, you know, training for a, you know, a marathon or, um, going on walks. You know, we know that walking is, is really good and take going for walks. Um, it can be about working out in the gym. It can be about doing sort of, um, cla- fitness classes like, like aerobics or, you know, Zumba or whatever is, you know, people are doing. But I think the thing is, is about getting people, getting young people engaged with their physical health so that they understand in order to live a long, healthy, active life, you, you need to be doing regular exercise, and it needs to raise your heart rate and, you know, have you s- you know, having to breathe a bit harder. These are the ways that you, you maintain a healthy, a healthy body. You know, weight training isn't going to turn you into a muscle, a muscle mummy. It's going to You know, it's can, it, it can help you to prevent osteoporosis down the line. You know, there's a huge amount of benefits that we can gain from being, being fit and healthy. And if we turn young girls off of that at school, then by the time they're into adulthood and you've got all of the pressures of, you know, adulting and, you know, all the, the, the, the draws on your time, you're not going to make time to, you know, work out or to join the local netball team or to get involved with your local rugby team or to go running with the, with the local running team or cycling or whatever, you know? And I think that we really need to teach people how to look after themselves when they're, when they're younger, and one of those things is about health and fitness. And I think that you can do that at the same time as improving their, their ability to sort of be a team player, but you don't need to do it by being a football team for everyone. Some people are g- that's great, it's gonna work really well for them, and we should absolutely have that. But other people, it might be you're the gym group. You go to the gym and you support each other, and you encourage them as a team. So even though they're not playing a competitive game, they can still be a team, and I think those are the things that we should be really encouraging in, in y- in young, young girls and young women

Alex 30:19

I think for me, um, I want to talk about kind of returning to activity in adulthood. Um, so I talked in the previous episode about how my various experiences of physical activity, um, being linked to a medicalized approach kind of turned me off of physical activity and sort of movement and staying fit generally and doing sport. And because I associated it with helping out my physiotherapy and I, in the end, I hated my physio, um, therapy. Um, I was given the choice of whether to continue it at age 18 or not continue it. Um, and I was asked the question: Would you like to walk better? Um, and at the time I thought about it and I said, "Well, no, I'm quite happy as I am," because I was tired of feeling like, um, my disability was essentially holding me back, and that was a lot of internalized ableism.

Jem 31:20

And I've

Alex 31:20

since learnt about that and learned to accept my condition is a part of me, and I'm gonna have to manage it, and part of that is being physically active. And as I've got older and older, I've realized I'm living in a body that's going through something called post-impairment syndrome, which is where you've lived with a physical condition or, in my case, a neurological condition for several decades, and your body has overcompensated, so it starts to age faster than your non-disabled contemporaries, for example. So my body in my mid-30s is probably the same as a non-disabled person's body a decade or more ahead of me. So I'm having to manage that physical condition Um, and I really noticed also the increased impact or negative impact of a more sedentary lifestyle, particularly after the pandemic when we weren't allowed out and to do as much physical activity or to be as physically active as, uh, we were previously. Previously, before the pandemic, I was doing-- I wasn't working a lot of hours, but I was working in jobs where I would be moving around, going up and down stairs, et cetera, et cetera. And, and suddenly I wasn't doing that for, for a good couple of years, and I really noticed a decline in my mobility and my ability to balance myself, and I was starting to fall over a lot more. So I went back to physio, um, at hospital and sort of did an intensive course to kind of stop falls and things. And then I thought, right, maybe I should go and look at my leisure center and see what activities I can do. And one of the best things I think for coming back around to physical activity is intergenerational fitness classes. Um, and I say that as somebody who has picked the, um, inclusive fitness classes, um, because they're accessible to me, but they're not-- a large amount of the people that go to them are retired people. So I've made a lot of friends with people who are in their sort of 70s and 80s. I'm the youngest person there by far, but sometimes there are sort of people in between my age and, and their age. Um, but it's quite rare. But it has helped me have that sort of setting where I'm in a group, we're all do-doing the same thing. We all struggle with different bits of it, but we're all trying together, and we're staying active once a week, which is better than nothing as well. Um, another key thing I kind of wanted to talk about is, um, there's no one size fits all, this is the level of physical activity you must do every week and therefore you're healthy kind of thing. It's different for everybody. Um, and I've been learning that a lot as part of sessions I've been going to, um, with a lot of other people with cerebral palsy, uh, with a, with a sort of charity that works. Or rather, it's not a charity, it's more like a sort of social enterprise. But essentially, they hold these sessions about movement and the importance of movement, even if it's like A non-traditional idea of exercise. Still really important to be moving because of that post-impairment syndrome and those extra conditions you might be getting when you get older with cerebral palsy, things like osteoporosis, et cetera. So I've come back around to the idea of physical activity as I've got older. I'm less anti-physical activity now because I know it's going to help me as I get older to, to, um, not necessarily improve my mobility, but to maintain my mobility and to maintain my strength, my muscle strength, uh, which is gonna be really important in future. So I've gone quite fast round the game, but I think it's really good to illustrate that you can come back to sport and physical activity at any point, which is positive. Definitely.

Matt 35:31

And it really And, uh, uh, coming back to, like, you, how poorly school has prepared you for this scenario. Oh yeah, and you reach, so I imagine that post-impairment syndrome isn't a, a new, a, a cutting edge, brand new realization that they've had.

Alex 35:57

Um, sort of. Sort of. It wasn't really a thing that I learned about until I started working with Scope, um, after the pandemic. Um, because Scope originated as a cerebral palsy charity, but now it is the, the nation's leading disability charity. Um, and there's been a lot of research within cerebral palsy about what happens to adults who have cerebral palsy. A lot of, um, the medical world views cerebral palsy as a childhood condition, but it doesn't stop when you reach 18. Even though that physio support stops, um, it does continue into adulthood. But we're sort of left behind almost, um, because there's no sort of yearly checks or anything like that. That's one of the campaigns for, like, the CP Movement, which is the, the group I was talking about with those sessions on, on movement. Um, so yeah, it is, it is being researched more and more, but in the '90s and, and even the '80s, there was barely any, any, any recognition of cerebral palsy as a lifelong condition.

Matt 37:08

That is, yeah. So again, just like with, just- Yeah just like with the, the young Black girls at, at sport going, "Hmm, I wonder if, I wonder how the, the, uh, the broader societal inequalities are reflected in children." And going, "Oh, yes, I, it makes sense that Black girls are being, uh, like, not getting as much as, as they deserve." And you go, "Oh yeah, well, women aren't, their, women's health isn't, hasn't been researched f- properly for forever." And you go, "Okay." And then, "Oh, what about disabled people?" So my assumption was, "Oh, surely they must have, they must have known about this for quite some time." And they go, "Well, no, they didn't because-" Oh, really? 'cause they hadn't done the research because they, they, th- they hadn't done the research." So, uh, the, the amount of times that I've felt where I look around and go, "Why didn't anyone tell me about this? Why didn't someone explain this to me when I was young so that then I could, I could prepare myself for it now?" And- That, so that's, that's another failing of the, the, of the system. Um, I'll end, uh, my, my, my, my, my single idea for the moment is, um, uh, a sort of good article, another good article by Women in Sports saying, um, boys will be boys, um, but about creating a new generation of male allies because the extent to which it's not the girl's responsibility to, to force the system into, to, to blaze their trail into things and be the one girl on the boys' sports team or be the, the one that overcomes all adversity. It's about building a, a, a generation of boys and a generation of, uh, male role models who will be that support within the system to, to, yeah, to be supporting. 'Cause what a mentor should be is, is helping a child reach that organic version of themselves that they can grow into. And, ugh, it's just devastating seeing, seeing how- majorly lacking it is for children. I wonder if the Scandinavian countries have solved school because they seem to have solved most of society's ills. Uh, that we will, we'll bring it to a close there. Um, thank you both for, um, uh, this conversation. Uh, yeah, one of our heavier ones, um, but it's important to have these conversations. Um, as I said at the end of the last one, um, we do have fun as well. Um, you can watch some of our live streams on our Twitch or on our YouTube and, uh, you know where to find us every Thursday. So until next time, bye-bye.

Alex 40:43

Bye. Bye.