Now, I know that my supervisor Alan loves to wind me up and challenge everything I write* (to make me write better or take fewer things for granted I hope?). I wrote a short chapter last week about the perceived low value in women's or girl's bodies from a sport point of view (where a masculine, muscular, strong body is valorised) and that this can impact on girls' participation and embodiment in PE and school sport. Alan replied that we only need to look around campus here at uni to see that this is not the case.
That may be, here at a university where sport is central and normal and women have access and opportunity...but on the same level as men? Are women told here that they are equal and on a par with male athletes? Not sure about that. In any case it's difficult to extrapolate this situation to other places, as all the sportswomen come to this university anyway.
But something I'm thinking about, as I should address it, or have a good argument against it, for this is what I'm basing a large part of my rationale on!
* He also said tenpin bowling is not a sport. I didn't answer, as I've been answering that type of comment for years.
Tuesday, 23 February 2010
I'm not usually into issues of access and opportunity in elite sports for women, but with the Winter Olympics on at the moment I heard about a campaign to get women's ski jumping into the 2014 games, as it is not yet allowed. There's a little video about it here: http://www.wikio.com/video/2833165
Not sure if it's one of those IOC things where they say a sport is too dangerous for women to do, but if so, that's getting tiring in this age. Time magazine's article on the matter says "In 1991, the IOC announced that all future Olympic sports must be open to both genders, but the rule didn't apply to sports that already existed — and as one of the 16 original events in the inaugural 1924 Winter Games, ski jumping was definitely one of them."
Hmm. The article goes on to say that the IOC wants all sports in the Olympics to meet some requirements like having it's own world championships and so on, and assessed women's ski jumping in 2006 when it might not have met the requirements, and the games can only accomodate so many athletes, and the Vancouver schedule was sorted ages ago, and blah blah blah. Sounds like a cop-out to me. But there's more: someone at the IOC says:
The sport "seems not to be appropriate for ladies from a medical point of view."
WTF?! I need no response to this surely.
While there are clearly lots of women who ski jump (good for them), to continue to explicitly or implicitly discrimate against the sport will be a hindrance to more women becoming interested, the sport will remain constructed as for men only and will not be taken seriously, and it goes round and round. But what do we expect from the IOC, or any institutionalised corporate sport machine.
Not sure if it's one of those IOC things where they say a sport is too dangerous for women to do, but if so, that's getting tiring in this age. Time magazine's article on the matter says "In 1991, the IOC announced that all future Olympic sports must be open to both genders, but the rule didn't apply to sports that already existed — and as one of the 16 original events in the inaugural 1924 Winter Games, ski jumping was definitely one of them."
Hmm. The article goes on to say that the IOC wants all sports in the Olympics to meet some requirements like having it's own world championships and so on, and assessed women's ski jumping in 2006 when it might not have met the requirements, and the games can only accomodate so many athletes, and the Vancouver schedule was sorted ages ago, and blah blah blah. Sounds like a cop-out to me. But there's more: someone at the IOC says:
The sport "seems not to be appropriate for ladies from a medical point of view."
WTF?! I need no response to this surely.
While there are clearly lots of women who ski jump (good for them), to continue to explicitly or implicitly discrimate against the sport will be a hindrance to more women becoming interested, the sport will remain constructed as for men only and will not be taken seriously, and it goes round and round. But what do we expect from the IOC, or any institutionalised corporate sport machine.
Tuesday, 29 December 2009
Shopping centre in infantilising women shocker
I am banging my head against the wall at this story about a shopping centre in China that has created a car park just for women that has bigger spaces. See in the picture on the Telegraph site - it's called Lady Parking. Stunned.
So the idea seems to be that women need bigger parking spaces because they, in the words of an official from the shopping centre that built it, "have a different sense of distance". I suppose I am supposed to be pleased he/she didn't say "inferior sense of distance" but that's the notion behind it, and the story managed to find a "shopper" who used words to that effect.
That's ridiculous in itself - the notion that all women are bad parkers and need bigger spaces. They obviously haven't met my (male) neighbours. Some people are bad parkers and some are good, and it has nothing to do with their gender. I find it such a massive step backwards to continue using tired and lazy stereotypes. There's no evidence to back up their claims, the shopping centre just wanted an attempt at publicity. Employing "female parking attendants" to help women park? Women always bang their car doors when they open them? Stupid! They are saying that all women everywhere cannot park, there's no attempt to say that they are only referring to some women.
But the daft claims that this Lady Parking needed to be in pink and purple annoys me the most. Apparently pink and purple were picked because they are bright colours. What? Orange is a bright colour. Any colour is bright if you paint it right. No, they chose pink and purple because they are associated with girls. So this is a statement not just of women's inability to park but a low, infantilising move to make women look incompetent and childlike.
They could have made this new car park about creating a safe, supervised and well-lit space for women to come to a shopping centre confidently without fear of attack or harrassment. This car park will offer those things, but that seems to be by the by. Why would that have been so difficult?
Alternatively, they could have created a car park that had bigger spaces for ALL their shoppers, and not made it pink, and therefore helped out the male drivers too. But that wouldn't be a pat on the head to little women would it.
The last statment in the article is that there are 200 road deaths every day in China. It seems to me that maybe ALL of the country's drivers need better lessons, not just the women. I'd like to see if the stats for China match those of the UK - that young, male, drivers cause more accidents, not women.
So the idea seems to be that women need bigger parking spaces because they, in the words of an official from the shopping centre that built it, "have a different sense of distance". I suppose I am supposed to be pleased he/she didn't say "inferior sense of distance" but that's the notion behind it, and the story managed to find a "shopper" who used words to that effect.
That's ridiculous in itself - the notion that all women are bad parkers and need bigger spaces. They obviously haven't met my (male) neighbours. Some people are bad parkers and some are good, and it has nothing to do with their gender. I find it such a massive step backwards to continue using tired and lazy stereotypes. There's no evidence to back up their claims, the shopping centre just wanted an attempt at publicity. Employing "female parking attendants" to help women park? Women always bang their car doors when they open them? Stupid! They are saying that all women everywhere cannot park, there's no attempt to say that they are only referring to some women.
But the daft claims that this Lady Parking needed to be in pink and purple annoys me the most. Apparently pink and purple were picked because they are bright colours. What? Orange is a bright colour. Any colour is bright if you paint it right. No, they chose pink and purple because they are associated with girls. So this is a statement not just of women's inability to park but a low, infantilising move to make women look incompetent and childlike.
They could have made this new car park about creating a safe, supervised and well-lit space for women to come to a shopping centre confidently without fear of attack or harrassment. This car park will offer those things, but that seems to be by the by. Why would that have been so difficult?
Alternatively, they could have created a car park that had bigger spaces for ALL their shoppers, and not made it pink, and therefore helped out the male drivers too. But that wouldn't be a pat on the head to little women would it.
The last statment in the article is that there are 200 road deaths every day in China. It seems to me that maybe ALL of the country's drivers need better lessons, not just the women. I'd like to see if the stats for China match those of the UK - that young, male, drivers cause more accidents, not women.
Thursday, 3 December 2009
Loughborough campus lighting problem
Here is my draft letter to the Welfare Sabb in the Union (I reckon she's a good first port of call) about the lamentable darkness on campus and lack of university care about safety. They care more about lighting the all-weather sports pitches than paths through academic and residential areas!
I would like to raise the issue of poor street lighting on campus. With the evenings having drawn in, I've noticed that certain areas of campus are extremely badly lit. This makes me rather concerned for my personal safety, even at 4:30pm, for there are regularly used paths that are almost pitch black.
I'm a postgrad and work often in my office in Matthew Arnold building, next to Towers, into the evenings. I often walk to either the Music Centre or John Beckwith building and I find that the walk past Towers is unsafe. This is the worst area I have come across, yet alternative routes past the Bridgeman Centre for instance are almost as bad. Often, the only light available comes from indoors - through the window. It's been especially bad while Towers has been surrounded by fencing for the refurb - all the floodlights on the Towers walls are obscured. The areas I mention do not just contain academic buildings, but are throughways for residential areas, i.e. Butler Court, so it is likely that people use these paths until the early hours.
The main problem is that as a woman I am concerned for my safety and the safety of other women around. However, not only that, but with many cyclists using these paths who more often than not have no lights on their bikes, I am also concerned for anyone walking around who could get knocked over by a cyclist appearing out of the gloom, or someone could trip over uneven paving slabs.
I am quite dismayed that the lighting afforded for the sports pitches in East Park is dazzling, while pedestrian areas are in darkness. Personal safety should be a greater concern to the University than providing late night light to sports teams. I don't visit other parts of campus in the evenings so I'm not aware if this is a campus-wide problem.
I expect I sound like a moaning old local resident type writing to their local paper! But I think this is a very important issue and wondered whether it could be raised with the University?
I would like to raise the issue of poor street lighting on campus. With the evenings having drawn in, I've noticed that certain areas of campus are extremely badly lit. This makes me rather concerned for my personal safety, even at 4:30pm, for there are regularly used paths that are almost pitch black.
I'm a postgrad and work often in my office in Matthew Arnold building, next to Towers, into the evenings. I often walk to either the Music Centre or John Beckwith building and I find that the walk past Towers is unsafe. This is the worst area I have come across, yet alternative routes past the Bridgeman Centre for instance are almost as bad. Often, the only light available comes from indoors - through the window. It's been especially bad while Towers has been surrounded by fencing for the refurb - all the floodlights on the Towers walls are obscured. The areas I mention do not just contain academic buildings, but are throughways for residential areas, i.e. Butler Court, so it is likely that people use these paths until the early hours.
The main problem is that as a woman I am concerned for my safety and the safety of other women around. However, not only that, but with many cyclists using these paths who more often than not have no lights on their bikes, I am also concerned for anyone walking around who could get knocked over by a cyclist appearing out of the gloom, or someone could trip over uneven paving slabs.
I am quite dismayed that the lighting afforded for the sports pitches in East Park is dazzling, while pedestrian areas are in darkness. Personal safety should be a greater concern to the University than providing late night light to sports teams. I don't visit other parts of campus in the evenings so I'm not aware if this is a campus-wide problem.
I expect I sound like a moaning old local resident type writing to their local paper! But I think this is a very important issue and wondered whether it could be raised with the University?
Monday, 9 November 2009
Why I quit netball
In Year 5 and 6 at Cinnamon Brow primary school I was on the school first team for netball. I didn’t stick in one position; I think my main two were centre and goal defence. We played locally against nearby schools, and in Year 6 won a local competition against three other schools, called the Police Cup – I have a photo of the team with the police officer who presented them to us – PC Lockie (he later married one of the school teachers). We played Longbarn, Padgate and one other school – it might have been St Bridgets. In the same year we also beat the local might of St Margarets. They had always been known as the best school in our part of Warrington, and were to be feared. But we won 6-5 I think, in a friendly.
I always felt I was quite good at netball. I knew I wasn’t one of the best on my team, but we had played together a long time and had a good vibe. Then I went to high school, and from 30 girls in a year it went to 70, and it became much harder to get into the netball squad, because of course more girls wanted to play and the competition was higher. I lost interest a little. I remember the netball training being quite difficult there, in terms of the girls being a bit vicious, a bit rough. I also don’t think many of my friends at the high school were into netball. I tried other things, mainly athletics. I represented the school in 100m and discus, at Victoria Park. I came last, but I didn’t care at the time.
In the last term of Year 8 I moved to a girls’ school in the south. From 70 girls in a year, there were suddenly 150. And a lot of them played netball. One time sticks in my mind now. I went to lunch time practice. I was new; I spoke differently; I didn’t know many of the girls. I was put into a position – probably on the wing (to me, one of the lowest status positions). The girl I had to mark had ginger hair. She looked, to me, remarkably similar to another girl with ginger hair. In the rush of the game, I marked the other girl by mistake. She just looked at me and said, “why are you marking me?”. It felt quite mocking. I was mortified. Inside I was thinking “because you look like her!” but I didn’t say anything. I lost all confidence to get involved, for fear of making mistakes again. The competitiveness in the school extended into sport. The teacher, I feel, never gave me a chance to get some confidence, get to know the squad. She didn’t give me a look in at all, despite knowing I was the new girl. My friends and I came to call her “dragon lady” throughout our time at the school: too bad she was head of year, Latin teacher, PE teacher, German teacher…
Again few of my friends at this school were sporty. It was more like something to tolerate and bear until the end of the lesson. By Year 10 I was hanging out almost exclusively with a few indie, folky, quiet girls. I guess we mocked the ethos of the school, while pursuing our own academics. We were quite musical, and spent most of our time doing that. Sport wasn’t important. I never played netball again; I don’t even remember playing it in PE lessons in Year 10 and 11.
At university I considered joining the netball club: the mixed one, not the women's one - because I heard that the mixed one was more for fun, they didn't play in competitions so much, and so the standard wasn't as high. However, I couldn't play because they played at the same time as the bowling club, and that was my sport - I was good at it, enjoyed it, and got a place in the team, so I didn't want to give that up for another sport. I think also secretly I was relieved because I had come to think that my ability in netball would be rubbish - partly from the experiences at the girls' school, and partly because by then it had been years since I had played.
But, for the last nine year during my university life I have always wanted to find out about a low level, fun netball league I could and where it wouldn't matter how good I was. Problem is, I'm now at Loughborough University - even the staff have sporty careers, years of playing, keeping fit. I feel like I would not fit in at all - would not even get a look in, and if I didn get to play, would look stupid.
Lately I've heard about the intra-mural sport here, and it doesn't allow anyone who plays on the netball team to join in - so it's s slightly lower level, but still all the women who play other sports and are fit and at least 7 years younger than my sendentary body will be competing. So I'm reluctant to do that too.
If I really have to analyse it down to a single point, I think I am scared to try because the instant rejection I received at the girls' school made me think that I can't possibly be a potential netballer, and that playing a team sport is so totally about performance, confidence and success. This has also been one of the reasons why I stayed away from the staff football club all of last year - I'm going tonight for the first time. That's another post...
I always felt I was quite good at netball. I knew I wasn’t one of the best on my team, but we had played together a long time and had a good vibe. Then I went to high school, and from 30 girls in a year it went to 70, and it became much harder to get into the netball squad, because of course more girls wanted to play and the competition was higher. I lost interest a little. I remember the netball training being quite difficult there, in terms of the girls being a bit vicious, a bit rough. I also don’t think many of my friends at the high school were into netball. I tried other things, mainly athletics. I represented the school in 100m and discus, at Victoria Park. I came last, but I didn’t care at the time.
In the last term of Year 8 I moved to a girls’ school in the south. From 70 girls in a year, there were suddenly 150. And a lot of them played netball. One time sticks in my mind now. I went to lunch time practice. I was new; I spoke differently; I didn’t know many of the girls. I was put into a position – probably on the wing (to me, one of the lowest status positions). The girl I had to mark had ginger hair. She looked, to me, remarkably similar to another girl with ginger hair. In the rush of the game, I marked the other girl by mistake. She just looked at me and said, “why are you marking me?”. It felt quite mocking. I was mortified. Inside I was thinking “because you look like her!” but I didn’t say anything. I lost all confidence to get involved, for fear of making mistakes again. The competitiveness in the school extended into sport. The teacher, I feel, never gave me a chance to get some confidence, get to know the squad. She didn’t give me a look in at all, despite knowing I was the new girl. My friends and I came to call her “dragon lady” throughout our time at the school: too bad she was head of year, Latin teacher, PE teacher, German teacher…
Again few of my friends at this school were sporty. It was more like something to tolerate and bear until the end of the lesson. By Year 10 I was hanging out almost exclusively with a few indie, folky, quiet girls. I guess we mocked the ethos of the school, while pursuing our own academics. We were quite musical, and spent most of our time doing that. Sport wasn’t important. I never played netball again; I don’t even remember playing it in PE lessons in Year 10 and 11.
At university I considered joining the netball club: the mixed one, not the women's one - because I heard that the mixed one was more for fun, they didn't play in competitions so much, and so the standard wasn't as high. However, I couldn't play because they played at the same time as the bowling club, and that was my sport - I was good at it, enjoyed it, and got a place in the team, so I didn't want to give that up for another sport. I think also secretly I was relieved because I had come to think that my ability in netball would be rubbish - partly from the experiences at the girls' school, and partly because by then it had been years since I had played.
But, for the last nine year during my university life I have always wanted to find out about a low level, fun netball league I could and where it wouldn't matter how good I was. Problem is, I'm now at Loughborough University - even the staff have sporty careers, years of playing, keeping fit. I feel like I would not fit in at all - would not even get a look in, and if I didn get to play, would look stupid.
Lately I've heard about the intra-mural sport here, and it doesn't allow anyone who plays on the netball team to join in - so it's s slightly lower level, but still all the women who play other sports and are fit and at least 7 years younger than my sendentary body will be competing. So I'm reluctant to do that too.
If I really have to analyse it down to a single point, I think I am scared to try because the instant rejection I received at the girls' school made me think that I can't possibly be a potential netballer, and that playing a team sport is so totally about performance, confidence and success. This has also been one of the reasons why I stayed away from the staff football club all of last year - I'm going tonight for the first time. That's another post...
Tuesday, 6 October 2009
About-Face is an activist group in San Francisco with the aim to "equip girls and women with the tools to understand and resist the harmful media messages that affect self-esteem and body image"
They have a great video about sticking empowering/supportive messages on mirrors in store changing rooms, and suggest questions that girls should be asking of the media they encounter. Awesome resource.
They have a great video about sticking empowering/supportive messages on mirrors in store changing rooms, and suggest questions that girls should be asking of the media they encounter. Awesome resource.
Update on the bowling
This weekend I suggested to the bowling committee that we scrap the separate women's team in the cup competition and they agreed and it was voted in - so now the system is four teams of three bowlers, with a minimum of two women in the entire team, and women and men play together/against each other - no more gender distinctions. The support for a minimum quota of women was quite strong, mainly as lots of people thought 'girls arent very good bowlers' - not the most helpful!
And I came third in my division, out of 16 bowlers. I was the only woman to play in that division and to begin with I felt a little weird, like I was on the wrong lanes and had gone in the men's section by mistake, but I said that was silly and I got some good scores, including my personal best 611 series!
And I came third in my division, out of 16 bowlers. I was the only woman to play in that division and to begin with I felt a little weird, like I was on the wrong lanes and had gone in the men's section by mistake, but I said that was silly and I got some good scores, including my personal best 611 series!
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