Let's Start at the Very Beginning...
28-03-2023
Last year I read an interview with the female footballer Eni Aluko. Her perspective of finding her way in a male dominated field was both inspiring and depressing.
At the age of 15 she joined Birmingham City Ladies and was labelled the “Wayne Rooney of women’s football”. When she was called up to the England youth squad however she found that when she fully displayed her skills in a way that might have been construed as showy, rather than the praise she was was expected, she was told to rein in her flamboyance. Where male players might have been lauded for their individual skill, she was encouraged to concentrate on enabling fellow team members rather than to experiment with her personal ability. Consequently she concentrated on just receiving the ball and passing it on, rather than following her instincts and developing her flair.
This kind of gender bias is surprisingly embedded in our society. When working in schools, I witness centuries of ingrained habit in subtly giving more leeway to boys and have also found myself falling foul of its all pervading power, try though I do to fight it.
It’s not a question of blame, and I don’t want to sound as if I am prejudiced against encouraging boys to become the very best they can be - I am absolutely not. However, we are only just at the beginning of the journey that sees our girls being given truly equal opportunity and reward for their efforts.
If we are to see genuine change it is up to all of us to be as vigilant as we can be, in our behaviour and our language until it becomes normal to say that the next up and coming footballing boy is the “Eni Aluko of men’s football”.
Hold The Front Page!
22-02-2023
In 2019 The Guardian printed a piece by the winner of their Young Sportswriter of the Year (ages seven to nine) award; one Caleb Waterhouse, aged eight.
It’s a piece about the snowboarder Katie Ormerod and how inspirational she is. It’s coherent, informative and charmingly rendered in the vernacular of youth whilst still being eminently readable. The link is at the end of this blogpost.
Body Positive
05-01-2023
A couple of years ago, Tim Hollingsworth, the CEO of Sport England - who are tasked with increasing sport uptake in England - said that children should be taught “physical literacy” as a matter of course, much like being taught to read and write.
To Turn Back Time
01-12-2022
Have you ever had the thought cross your mind, “I wonder when it’s all going to go back to normal?” I found these very words floating through my consciousness unbidden the other day. Given the current state of affairs, I think it’s an excusable fantasy.
Because it is a fantasy, there never was any ‘normal’ for things to go back to, even if time reversal was a thing. (Time reversal is not a thing!)
Read more
Child-Man!
30-09-2022
It’s not news that children - especially little boys - love superheroes. In the run up to, and during, Halloween it’s been possible to see youngsters dressed up in every flavour of crusader, caped or otherwise.
