Chair’s Column October 24
This is why we need a women and girls sport movement in Wales
Cymru Women’s Sport (CWS) has been years in the making and I’m delighted that we’ve been able to hold three events this year, supported by key players in women and girl’s sport in Wales. Not surprisingly, I talk about CWS all the time, usually to furious nodding when I talk about what we are hoping to achieve. And then someone threw in a curveball and posed the (hopefully) hypothetical question… why do we need a women and girl’s sport charity, in Wales?
After a bit of reflection, I think that’s a pretty fair question! We see increasing amounts of women’s sport on television, although it’s pretty much only football and rugby. Some Cardiff Dragon’s games are on Sky and they are also playing to crowds in sold out venues. Women’s presence in media is also apparent as more brilliant women are at the forefront of high profile sporting coverage.
Women are also front and centre in the governance and management of sport within Wales: Tanni Grey Thompson is the Chair of Sport Wales, Sue Barnes, Sherri Woolf and I are Chairs of the recently formed regional sports bodies and Helen Phillips is President of Commonwealth Games Wales. In support of all of this, Sport Wales has a policy requiring national governing bodies of sport to have gender equitable boards – the 1st sport funding agency in the UK to do so.
So you could be forgiven for thinking that Wales is in a good place with gender equity in sport. However:
We’re getting there, but we are such a long way from being there. The amount of women’s sport that is broadcast is woeful. Men and boys are still much more likely than women and girls to participate in sport. Name three female officials in men’s sport? It’s not a balanced picture and there is a danger that the small wins, outlined above, lead to complacency as to the real and pervasive gender inequity in participation, leadership and media presence. Laura McAllister has called it a deceptively healthy picture – and thus we need to make sure that the actual differences in sport in relation to gender are not lost in the comparatively positively changes over the last decade.
If you can’t see it, you can’t be it. Women and girl’s sport is virtually invisible. I’m not talking about elite sport that gets televised. I’m talking about the bulk of sporting activities that women and girls take part in – informal, flexible and often inconsistent. We need more female role models from this sporting arena. I know I can’t be Emma Finucane, or Jess Fishlock but I might be able to lead social rides or captain a 5-a-side football team. If we don’t make this type of sport much more visible, how will women and girls know what is possible, what they could choose to do or be?
Hang in with me here, as this might be a slightly obscure point… focusing on gender leads to questions and challenges around other areas of diversity. I chair a task and finish group focusing on diversity, where we are having honest and open conversations about diversity across a range of characteristics (disability, BAME and LGBT+). These conversation are only happening because we started the conversation with gender. I would argue that we need to keep gender inequity visible, to grow conversations about all aspects of diversity.
So yes, things are better, but they aren’t good and they are certainly not great. So, step up Cymru Women’s Sport as we connect, celebrate and advocate for women and girls in sport in Wales!