Why is women’s participation in sport lower than men’s?

Female participation in sport is still significantly lower than male for a variety of reasons. Sport and Faith Leader Jo is our Female Participation Lead and is focused on getting girls involved in and enjoying sport. 

Keep reading to find hear about her experiences growing up. 

"As a child, I spent many precious hours training to be a gymnast. Two evenings of gymnastics and conditioning exercises followed by two evenings of ballet, not to mention Saturday mornings and Sunday afternoons spent practicing routines and tumbles! Looking back, I felt fortunate to spend 10 years of my life, from the age of 5, actively engaged in sport; often competing in local and County competitions. I measured my own success by the number of trophies, gold, silver and bronze medals I had achieved. I also felt the disappointment of not winning, leading to a feeling of failure; where there seemed little comfort in family and friends saying that it was okay if I had done my best.  

Over 30 years on, I still remember that my body image was a huge contributing factor to my mental health and wellbeing as I approached my teen years. Clingy, figure hugging leotards sometimes led me to agonise over my body shape and compare myself with other girls; leading me into a negative thought process that maybe ‘I was too curvy’ or ‘too athletic’ to be good enough. Coupled with the competitiveness of the amateur gymnastics world where being good at your sport can often lead to jealousy and bullying-therefore, despite my passion for gymnastics life could sometimes be tough and a little isolating! 

Self-image and self-esteem seemed to be everything to me back then, therefore, I wondered how much things had really changed today. This led me to research the reasons why women’s participation in sport is lower than men as there are 313,600 fewer women than men who are regularly active according to Gender | Sport England’s statistics. 

There have been many polls undertaken to identify why girls participation is lower. The Women’s Sport Foundation identified that young girls are ‘conditioned at an early age to shy away from sport due to the fact that they can be perceived as being unfeminine, or are afraid of failure or being teased’. This aligns with my lived experience during my youth.   

I suppose the questions to consider next are… what does this look like in the community where I work? Are young girls accessing after school sports clubs and if not why not? Early indications with my local secondary school seem to indicate that female participation is low and it is difficult to attract young females to engage in after school sports. 

Therefore, what can I do to have a positive impact on fostering a love of sport in those young girls who may already feel that sport is not for them? 

Find out more in my continuing Blogs through the course of 2024, as I journey to try and increase girls participation in sport across the Sportily community."