THE PARTS OF SPORT WE STILL MAKE HARDER FOR GIRLS

I’ve been thinking about all the invisible admin, awkward logistics and everyday nonsense that girls and women in sport are expected to navigate as if it’s all perfectly normal. None of it is dramatic enough for a film montage (although I’m sure TikTok would like me to beleive it was), but taken together it can be exhausting. So, in the spirit of being only slightly exasperated and just a little bit cheeky, here is my list of things men and boys perhaps don’t have to give a second thought to when they play, coach or simply turn up to sport.

There’s the glamorous paperwork/admin side of things, for a start. For example: changing your name if you choose too after marriage (how very banal… I did). A safeguarding certificate might be in your married name, while your coaching qualification is in your birth name, and your governing body registration is under the version of your identity that seemed least annoying to use at the time. None of this feels important until suddenly it is. When you are trying to prove that you are, in fact… yourself.

And while we’re on the subject of practicalities: toilet paper in the toilets. A tiny detail, you might think. Except it is never a tiny detail when it is missing (especially if your uterus is bleeding - see below). The fact that this can still be an issue in sports settings feels like one of those strange signs that some environments were designed on the assumption that women and girls would perhaps pop in briefly, clap supportively, and leave.

For women and girls there are periods and monthly cycle fluctuations, which stubbornly refuse to check the fixture calendar before arriving. Training through cramps, competitions colliding with cycle symptoms and the general expectation that everyone should behave as if its business as usual at all times is nuts. It’s hard enough trying to remember your water bottle without also having to factor in whether your uterus has chosen chaos. And later in life there might be pregnancy and time off sport; or peri when our team should be sponsored by HRT and it’s about making sure we are all on the right doses to avoid injuries and random rants. The hormonal roller coaster is complex, ever changing and sadly really, has been put in the too hard basket for too long.

There is also the ‘small’ matter of personal safety. Going for a run at night (especially in winter), walking home from training, travelling back from an evening match. These are not neutral experiences for everyone. Many girls and women are doing a constant background risk assessment while also trying to improve their 5K time or remember where they left their shin pads. It is difficult to feel fully free in sport when your route home is part of the strategy.

Some boys also grow up with the luxury of assuming there will simply be a team for them. They don’t usually have to scan the local area asking, ‘Yes, but is there actually a girls’ section? That play actual matches?’. Access is still not equal, and that matters. Because if you have to fight just to find a place to play, you are already spending energy that should be going into enjoyment, development and belonging.

We also need to talk about sports bras, which can somehow be both engineering project and medieval punishment device. Do they fit? Do they chaffe? Are they supportive enough? Too supportive? Suitable for the sport? Washable without transforming into a greige, tiny hostile crop top? This is an entire subcategory of athletic preparation that many men never have to consider, and honestly lucky them.

Then there is harassment, heckling and being made self-conscious in spaces where you are just trying to play. Sometimes it is blatant, sometimes it is brushed off as banter and sometimes it starts painfully young. My own daughter has been heckled for missing her netball goals by a male tween neighbour out his bedroom window. Imagine being that committed to undermining someone else’s confidence before you’ve even learned to empty the dishwasher properly. Shouting ‘air ball’ every time she missed, did incense her older brother who sent me over to have a quiet word with the parents, who were mortified.

Representation matters too. There are still fewer visible role models at professional level for girls to look up to, even though that is improving. And when you do not regularly see people like you being celebrated, funded, televised and taken seriously, the message can quietly seep in that your version of the game is somehow optional. It isn’t by the way.

And yes, unequal funding is still part of the picture. The wider conversation around women’s sport has grown massively in recent years, but better visibility does not magically fix structural inequality overnight. There are still major participation gaps for girls in team sport in England, and the UK and ongoing sexism.

Injury is another area where the conversation is still catching up. Concerns about ACL injuries (2 of my own!) in women’s sport have rightly received more attention, but the picture is complicated by inequalities in how women’s sport is structured and measured. Either way, it is a reminder that girls and women deserve research, training design and equipment that properly take them into account.

Then there are the long-range questions that can sit in the background of women’s sporting lives: fertility, pregnancy, recovery, timing, and whether stepping away for a while will affect opportunities later. Men may absolutely think about family life too, of course, but women are often navigating the physical reality of it alongside sport in a much more immediate and career shaping way. The fact that there are conversations about whether a mother should return so soon after sport, is evidence that we find it all uncomfortable to deal with (eg Paige Hadley returning to Super League Netball after 6 weeks post partum).

And finally: equipment. So much sports kit has historically been designed around male bodies, male assumptions and male defaults. Boots, shorts, protective kit, training plans, even changing facilities can all quietly send the message that girls and women are being adapted around the edges rather than fully considered from the start. Which is precisely why this conversation matters.

None of this is said to moan for the sake of it. It is said because if we want more young people in sport, and especially more girls, then we have to notice the extra hurdles that are still treated as normal. The answer is not to bash the boys with a constant narrative that it’s their fault. Or to tell girls to be tougher. They already are.

The answer is to build sporting environments that are fairer, safer, better designed and genuinely welcoming for all young people. Preferably with toilet paper.