Women’s sport has seemingly had a boom this year, from the England women’s football team winning the Euros to the 2022 women’s rugby world cup making records as the best attended in history. Not only have we seen huge successes and increased popularity of women’s sports teams, but we’ve also seen brave sportswoman make strides in terms of gender equality, with the Norwegian women’s beach handball team fighting sexist uniform regulations and Wimbledon women changing rules around wearing all-white on their periods.
Despite these undoubtedly positive changes, women’s activewear brand TALA conducted a survey of almost 500 women that revealed some concerning statistics around attitudes to sports equality.
Sport inequality in school and beyond
According to viewing statistics, football and rugby remain the most popular sports to watch on TV in the UK. But, when asked, 47% of UK women aged 18-44 stated that they weren’t given the opportunity to play rugby in school, with 41% not being able to play football either. We’ve seen the impact that sports inequality in school can have on women’s running, too: cross country sexism is still alive and well, with women regularly being infantilised with shorter race distances at national events.
The problem doesn’t go away…
