Women in sport

This year, the University’s International Women’s Day events were split in two. Maybe because of the actual day falling in the weekend. The first one was about women in sport, focussing on leadership. It would be a panel discussion, chaired by former Welsh football international Laura McAllister. The panellists were Kate Hannon (Cymru Women’s Sport Board), Hannah Powell (weightlifting), Tricia Sterling (gymnastics, netball, etc), and Sophie Harrison (sports science). I went.

When I walked in I spotted Ross and Geoff from Sports Science, who also run the Thursday Night Hills. I joined them. They were mainly there for their colleague Sophie. I was glad to see attendance was better than it had been the year before.

After pro-VC Morag had opened the event, Laura McAllister started it off. She gave some statistics about how many sports government bodies have no women at all in their boards. And she said it was detrimental if all decisions about a sport are made by men only. Very true! But she also emphasised that the grass roots of sport are also important. She wanted more women doing sport in a mediocre way. Because that’s important too! 

Then there were some central questions for the panel, such as what their greatest frustrations were. And these indeed ranged from grass roots to international level. From a lady with no love for netball, but with a daughter who wanted to play it, who then took on a coaching role as nobody else seemed to want to do it. Netball is seen as a girls’ sport, so not very glamorous. And a 4’8” (1.42) tall weightlifter who tended to have to represent her country in kit of which the size was a man’s S, which she obviously drowned in. And the sports scientist said that as an undergraduate, you'll have to memorise the average stats of male athletes. Not of females, of course!

Obviously, menstruation also came up. It was only when I started weighing myself in the lockdown period that I realised I have a 3 kg weight cycle associated with my menstrual cycle. If I didn't know that until I was in my 40s, I'm sure many men also don't know about it. And for me it doesn't matter much, but if you are competing in a sport with weight categories, it matters an awful lot!

For the last half hour they gave the floor to the audience. I asked about how women's sport is often equated to weight loss. Did they think that got in the way of women having a healthy relationship with sport, and did they see this change in the future? 

When the last question was answered there was an opportunity for networking in the foyer, but I wanted to go home. I still had a fair bike ride to do. And I would be home relatively late the day after, and the day after that, as well. So I left the networking to others.

The week after, there will be another event, this time about resilient women in a time of war, in association with a Ukrainian university. Stay tuned!