Women’s Rights Network

Cathy Devine, expert in sport policy at elite and participatory levels with a special interest in equality for girls and women.
Corinne Kielty, cycling coach, ex Breeze Champion for British Cycling and cyclist.
Tess McInnes, cycling club Welfare Officer and member of British Cycling.
We discuss the UK history of women’s exclusion from sport going back to the stated principle of Pierre De Coubetin: “this feminine semi-Olympiad is impractical, uninteresting, ungainly and improper; it is not in keeping with my concept of the Olympic Games: the solemn and periodic exaltation of male athleticism with the applause of women as a reward”. It is extraordinary how widely this attitude prevailed into the 21st century.
Excluding women from sport is part and parcel of women’s designated roles in the public sphere as handmaidens, not participants; and how sport was and still is perceived as ‘unfeminine’ and not for girls or women.
Football was one of the first games that welcomed women, was popular with crowds but that ultimately women were banned due to the perception that men were losing out. Cycling symbolised independence for women. Gradually from the 1960s, women began to enter the professional and amateur arenas and successfully created both their own Olympic governing body and in the UK, a Women’s Sports Council separate from their male counterparts. Up to the 1990s almost all women’s sports were administered separately until the Sports Councils recommended mergers and men’s sport still dominates today.
This takeover and deprioritising of women’s sport has resulted in the stunting of girls and women’s sports and how as a result, we have very little by way of a legacy to build on. The lack of a longstanding popular culture of women’s sport continues to discourage the visibility of women coaches and policy makers, which contributes to the lack of thought given to encouraging girls into sport.
We discuss exclusion in schools, where non-traditional sports that might inspire girls are underinvested. Traditional team sports are cheaper to run and teachers hesitant to teach PE. Some girls enjoy traditional sports such as football, rugby and hockey, but are deterred by the lack of initiatives taken to make these spaces inclusive for girls, who experience a very different social conditioning to boys.
We discuss sport culture in general; certain sports seem hostile to atypical males as much as females. The macho culture of sport is as problematic for some men as for women; women’s sport is not the remedy or the refuge for men fleeing ‘toxic masculinity’. There is the absurd and intolerable situation that trans men, trans women and women are all competing in the women’s category. Men’s sport meanwhile continues unaffected. Why is it not problematic for trans men to compete in women’s sport, but it’s problematic for trans women to compete in men’s sport? The culture of National Governing Bodies and men’s sport in general has much work to do to address this.
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Women's Rights Network's Mary and Anna talk with Professor Sheila Pedersen about how we can translate the learning from the Suffragette Movement use of the press through to issues for women today.
Professor Pedersen is author of the Scottish Suffragettes & the Press and The Politicization of Mumsnet.
She's @SarahPedersen2 on Twitter: https://twitter.com/SarahPedersen2
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Professor Pedersen's research focuses on women's engagement with the media for political purposes, using both historical and contemporary source material.
She is currently Visiting Professor at the Mile End Institute, Queen Mary University, London. In 2015 she was Visiting Fellow at the News and Media Research Centre, University of Canberra, Australia.
Her book 'The Scottish Suffragettes and the Press' was published in 2017 by Palgrave Macmillan. The same year she was awarded funding by the Heritage Lottery Fund to produce an edition of the correspondence of Aberdeen suffragette and journalist Caroline Phillips. This work has led to a plaque to Caroline Phillips being unveiled on Union Street in Aberdeen.
She has also collaborated with artist-activist Carrie Reichardt in her public work celebrating Aberdeen women for the NuArt Festival. Her work on the Scottish suffrage campaign has been praised in a motion to the Scottish Parliament and was highly commended by the judges of the British Records Association's annual Harley Prize.
She was the Director of the Rise Up Quines! festival in Aberdeen in 2018.
Pedersen also researches women's use of social media, including blogs, Twitter and online forums. Her book, 'The Politicization of Mumsnet', was published in November 2020 and she is currently working on a project investigating Scottish women's engagement in political discussion online. She is also Co-I on an AHRC project investigating women's writing during lockdown, with Professors Lucie Armitt (Lincoln) and Krista Cowman (Leicester).
You can see her research here: https://rgu-repository.worktribe.com/person/72611/sarah-pedersen/outputs
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Welcome to our weekly round up - That Was The Women's Week That Was (TWTWWTW)
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Sports Shorts from WRN brings you all the latest on our campaigns and women's sports news; including football, fencing and our weekly features, "sin bin" and "star of the week".
In this week's episode frustrations are running high with the Football Association (again), and with news from the Veteran Fencing World Championships in Dubai.
The team discuss the incredible achievements of American swimmer Trudy Ederle, whose story is brought to life in the Disney film Young Woman and the Sea, and we reach dizzying heights with our "star of the week". You'll find a repeat offender in the "sin bin" this week, there's news of a crowd funder in pool, and the team give a well-deserved shout out to the Telegraph's Oliver Brown.
We welcome feedback and any women's sports news from around the UK.