EDDIE IZZARD

Anita White, founder of the Anita White
Foundation (above), which promotes the
development of women in sport
sports media coverage and the value of
reported sponsorship deals for women’s
sport was just 0.4 per cent from the total
in 2013. In the same year, the top five
women’s sponsorship deals totalled £1.7m
– and only three women made it to the
Forbes list of 100 highest paid athletes.
It would seem that women are destined
to fight for equity within a system which
is weighted against them. White thinks
a multi-pronged approach is needed for
change: “Sport is still facing much the same
issues as 30 or 40 years ago. It has to start
with families and primary schools, so that
positive attitudes to sport are formed early,
enabling girls to see sport as a fulfilling and
important part of their lives. They need to
see sport as an important part of becoming
a woman for a variety of reasons: it’s fun,
it’s sociable and it promotes good health.”
To achieve this, it is important to keep
teenage girls engaged. Girls currently
tune out of sport for a number of reasons,
including inactive social groups, self
confidence and personal ability. A study
carried out by Virgin Active in 2014, found
that 39 per cent of girls were put off by the
PE kit. This rose to 46 per cent among 16-
year-olds, almost half of which admitted to
making excuses to get out of PE.
FAMILY AFFAIR
According to Sport England, women have a
strong influencing role within their families
and sporty mums can be more influential
than sporting heroes or big sporting
events, so it seems logical for initiatives to
target women and families. Ruth Holdaway,
CEO of Women in Sport, says that women
In England, 6.8 million (30.7 per cent)
women play sport at least once a week
for 30 minutes – compared with 8.6
million men (40.6 per cent)
Women have a strong influencing role within their families
– sporty mums can be more influential than sporting heroes
so it seems logical for initiatives to target women
have more caring responsibilities than men,
and frequently have more complicated
lives, so offering more family activities and
appropriately timed sessions to fit in with
childcare, are some of the changes they
would like to see. “These are just two of
a complex set of changes which need to
be made in order to improve participation
among women,” she says. “It is important
for sports to understand what motivates
women and to adapt to them, not expect
women to adapt to the sport.”
Some sports are already successfully
adapting and offering some great
initiatives. The Lawn Tennis Association’s
Tennis Tuesdays were a great success this
sportsmanagement.co.uk issue 4 2015 © Cybertrek 2015 39