Which of these kids do you think is least likely to play sport? Picture: Brendan Francis
THE way you dress has a huge impact on what you’ll do in a day. You wouldn’t wear a skirt, blouse and dainty shoes if you were planning on heading to the gym, nor a heavy long skirt if you know you’re going for a run with friends.
So when we dress our girls for school, why do their uniforms still have such physical barriers?
Spend a lunchtime watching girls and boys in a playground and you’ll notice some huge differences.
Boys will generally run, kick, jump and play anything that involves a ball, while girls are more likely to sit, talk and play less vigorously.
The older they get the bigger the behavioural divide.
When they get to high school it’s becomes harder to get girls active during recess and lunch than it is for the boys. It’s not surprising then that girls participation rates in physical activity drop off significantly in their early teenage years.
People talk a lot about how girls behave in schools as though it’s providing vital evidence for a genetic-like inability to be naturally active and into sport. “Girls simply aren’t interested in sport” we’re told, “boys just naturally want to run around whereas girls don’t”.
But it’s the girls’ uniforms that are acting like physical shackles. The majority of school uniforms still see girls wear dresses that fly up, blouses that allow little arm movement, stockings that sweat and ladder and long skirts that don’t permit the freedom of mobility needed to run and kick without tripping over in painful schoolyard shame.
Sports uniforms allow that freedom but most aren’t permitted to be worn outside of PE classes or sports days and while schools have redesigned uniforms in the past, most focus more on fashion than function.
Cute little Sam Squiers in her winter uniform in primary school. Totally impractical for playing sport!Source:Supplied
I first noticed this behavioural difference when I was at school. I started high school at a public school in the NSW country town of Orange. Able to wear pants and sneakers, I would spend recess and lunch playing sport; basketball, run across and touch football.
In Year 11, I moved to an all girls private school in Sydney and I’ll never forget the confusion I felt at my first recess. We sat. We talked. No one in the school was playing, unless it was a pre-organised sports training session.
And it was no wonder, with long skirts, thick stockings, blouses that required ironing and rules that prevented you wearing sports uniform unless you had PE.
I’m not the only one either. Since I first raised this issue on Sportette, I’ve been inundated with responses. This from Paul:
“I am a dad of a six-year-old girl and try to encourage an active lifestyle for my daughter and have only realised that her school uniform is going to be the biggest hurdle in keeping her active.
“I had never thought about that actually having an affect on participation. When you do, it is quite obvious really. We wish them to be ladies or ladylike in behaviour but that only enforces the behaviour.”
And this from Johanna:
“I spent my primary school years in shorts and a polo playing all sorts of games at lunch. My high school, even though it was a state school was black shoes, white socks, skirts and blouses. I regularly put holes in my socks because I couldn’t run in my school shoes so took them off, plus I took to wearing shorts under my skirt so I could take my skirt off at lunch to run around.
“My second high school had a loose interpretation of a uniform and I happily spent every lunch time playing basketball with the boys. I’m now an PE teacher at a Catholic school and there is no way the girls can play in the uniforms they have!”
Sports interest isn’t genetically defined, it’s learned. We send messages to our girls all the time that shape them from a young age. It’s society that forms a girl’s views on sport and develops her relationship with sport.
Same same but different. Is it any wonder girls aren’t running around kicking balls at school?Source:Supplied
Surprisingly, there’s been little research completed on the impact of school uniforms on girls’ behaviours. A study in 2012 by the University of Notre Dame Australia looked at the effect of school uniform on incidental physical activity among 10-year-old children. They measured how much exercise the Year 6 students did in their recess and lunch wearing their winter uniforms then when they wore their sports uniforms. It found while the amount of exercise increased significantly for the girls in their sports uniforms, it was only a marginal improvement for the boys.
Sometimes it’s the things that are right under our eyes that are the hardest to see. Girls uniforms (dresses, skirts etc) have always been relatively the same, but it’s time to admit they’re no longer practical and can actually be damaging
It’s not that girls “aren’t into sport”, they’re not running and playing because they don’t want to, we’re just not allowing girls their natural freedom.
Sam Squiers is a sports reporter for Channel 9, and the editor of Sportette.com.au — celebrating women in sport.
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