MPs call for more football boots specifically made for women, in a new Women and Equalities Committee (WEC) report. The Committee calls on the government to implement a new long-term strategy improving sports-women’s health and physiology-related issues.
UK Parliament's Women and Equalities Committee (WEC) have issued a new report investigating health barriers for girls and women in sport. In their critical account, the committee vocalises that sport “must do better”, as women and girls playing sport at all levels deserve kit and equipment properly researched and designed for their health and performance needs.
The report calls on the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport and the Department for Education to establish a taskforce, including UK Sport, the UK Sports Institute, women's health and fitness experts, sport and exercise research institutes, and the UK divisions of leading sportswear and sporting goods brands, to develop a long-term strategy to tackle sportswomen's health and physiology-related issues.
The strategy is to be published within 6 months, and is required to have a significant focus on research, prioritising actions to increase availability of suitable, female-specific sportswear and kit. In addition to implementing steps to achieve equal representation of women, as authors and study participants, in the field of sports and exercise research.
Moreover, seriously improving teaching in schools about girls’ health and physiology, including the menstrual cycle and periods in the context of sport and physical exercise, delivered consistently by trained teachers to girls at a much earlier age.
'There is overwhelming evidence that school PE and sports kit can have a devastating impact on girls’ confidence to participate in and enjoy school sport, and there needs to be an increased focus not only on girls’ participation in school sport but also the enjoyment they derive from it'.
“While there are positive signs of progress in the sports and exercise research sector, fundamental change is required to achieve equality of attention to health and physiology-related issues affecting women in sport”, the Committee's Chair, Caroline Nokes MP explained.
With a “slow and disparate response to disproportionately high” rates of anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) injuries in women's football, the lack of understanding and attention given to female health and physiology-related needs is evident. Between 25-30 missed the Women's World Cup in Australia and New Zealand last year, having sustained season-ending ACL injuries, with evidence suggesting women are six times more likely to suffer ACL injuries compared to men and 25 per cent less likely to make a full return, a factor within this is ill-fitting kit.
Sarah Walsh, head of women's football at Football Australia explains that for a long-time women have been treated like “little men”. With a lack of real research, she illustrates that the entire-high performance environment is built around men, designed by men for men.
With Nokes reiterating “It is symptomatic of gender inequality and sexism in the sports sector that the first football boot in the world designed around female feet came to the market less than four years ago. The sector needs to evolve quicker when interest in women’s sport is soaring”.
With very few football boots designed specifically with the female anatomy in mind, easily available and at an affordable price, this is just a snapshot into the barriers that girls and women in sport, a driving factor behind the report.
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