The whole body is in shape – Newspaper Kommersant No. 61 (7506) dated 04/08/2023

The British magazine Sport, Education and Society published an interesting study on why girls are more likely than boys to quit sports during adolescence. According to study author Tess Howard, an England field hockey team player, uniforms are to blame. More precisely, the rules governing what athletes are allowed to wear. According to hockey player Howard, they need to be changed so that girls can dress how they want, and not be complex about how they look, and not be afraid of sexualizing their image. This, she believes, is good for inclusion. A number of sports structures are already implementing the ideas of Tess Howard.

On Friday, Sport, Education and Society published a study by England field hockey player Tess Howard. His goal was to find out why girls in their teens are more likely than boys to quit sports. Note that Tess Howard is quite famous in her homeland. Especially since last year she scored the game-winning goal against Australia in the Commonwealth Games final (England’s first win in 24 years). And 24-year-old Tess Howard is studying at the University of Durham, and, in fact, in the process of mastering the curriculum, she did the work that led her to an interesting conclusion: girls refuse to play sports because of the dress code adopted at sporting events.

Tess Howard interviewed 400 women over the age of 18. Of those surveyed, 70% said they quit sports themselves or know someone who did, because of the clothing requirements of female athletes. Previously consistent with Howard’s findings, the findings were made public in a paper prepared by the Women in Sports group. They stated that in adolescence, only 35% of girls are “very active” in sports – against 54% among boys. Among the reasons why girls stop playing sports, there was a fear of looking ugly and even the fact that they simply do not like sports uniforms. As a result, it is said that only 10% of girls by the age of 14 meet the standards of physical activity required to maintain health.

Tess Howard calls the findings of her study “truly disturbing.” She is sure that the problem she identified is the most “underestimated factor causing the low involvement of women in sports”, and noted that girls quit sports because of the excessive and imposed sexualization of sportswear. Tess Howard sees a simple way out of this situation – to allow athletes to wear what is convenient for them. That is, to do exactly the same as the Ice Hockey Federation of England. They abandoned the requirement for athletes to wear a traditional skirt during official matches and allowed the use of long loose shorts, shorts (a type of clothing that combines the features of a skirt and shorts), leggings, headwear, including a hijab, long sleeves, etc. The only obligatory requirement is that the colors of the jerseys and leggings of the members of the same team must match. The color of the remaining elements of clothing can be anything, as long as it is not the same as the main colors of the opposing team.

“It doesn’t matter if any of the athletes, whether it’s tennis or gymnastics, wants to wear basketball shorts or leggings,” Tess Howard is confident. “Women’s sports are on the rise right now, we are so proud of our women’s teams. But I think about those girls that we missed just because of the dress code. And here the problem is not in the girls themselves. This is a systemic problem of society, and there is only one solution – the provision of the right to choose. My dream is to compete at the Olympics in shorts or shorts.”

Alexander Petrov