What I Learned Playing on a Mixed Gender Sports Team
2020’s International Review for the Sociology of Sport reported that “mixed sport has been identified as having social benefits that can challenge the heteronormativity that often underpins interactions between males and females”.
Currently, we are denying school children this beneficial experience by segregating their sports teams and their training sessions by gender. This is a long standing tradition that we should start calling into question as, according to the report, the divisiveness of single-sex sports teams is founding problematic relationships between young boys and girls that only become exacerbated by age. These problems begin with excluding one another from typically “male” or “female” sports or sporting events, develop into the bullying of those who don’t exercise in typically “masculine” or “feminine” ways, and later present themselves as criminal behaviours such as sexual harassment and assault.
“It took me a frustratingly long time to realise that I was wanted in that space, and that I deserved to be there, having spent my teenage years being taught that it belonged to the boys and that I belonged somewhere else, somewhere with less funding, less exposure, and less spectator support”
On the other hand, the report collated a number of studies on the social benefits of playing mixed sport and revealed the following:
“Friendships between men and women moved away from traditional expectations of sexual relations, the objectification of women in banter was minimised, and women as well as men were perceived as knowledgeable about the sport. This led to more supportive, respectful and equitable relationships.”
By segregating the sports pitch, we are not just reinforcing the idea of marked difference between the sexes, a practice that leads to increased sexual inequality, but, in addition to that, we are depriving pupils of their physical and social awareness of one another at a time when their bodies and personalities are developing more rapidly than at any other point in their lives.
Some may want to defend the practice of single-sex sports teams by bringing up physical differences, arguing that the male and female bodies have different capabilities and, therefore, that it wouldn’t be fair or equal to ask the girls to keep up with the boys who, on average, are stronger, faster, fitter etc. I thought this too until I went to university and joined a mixed gender sports team myself.
Just like any sport, there were rules in place to ensure our matches were fair and safe for all players but, despite this, I began playing on mixed teams with something to prove. As a woman and a feminist, I was worried about letting down my sex by showing physical weakness or being outrun by my opponent. I put pressure on myself to represent my sex as physically capable and rise above my male teammates’ low expectations of me, without realising that it was I who was harbouring low expectations of them - expectations of their sexism towards me. I had made the assumption that they’d rather another male player take my place, forgetting that they, too, had actively signed up for the mixed team to play alongside people just like me.
It took me a frustratingly long time to realise that I was wanted in that space, and that I deserved to be there, having spent my teenage years being taught that it belonged to the boys and that I belonged somewhere else, somewhere with less funding, less exposure, and less spectator support.
With that in mind, I re-evaluated myself as an athlete and began embracing my limitations just as much as my capabilities. I accepted that my body would only take me so far when up against male opponents, and shifted my focus onto areas that I used to neglect: technical knowledge and tactical play. My training became more varied and my competitive matches became lessons in problem solving: how can I beat an opponent when they’re faster/stronger/taller/heavier/fitter than me? What rules can I use to my advantage? How can I be thinking differently? In which positions would I thrive the most in a team with such a diverse range of players?
Through this I learned that playing sport can be just as much an exercise of one’s mentality as of one’s physicality, and thus is something to which everyone, regardless of their sex, can equally contribute.
It was through joining mixed sports teams that I was able to meet a lot of lovely people while at university and establish a healthy social life for myself. I began wondering how many school friendships I had potentially missed out on by playing on single-sex teams until that point.
How many friends have you made on the sports pitch? How many of them were of another gender?
I urge those who are interested to leave behind their preconceptions about athletes of other genders and join a mixed team. I, as well as many others, have found the benefits to be huge for self-confidence and awareness in my body’s capabilities as well as for my social life and relationships. I only wish I had learnt all of this sooner, while I was still in school, and hope that future generations won’t be deprived of the benefits, as mine was.
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