Female sporting stereotypes

Performance Communications | نوفمبر 18, 2020

For the past six months, I’ve been working with the Women’s Sport Trust on its #unlocked campaign, helping to raise awareness of women’s sport.

From speaking to a lot of the athletes, reading and hearing their stories, one subject that stood out was around sporting stereotypes.

This topic seems to cover anything from seeing women’s sport on TV, women working in sport or seeing different body types, different races and people from different religions taking part in different sports. It can also be about how girls are portrayed on screen and in media.

Sport England’s “this girl can” launched in 2015, went some way to addressing these issues. The campaign featured girls acting in a non-stereotypical way – they were aggressive, angry, focused, sweaty, older etc etc.

However look at most of the campaigns from the big brands. The females they feature tend to be white, slim, young and pretty. And what does that say to a new generation of girls who want to play sport?

A few months ago, Canterbury got criticised for featuring female models rather than actual female rugby players in images for Ireland’s new shirt. The men’s campaign featured three Ireland rugby players. The hashtag #iamenough popped up on Twitter with female rugby players posting pictures of themselves playing the game. Canterbury has since apologised and has hopefully learned its lesson.

So what can be done about it?

In 2016, Getty Images partnered with the Women’s Sport Trust to curate a selection of images featuring the world’s top sportswomen in action. The aim was to help promote a powerful depiction of women and girls in sports.

Just a few weeks ago, Ebony Rainford-Brent helped launch cricket’s ACE programme. This aims to offer cricketing opportunities to boys and girls from Africa-Caribbean backgrounds.

It’s a start. However I would look to the media and brands to feature different types of women. That way, more girls from more diverse backgrounds can see sport, in whatever form it comes, as a real option.

After all, if you can’t see it, you can’t be it.

Mod revival: Is customisation due a comeback?

Car modification: once upon a time, it was a petrolhead’s rite of passage. If you’ve ever fitted aftermarket alloys to a Vauxhall Astra, or swapped the speaker system in a Citroën Saxo, you’ll know what we’re getting at. Today’s modified car scene is far from dead and buried, but we’re a long way from the […]

Cars and Coffee is Keeping UK Car Culture Caffeinated

At one point, in the not-so-distant past, car culture in the UK was crying out for something new. The options for car enthusiasts looking to meet up and share their passion were limited to dodgy late-night supermarket car parks with a live soundtrack of rev limiters and handbrake hooplas, or ultra-posh concours events where you’d […]

The Clock is Ticking For Internal Combustion, But Rolex Shows That Old Tech Can Still Prosper

Cars and watches. Watches and cars. If you’re speaking to a car enthusiast, I’d wager there’s a very good chance they’ll also appreciate the merits of a mechanical watch. Listening to the brilliant Acquired podcast charting the history of Rolex, got me thinking. At various points, the excellent hosts Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal, liken […]

Formula 1 can’t rely on off-track drama to maintain its stellar rise

When Liberty Media bought F1 in 2017, it promised to grow the sport, enhance the racing experience and add new dimensions. So how has it gone? Well, the 24-race calendar last year was a record, as was the 6.5m live attendees at these races. Drive To Survive, the sport’s behind-the-scenes Netflix docuseries, has become a […]

Should You Still Use Hashtags on Social Media?

This question comes up a lot when discussing social media strategy: Should we include hashtags? The Origins of Hashtags Hashtags were originally designed to group conversations on social platforms, making it easier for people to follow specific topics. If you were into motorcycles, searching for #Motorcycles would bring up relevant discussions. They were a simple […]

MOTD Vs Changing viewing habits

I used to be a Match of the Day devotee, but the appeal is unfortunately waning. Yes, Sunderland AFC have been absent for 7 (seven) seasons, but I can’t remember the last time I tuned in for a full episode and with viewing figures down year-on-year (just 2.7 million earlier in January), this national institution […]

Introducing the antidote for AI generated copy: the smart typewriter

There’s a new piece of kit in the Performance Communications office: a Freewrite smart typewriter. It’s a pretty simple piece of technology: a chunky keyboard bundled with an LCD screen and storage. It doesn’t have a spellchecker, a web browser, or a scrollbar. If you’re old enough to remember, it’s reminiscent of early pre-PC word […]

What DeepSeek tells us about China and innovation

In January, China’s DeepSeek caused market pandemonium when it revealed its open-source AI model could match the performance of western AI providers like OpenAI, Anthropic, or Meta. Why? Because it reportedly did so with 10-20x less energy and hardware requirements. Many people were shocked because, unlike the OpenAIs of this world, DeepSeek was a small […]