i Editor's Letter: Women in sport

“Sport pages? Let’s just call them the Men’s Pages shall we?” jokes my friend’s mum. But we don’t think it has to be like that.

I went to the women’s football final at the Olympics last summer. It was reassuring to hear Sepp Blatter noisily booed when he stepped up to award medals, having infamously declared that women should “play in more feminine clothes like they do in volleyball. They could have tighter shorts”. Time is running out for Blatter and the stegosauruses of Muirfield, shamed at the men’s Open golf two weeks ago for still refusing to let women join their club. Such retrograde attitudes are nothing new – these battles have been fought in other sports like cricket, where the threatened withdrawal of lottery money was used as stick and carrot.

So why doesn’t women’s sport get more coverage? A few reasons.

1. Money. The majority of professional fixtures are men only, and just 0.5 per cent of sport sponsorship goes to women’s sport.

2. Media. Women’s sport has little broadcast presence and without coverage, sponsors see little appeal. The vast majority of sport journalists are men.

3. Demand. Sponsors and broadcasters won’t promote women’s sport if there appears to be limited public appetite – but people won’t become interested without coverage.

Why is all this important now? Well, we know childhood obesity is worsening. Half of girls think that getting sweaty isn’t feminine and girls start doing less sport than boys from the age of about eight, with a paucity of prominent role models cited as part of the problem. As the Women’s Sport and Fitness Foundation, puts it: “Young girls aspire to be thin instead of fit.”

There’s hope. One in six people, and a quarter of those aged 24 to 34, are watching more women’s sport on telly since the Olympics, despite the limited choice. (BT Sport and Channel 4 could step in?) Women’s golf is being taken by storm by Inbee Park – we’ve interviewed her for today’s i, ahead of the Women’s Open. Participation in women’s boxing has leapt since the gold-medal feats of Nicola Adams. And England’s women stand a good chance in their Ashes, which start on 11 August.

So we salute our sister newspaper The Independent on Sunday for its pledge to raise awareness of greater sporting equality – not least by highlighting the best of women’s sport in its pages, as well as men’s. And we join our sister title in its pledge to improve coverage of women’s sport. We don’t promise a revolution and will not resort to tokenism, but women’s sporting achievement is well overdue a platform. Please write in with any specific requests.

I was struck by an interview with the F1 development driver Susie Wolff, who has batted away remarks such as: “How do you reverse into your pit garage?” And: “So you have a place for lipstick in the car?” She refuses to fight any gender war but says: “People tell me that their daughters didn’t realise girls could even race until they had heard of me. I think the younger generation’s idea of the sport is changing.” Amen to that.

i@independent.co.uk

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