What does feminism mean to you?
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To me, it’s the pursuit of equality and equity for women. It’s not about women and men always needing the same, but about everyone being given equal opportunity. It's about respecting women's experiences and striving to empower all women to realise their full rights and potential.
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Yet for some, feminism seems to have evolved into a movement that pits women against men. For others, challenging the status quo of gender norms and power structures is a threat to the power, influence, authority and control that men have, and want to keep.? Feminism is clearly a divisive term.? It’s positive intentions, often turned into negatives.? It’s fight for freedom, heralded as terrorism.?
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I’ve been thinking about this because, in a recent poll by King’s College London’s Policy Institute and the Global Institute for Women’s Leadership, 16% of 16-29 year old men, and 13% of >60 year old men felt that feminism had done ‘more harm than good’. It also showed that 52% of Gen Z and 53% of millennials believe that the promotion of women’s rights has gone ‘too far’ and is now discriminatory against men.
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So that’s a sizeable chunk of society who think that the pursuit of gender equality has been harmful. For someone who works on this pursuit, day in and day out, that’s data that makes me sit up and listen. And reflect. If I’m part of feminism, then I need to play a part in bringing people on this journey. On making it easy for everyone to say ‘of course I believe in equality, for women, for everyone’.
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One explanation for this defensiveness is that equality will mean men losing out. On things being taken away from men, to give to women.? I don’t think that’s a helpful perspective, firstly, because equality is not a zero-sum game. Giving more rights and opportunities to women does not mean taking away the rights of men. Promoting women’s rights is not about giving women special privileges or advantages over men. It’s about ensuring that women have the same opportunities, freedoms and protections that men have always enjoyed.?
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But I’m pragmatic.? In reality, giving equal opportunities to women in sport might mean that men have less. Than they did before. But still more, or the same as women.? Let me explain.? A school who provides opportunities ?each day for boys to play football on the MUGA pitch at playtime, were asked to allow the girls to use the pitch for one day a week to give them access to more physical activity and an opportunity to try football.? Their response? We don’t want to reduce the amount of football provision for the boys.? It felt like this was a move that took something away from boys sport. But in reality, in the requested arrangement, boys would still have had 3 more days on the football pitch than girls.
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In a rugby club, the womens team requested equal access to the ‘1st team pitch’ which was the best kept, highest quality playing surface.? They also requested equal opportunity to train at the most popular training time – neither too early or late in the day.? To make these changes, the club had to change the schedule for the men’s team. To make things equal, the men had to have less playing time on the best pitch, and had to accept that not all their training times could be at 7pm.?
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So yeah, I guess sometimes it does feel like for some people to make progress, things will change for others in a way that might feel like a loss. I guess the challenge is hoping that enough people believe in equality for all, and are prepared to make the changes in their own sphere of influence, and their own life, to achieve that.? But it’s certainly a challenge we see frequently in our pursuit of equality for women in sport, and it’s important that we continue to reflect on and think about how this looks and feels for everybody.
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A small role we play The Well HQ is to continue to include (and push for the inclusion of) boys and men in our work.? That’s actually pretty easy, since the sporting ecosystem is made up largely of men. I regularly work with groups of men to help them better understand how to support girls and women in sport.? Without blame or criticism. But with the hopeful intention that we all play a role in addressing the inequalities.? ?But its more than working with my generation. It’s getting in front of boys during our school talks and inviting them to explore the inequalities that exist in sport for women.? Again, without blame, without it feeling they are complicit in some conspiracy to oppress women.? These young men are the future designers of the world, future innovators, future educators, future bosses.? If we can inspire them with the challenge of breaking down barriers to equality and encourage them to consider the experiences of others when they create solutions then maybe what we call it, feminism, isn’t important, but more the idea and the ambition that gender equality is everybody’s problem to solve.?
My final word is inspired by the feminist Caitlin Moran, who said? “I’m neither ‘pro-women’ nor ‘anti-men’.? I’m just ‘thumbs up for the six billion.” And in our sphere of influence that what it’s all about, right, not about giving more to anyone than anyone else, but about making sure that sport is an incredible place for everyone.
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