This Monday marks a month since I first arrived in Dublin, Ireland. It’s been an amazing time so far acclimating myself to Trinity College Dublin and to Irish culture. To get myself involved in the TCD community I joined the ladies’ rugby team. Though I expected differences between Dublin and Montreal, I have noticed a marked difference in the treatment of female athletes and female sports.
Personally, sports have always been a rather large part of my life. My parents enrolled all of their children in some athletic endeavour or other almost year-round.I took these opportunities for granted and simply assumed that girls everywhere played sports and were encouraged to be athletic. Even now, in my early twenties here at McGill, there is still a culture that condones and provides opportunities for women to get involved in athletics.
Last Saturday our ladies’ rugby team went to go watch the women’s rugby match. The two national teams (Ireland v. Wales) that were each composed of incredibly talented female athletes, played on a small, turf pitch in front of a ¾-filled stadium. I had bought my ticket two days in advance for €15 or $24 CAD whereas if I had decided to go watch the men’s match the next day (also Ireland v. Wales) I would have had to pay around €89 or $142 CAD. This indifference to female athletes on a national level is also reflected in both university and youth sport programmes.
I arrived at Trinity having never played rugby before in my life. Yet because the team here at Trinity is keen to increase their numbers, I joined simply by signing my name on an email list. Moreover, Trinity offers sports’ scholarships to male rugby players, but not to their female counterparts. Now, rugby is not the most popular sport amongst women, which could be explain the lack of interest and funding, but it was not the only ladies’ team desperate for people. The Ladies’ Football (soccer) Club and field hockey team were also seeking mid-year recruits.
Looking into sports statistics and research for the UK and Ireland, I found out that this female disinterest in sports is a regional problem. Girls’ participation in sports here peaks at age 7, and many girls stop playing team sports by the ages of 12 or 13. In comparison, though you will – unfortunately – still find many North Americans who scoff at the idea of watching and supporting female sports, young girls on the whole are encouraged to participate in a range of athletic endeavours. In 2014 alone, over 1.5 million girls registered to play youth soccer in the United States.
This indifference to women’s involvement in sport is due to a variety of complicated factors, and yet the end result remains the same: thousands of girls are missing out on the lessons that participating in athletics offers. To say nothing of the physical benefits of playing sports and being active, team sports have been proven to help self-confidence and improve social skills. Rugby, for example, is a sport that requires unbelievable levels of fitness and grittiness from its athletes. You tackle, win, lose, and score as a team. There is a camaraderie that you find on a team – be it rugby, dance, sport, etc. – that is difficult to almost impossible to replicate elsewhere.
The Irish Sports’ Council launched the “Women in Sports Initiative” in 2005 in an attempt to increase female levels of physical activity and they have seen some success; 1 in 3 Irish women are meeting weekly physical activity requirements. This is a move in the right direction, and in speaking to my Irish peers, I do think that things are improving. However, I would love to see the Sports’ Council tackle the task of getting young girls and teenagers interested and involved in sport programmes sometime in the near future. Empowering young women is something that many countries – not only Ireland – could benefit from.
Images obtained from:
http://www.irishrugby.ie/images/news/inpho_00959296_rdax_650x365_80.jpg
http://d2dzjyo4yc2sta.cloudfront.net/?url=images.pitchero.com%2Fclubs%2F…
http://cdn2.sportngin.com/attachments/photo/4311/2039/Women_Huddle_large…