In primary I never really noticed that gender issues were a problem. I only noticed the differences that were visible between boys and girls when I became interested in sport.

As a child my parents were always open minded about the things I wanted to play with. For example, some days I would play with baby dolls then the next I would be playing with racing cars. To them it didn’t matter as long as I was happy. They then had the same views for sports. As a four year old girl I was given a choice of two sports that I could get myself involved in. From there a decided to pick ballet and football. Two totally different activities. I attended both activities but after a couple of weeks it became clear to myself that football was the sport for me. At the age of four I wasn’t aware of how female dominant ballet was and the same for football, not realising how male dominant that was. However despite the football class being full of boys I liked how much of an energetic and rough game it was.

In primary the boys used to always have a game of football at playtime. At first I was never allowed to join in because apparently according to some of the boys “football was a boys game and girls weren’t allowed”. From that point I became aware of the gender issues. It seemed to me that the boys were expecting me to be joining in with the other girls at the skipping ropes or at the hop scotch. This is why I feel the divide between boys and girls was so strong during play times. Both genders had made judgements at a very young age to which sports and activities were seen as appropriate for each child, depending on if they were male or female. Despite this, after a while I got fed up of sitting at the side and persuaded myself to join in without their permission. To their surprise I was better than they expected I would be, especially “for a girl”. From there on I was allowed to play.

I still see it as a problem today when people ask “what sport do you play?”. Boys especially seem to be shocked when I tell them I play football. It’s hard for some of them to believe that I can still be a “girly girl”, wearing make-up AND playing football.