Helen Grant, holder of ‘a portfolio so disparate it may well as nicely be Miscellaneous Stuff None of The Guys Needed to Do’. Photograph: Jan Kruger/Getty Photographs
Helen Grant, the minister for sports, equalities and tourism – a portfolio so disparate it may as well be Miscellaneous Things None of The Men Wanted to Do – has uncovered the centrepiece of government policy to tackle the gender gap in sports activities uptake. It essentially boils down to encouraging ladies to engage in sports that involve cuter outfits.
The complete interview in which Grant described her views reads like some thing scripted for an edition of Brass Eye. She suggests “[t]here are some superb sports which you can do and execute to a very high degree and I feel people participating look absolutely radiant and very feminine this kind of as ballet, gymnastics, cheerleading and even roller-skating.” For adult females, she suggests “a Zumba class or a game of rounders following they’ve dropped the kids off”. She described her response when, just lately, she was a spectator at a roller-blading occasion: “Individuals women arrived and they looked definitely lovely. They have been sporting their socks pulled up, gorgeous socks with sequins and their hair was accomplished.”
The government has identified a gender gap in sports activities uptake – the recognition of the difficulty is a important phase. It needs to encourage more women to get up sport – this is an admirable objective. It has recognized that stereotypes about femininity may possibly play an essential element in this gender gap – an excellent and crucial observation. To then determine that part of the resolution entails classifying some sports as “butch” and other people as “girlie”, to endorse this kind of stereotypes, seems to me to display a cackhandedness which no volume of sequinned socks can make palatable. How does it inspire ladies to consider up sport, by incorporating to the strain of sportswomen to search “feminine” – what ever that entails – and incorporating to the scrutiny of their look, consistently alluded to by male sport commentators? Remember John Inverdale’s idiotic comments about Marion Bartoli’s physical appearance, as she won Wimbledon.
It is only superficially surprising to hear this kind of policies expressed by a female minister in David Cameron’s government. Cameron does not just have a “ladies difficulty” he has many. Support for his celebration from females is declining and has been for some time. The party is losing female MPs left, correct and centre – some resigning mid-phrase, some declaring they will not stand yet again, whilst other individuals are controversially deselected, as rumour has it, for being “a silly girl”.
The prime minister himself has appeared, on occasion, unable to quit himself from making remarks with a sexist hue, like telling Angela Eagle, a parliamentarian of expertise and clout, to “calm down dear”.
Cameron is under stress to appoint female MPs to ministerial positions, but the pool from which he can pick is small and ever-diminishing. He is taunted by Miliband for his all-male frontbench. Former female Tory MPs like Anne Widdecombe are queueing up to criticise “silly modern day” ones. The strategic Cabinet coalition committee contains not a single woman.
Secretary of state Philip Hammond would seem unable to distinguish amongst female shadow ministers, repeatedly mistaking Liz Kendall for Rachel Reeves on the BBC’s Query Time on Thursday evening. In his defence, he has been in back-to-back Cobra meetings and has most likely not witnessed a girl in two weeks.
In this hostile setting, with whom might junior ministers like Helen Grant discuss tips, to discover their flaws? If 1 can only poll rich, straight, white, middle-aged men on regardless of whether they would like to see a lot more girls cheerleading in tight lycra outfits, the answer ought to hardly come as a shock.
All this contributes to the government’s female deficit, but the dilemma, I feel, runs deeper than that. Conservative ideology explicitly seeks to preserve conventional values and roles and this involves gender ones. With Thatcher’s legacy fading, the Tory celebration might in no way yet again be a all-natural political house for ladies.
Searching stunning in sequinned socks – a quite Tory solution to the sports gender gap | Alex Andreou
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