Women must take the reins in their own hands on sport

ANNE Kessel writes that sport should have a more prominent place in schools. In the 1960s and 1970s physical education was part of the curriculum during school hours and it was easy for children to take part in sports five afternoons a week. But that was a long time ago.

Things have changed. Anyone who was brought up during the 1960s and 1970s will know that night time television made its appearance in the late 1970s.

But now you can watch television or Netflix 24 hours a day. We live in a digital era where almost everyone has a home computer and is hooked to their cellphone constantly.

Both locally and in the UK soccer hooliganism has become an ugly fact of life.

These are not things Kessel refers to as a reason why sports and physical education are on a downward trend.

As a sports journalist it seems more significant to Kessel that people are not in touch with their physical selves. Women panic if they experience shortness of breath, or pain if they run.

Perhaps, more likely a reason for girls not having a predilection for sports is the attention media pays to the idealised perfect female body.

Kessel compares the achievements of men and women. Men seem to get ahead more readily in business because of a long and close association with sport.

Sporting analogies are used effectively in training people in business, but the analogies tend to focus on male sports and male sportsmen.

Kessel would like to see the same for women and would like them to have as much exposure as men do.

She lists many famous sportswomen, and a quick think about women in sports in South Africa brings up names like Zola Budd, Natalie du Toit, Leonie Verster, Caster Semenya, Banyana Banyana and cricket commentators Natalie Germanos and Kass Naidoo.

She is no slouch in this department. She is an esteemed and decorated sports writer for the Guardian and the Observer. In her position as sports writer and chair of Women in Football she can influence the way young women think about sport and physical activity in their lives, and she has, so much that she received an MBE for her contribution to women in sport.

As she unpacks contemporary sports (in London in the main), the subtext is that people in positions of power don’t know enough or do enough to encourage young women to enjoy sport.

She concludes – women must do it for themselves. Create their own groups and learn about their own bodies.