Bringing girls back into focus Kathryn Meldrum & Debbie Ollis Deakin University

Context GConnect running for 1 year Partnerships GippSport Yarram Secondary College Gippsland Women’s health Service Yarram & District Health Service

Project focus Connectedness of girls Self Each other Community Integrated health and physical education curricula

Constructing identities Gender is key framework Emerging identities ‘Active femininities’ ‘Sporting femininities’ ‘Friend and connected’ ‘Yarram girl’ ‘Bully’ Body image – identities changing

Identities and participation – contrasting views ‘With all the physical, it is not my favourite thing’. ‘I love playing sport with guys no matter how rough they play’.

The trouble with boys …..I hate PE I don’t want to come, don’t want to play because of the boys. I am not saying they are all horrible but some of them are just shocking and you just don’t want to participate because of them. I think that they should do it like…..start it off…..or do some and just give up. And the guys saying something, your bad or a slut or you can’t play sport for shit…. give me the ball

Issues around lack of participation Lack of engagement with competitive sport Lack of physical skills and confidence Issues around body image Bullying and harassment

‘Sporting to Active femininities’ ‘I love playing sport with guys no matter how rough they play. But it was great to have some girly girl time. I loved the yoga’. ‘We have lots of physical people (in our class). And most play footy or netball on the weekend. I think everyone does’.

‘Active femininities’ ‘There was no guys there. So when you where doing sport you actually do it and actually could get the ball or whatever and get to have a turn’. ‘There where no guys like, keeping you out of the way, or saying you can’t do it because you are not good enough’

Building ‘Active femininities’ … a couple of the girls felt really uncomfortable….I seen heaps of the girls give it a go, like don’t worry about how you feel about it, we are not going to laugh at you or anything. I thought that that was like really good. ….I know there is no cool or uncool people here…. ‘Yeah!.. I think the most fun part was that it is was non- competitive and didn’t matter if you couldn’t do a handstand and nobody judged you when before they would of judged you’.

Making the connection with other girls Role of physical activity and their attitude Give it a go Happy to encourage others to have a go Non-competitive

Take home messages What message do you think the G Connect project was trying to give you? ‘You feel better about yourself’ ‘Confidence and stuff. Trying new things too I thought. We did heaps of new things….I really liked that’ ‘Finding new hobby’s ‘I’m not a big person to try new stuff and I did’. ‘Yeah, like it was also like feeling strong about your body, we are not weak. It was also good exercise, I’ll live off it.

Learning's for us as researchers Come from different positions around identity Questions about reinforcing gendered notions of physical activity

Questions, comments, suggestions?