Girls Often Drop Sports Because of Their Uniforms

Girls’ school sports uniforms that are designed to accentuate their gender play a “major role” in high dropout rates of teenage girls in sports, according to research led by England Hockey star Tess Howard.

What to Know

• In a survey of women across the United Kingdom aged 18 and older, 70% of participants reported incidents of girls dropping sports at school because of clothing and related concerns regarding body image.

• The survey was part of a thesis by British field hockey star Tess Howard, who found that participation and enjoyment of sports were severely affected by their uniforms because the girls feel sexualized by what they are forced to wear.

• Gendered uniforms focus on what girls’ bodies look like, rather than what they can do on the sports field or in the gym. This contributes to harmful athletic-feminine identity tensions among teenage girls.

• Howard’s research prompted England Hockey’s domestic league to adopt new inclusive playing uniforms for the 2022/2023 season, allowing female athletes to choose to wear shorts, skirts, or skorts.

• Historic data show that the gender sports playing gap starts at age 5 and that by age 14, only 10% of girls meet physical activity health standards.

This is a summary of the article, “Practical, Professional or Patriarchal? An Investigation Into the Socio-Cultural Impacts of Gendered School Sports Uniform and the Role Uniform Plays in Shaping Female Experiences of School Sport,” published in the journal Sport, Education and Society on April 6, 2023. The full article can be found on tandfonline.com.

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