I would also state that it's what we see in school. I was in a sport that wasn't part of school when I started high school. I was a figure skater. I was the weird girl who left class every day at 10 a.m. to go drive an hour to Kitchener, skate, and do my homework at 10 p.m., before we had iPhones that you could use the flashlight on, using an actual book light.
Once I joined the cross-country and track team, I was part of the school, but I wasn't. We have mainstream sport, and we don't. We have women and girls who can compete on basketball teams and maybe a soccer team, but unless you have gender equity and neutrality in the sports that are offered at high schools, and unless you have a way of encompassing and welcoming athletes who are doing sports such as gymnastics or boxing that aren't in the school system, how do you account for the women athletes who aren't going to run on the school cross-country team and be a fringe team, or who aren't on the mainstream volleyball or basketball teams?
A lot of women in sport are in other non-team sports. They're in individualized sports or sports that aren't tied to the typical education system. I think if a government wanted to, it could step in and develop programs and introduce girls to those triathlons and cycling and boxing. We might not all excel as pretty little girls in pretty little boxes. We might not all be team players, six feet tall, and capable of playing basketball or volleyball. If you show that there are other opportunities, and if you have role models who come in to speak to the schools and the teachers and who are from different sports backgrounds, maybe you'll inspire some girls to stay in athletics, whether in team sport or otherwise.
