International Women’s Day: Physical Activity Equality for ALL

posted by Tucker Center for Research on Girls & Women in Sport
Tuesday, March 8, 2011 at 2:15pm EST

Welcome to the Tucker Center for Research on Girls & Women in Sport blog. The Tucker Center–the first and only one of its kind in the world–is an interdisciplinary research center leading a pioneering effort to examine how sport and physical activity affect the lives of girls and women, their families, and communities.

Blog written by Kinesiology graduate student and doctoral candidate Chelsey Thul, M.A.

Today is International Women’s Day (IWD), which honors the economic, political and social achievements of women throughout the world. According to the IWD website, “organizations, government and women’s groups around the world choose different themes each year to reflect global and local gender issues.” In the Tucker Center, our theme is physical activity equality for all; we hope for a day where all girls and women—no matter what ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, or class—will have equal access and opportunities to participate in, and reap the many benefits of, physical activity.

One way we have worked to achieve this theme is through our research and outreach promoting physical activity opportunities among East African adolescent girls—a prevalent and growing immigrant population in the United States that up until recently have not had voice in the physical activity literature or programming. As a result, physical activity opportunities for this specific population are scarce. In 2008 in a study titled, “Reducing Physical Inactivity and Promoting Healthy: Living: From the Voices of East African Girls”, Dr. Nicole M. LaVoi (my adviser and Associate Director of the Tucker Center) and I asked these girls about their beliefs, needs, desires, and barriers related to physical activity, as well as their suggestions for future culturally relevant physical activity programming.

Overwhelmingly, we heard that East African adolescent girls want to be active in a variety of ways (i.e., swimming, dance, basketball), but that they face a multitude of personal (i.e., lack of time and low feelings of physical activity competence), social (i.e., lack of peer and parental support and culturally competent, caring coaches), environmental (i.e., lack of resources and opportunities), and cultural barriers (i.e., lack of female-only spaces where they can maintain their cultural belief of privacy and modesty, yet still be active) to do so.

The primary suggestion the girls offered for future physical activity programming was creating an inclusive all-female program that is run by culturally sensitive, committed coaches and is centered on the activities they want (rather than the traditional activities academics and programmers think they want). Our study is currently in press in the Qualitative Research in Sport and Exercise journal. Also, based on the girls’ suggestions, a two-day per week culturally relevant, all-female basketball league was developed by the Confederation of Somali Community in Minnesota in the East African community. We have continued to help the league organizers develop the program over the past 2 1/2 years. Indeed, we are driven to do our part to meet the theme of physical activity equality for all. What is your theme and how are you doing your part?

Filed under: gender, race, Title IX

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International Women’s Day: Physical Activity Equality for ALL

International Women`s Day/Month

International Women's Day
March 8, 2011

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International Women’s Day: Physical Activity Equality for ALL

International Women`s Day/Month

International Women's DayMarch 8, 2011

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International Women's Day
March 8, 2011