{"id":1145,"date":"2022-10-07T15:31:21","date_gmt":"2022-10-07T15:31:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/unikentsportsci\/?p=1145"},"modified":"2022-10-07T15:31:21","modified_gmt":"2022-10-07T15:31:21","slug":"how-and-why-we-must-level-the-playing-field-in-womens-sport","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/unikentsportsci\/2022\/10\/07\/how-and-why-we-must-level-the-playing-field-in-womens-sport\/","title":{"rendered":"How and why we must level the playing field in women\u2019s sport"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ahead of the England Women\u2019s Football team taking on the USA at Wembley tonight (7 October) in a sold out match, Professor Glen Davison<\/a> from Kent\u2019s School of Sport and Exercise Sciences<\/a> discusses how more research is needed to ensure future successes in women\u2019s sport, and a truly level playing field. He said:<\/p>\n

\u2018While the\u00a0English\u00a0women\u2019s team finally bringing\u00a0football home this summer\u00a0was a cause for celebration, it\u00a0also gave women\u2019s sport in general a\u00a0much needed\u00a0and deserved platform.\u00a0Players, pundits and celebrities used the momentum behind the success to call\u00a0on\u00a0the\u00a0Government to do more to encourage girls into sport \u2013\u00a0a key step in securing the future of women\u2019s sport.<\/p>\n

\u2018However, as well as encouraging more girls in sport, those working in sport and exercise sciences have\u00a0a role\u00a0to play. While much research has been carried out to improve\u00a0athletes\u2019\u00a0health, rehabilitation and performance,\u00a0most of the\u00a0research\u00a0has been (historically) on\u00a0men\u00a0and\u00a0one area is strikingly absent \u2013 women\u2019s health and specifically the impact of\u00a0the menstrual cycle.<\/p>\n

\u2018Just\u00a0recently\u00a0Dina Asher-Smith, a Kent honorary graduate, had to pull\u00a0out\u00a0of her\u00a0European Championship final\u00a0because\u00a0of period cramps. Her comments around the need for more funding and research in this area were important not just for the hope that funding will materialise, but also for breaking the taboo around the topic.<\/p>\n

\u2018The good news is there\u00a0is\u00a0quite\u00a0a lot of research going on in this area\u00a0both\u00a0nationally and internationally.\u00a0We\u00a0have\u00a0some real experts around the globe really intensifying research efforts in these areas\u00a0and at Kent we\u00a0have many researchers that are actively\u00a0aiming to ensure balance (and the inclusion of females) in their research on (for example) sporting performance.\u00a0For example, most of the current PhD\/research students conducting \u2018performance-related\u2019 research under my supervision are recruiting both males and\u00a0females and\u00a0making sure that we employ methods to accurately track the menstrual cycle in females so that this can be factored into analysis of the results.<\/p>\n

\u2018However,\u00a0although there is much more recognition of this in general, and some world-leading experts on this very topic here in the UK,\u00a0it is still unfortunately common for some research to be exclusively conducted on males,\u00a0so\u00a0it\u00a0remains\u00a0vital that the industry\u00a0continues to\u00a0address\u00a0the lack of female participants\u00a0and\u00a0representation in sports science research\u00a0so that this it becomes the \u2018norm\u2019.<\/p>\n

\u2018It may one day be possible to fully\u00a0personalise training for individual women, based on menstrual cycle and\/or other factors, but\u00a0if this to be possible we need much\u00a0more research to be done. Hopefully, the recent advances in women\u2019s sport \u2013 in terms of achievements and recognition \u2013\u00a0as well as efforts to break the taboo and get more women into research\u00a0will\u00a0help achieve this.\u2019<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ahead of the England Women\u2019s Football team taking on the USA at Wembley tonight (7 October) in a sold out match, Professor Glen Davison from … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":40702,"featured_media":1146,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[244599,137637,70],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/unikentsportsci\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1145"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/unikentsportsci\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/unikentsportsci\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/unikentsportsci\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/40702"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/unikentsportsci\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1145"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/unikentsportsci\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1145\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1147,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/unikentsportsci\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1145\/revisions\/1147"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/unikentsportsci\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1146"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/unikentsportsci\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1145"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/unikentsportsci\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1145"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/unikentsportsci\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1145"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}