It's bugged me for a few months, now., and I should have blogged it back then. Sport England launched a campaign to encourage more women to get active, and thus fit and healthy. Some fun posters and videos, and a catchphrase/hashtag This Girl Can.
I tweeted at them asking why they used the word 'girl' and only included images of young women. Were they implying that exercise wasn't for the vast majority of women who are middle-aged or elderly, or younger than that, but not 'girls' Their answer was that the gap between male and female participation is narrower in older age groups.
Oh that's alright, then, that must be because of the hordes of perimenopausal women suddenly taking up jogging after a lifetime of inactivity.
Of course it's not. It just means that a great number of men give up organised sports - such as football for the pub or works team - as they get older.
It doesn't mean that women who've been inactive for decades suddenly take up physical activity. Some do, but statistically, it's a lie. It doesn't even mean that older women are proportionately more active than young women. They're not.
Look around you at the park joggers, the swimming pool, any gym you may be a member of or spot from the swimming pool. The women in there aren't middle aged and older, on the whole.
It was a stupid answer. A better answer might have been - we have limited resources so decided that this campaign was aimed specifically at young women, using language and images they can identify with. We chose this age group because we want to get them into a lifelong habit of activity, which will reap benefits for them as individuals and for the health budgets for many decades.
At least it would be realistic and honest.
But no, they didn't say that. They pretended, using statistics in a spectacularly asinine way, that the 'problem' is with young women. They implied that there isn't a problem with older women, or if there is, they're not bothered.
Cool, let's take the sexism out of activity. That's a positive. But let's make absolutely sure that we retain ageism, and we ignore the long lasting effects of the sexism they are now, belatedly, wanting to tackle.
My generation thought we had invented 'The Gym', but only a minority of my contemporaries took them seriously. I don't remember Gym Membership being a desired lifestyle accoutrement when I was in my 20s, although that changed slightly with the installation of a workplace gym. This was cheaper than a commercial equivalent, and, being in the office building, meant that many of the office rules about harassment and intimidation applied just as in the other communal/social areas.
A few people swam, others occasionally went to aerobics or step classes, until the novelty wore off, but I don't recall any sense of exercise being something you incorporated into your everyday life. I knew someone who rowed competitively, and there must have been people competing at high amateur levels in various sports, but they were unusual.
I don't recall my school friends' mothers doing exercise. A few attended yoga classes for a short period when it was briefly fashionable, similarly aerobics - remember Jane Fonda and the Green Goddess? Some girls at school and my next door neighbour were members of Sale Harriers, but that was the equivalent of Stockport Youth Orchestra, only for those who were talented and ambitious. People's Mums and older sisters didn't enter 5ks or 10ks, let alone marathons.
My age group, with a few exceptions, are past childbearing age; our mothers are of the age of being actively involved in community volunteering, teetering into dementia, or onerous caring; some, of course, have passed away. Both these generations have been discouraged from being active - even school sports* was largely aimed at those willing and able to play team ballgames rather than the majority who could have benefitted from aerobic and strength building work outs.
But no, Sports England blows its advertising budget on the group of women who least need encouragement to exercise, and in doing, risks further stigmatising the older women who fit into these media images of what an active woman...sorry "GIRL"...looks like.
This is a classic example of intersectionality - where sexism is exacerbated by ageism. And you wonder whether a well meaning campaign with cool images is actually counterproductive and damaging to those it has deliberately excluded.
* we did some Jane Fonda and Scottish dancing for a while, which was popular and fun, but that was put a stop to by parents - no doubt just one or two, possibly male, and definitely evil - who didn't consider it 'proper' PE
