Can girls play sport? Gender performativity in online responses to sport england’s this girl can campaign

Abstract

This chapter examines Sport England’s This Girl Can campaign, which has been held up as an example of best practice in communications, with claims that anywhere between 150 thousand and 2.8 million more women are now participating in sport as a result of the campaign. However, the campaign only marginally reduced the gender gap in participation rates, down to 1.73 million from 1.78 million, and a question remains around the extent to which the campaign achieved its objectives. By analyzing interactions between social media users who used the #thisgirlcan hashtag, it is possible to determine the campaign’s impact on users’ representations of gender, self and sport. I argue that social media users did not construct an online identity that embodied sporting capital and femininity, despite engaging with the campaign.