One of these is not like the other: The retrospective experiences of girl athletes playing on boys’ sports teams during adolescence

Abstract

Adolescent sport is predominately organised by single-sex sport environments, where girls and boys compete separately. Enhancing opportunities for all youth to compete together may be important for providing broad sport opportunities for girls in sport, reframing preconceptions about the inferiority of girls’ athleticism, and for situating boys and girls within mutually respectful relationships. Yet, limited research has explored girls’ experiences of competing on boys’ sports teams. The current qualitative study explored young adult women’s retrospective experiences of playing on a boys’ sports team as an adolescent. Eleven women (M age = 20 years) who had played on a boys’ sports team during adolescence participated in individual semi-structured interviews. Using reflexive thematic analysis, three overarching themes were generated including (1) the culture of boys’ dominance and superiority in sport, (2) girls are positioned as the ‘other’, and (3) strategies to navigate the boys’ sport environment. Overall, the women reflected on the boys’ sport environment as superior regarding its opportunity for skill development and competition. However, they also described having to navigate tensions and problematic assumptions of girls’ inferiority in sport that limited their inclusion in the boys’ sport environment as an adolescent. The results highlight the complexity of navigating sex and gender in sport, and unique challenges associated with adolescent girls competing on boys’ sports teams. Researchers and policymakers should continue to understand and widely implement strategies for promoting positive sport environments to support adolescent girls and boys in competing together on sports teams.