Yet some of my brothers still cringe at the thought of it. I’d remind them it’s just blood, to which they’d go as white as a pair of GAA shorts and tell me “that’s enough”. I’m the youngest of five, and there’s a sister between my brothers and me – this shouldn’t be a new part of the body that occurs explicitly in limbless siblings.
Girls, especially young girls, are still highly embarrassed by the whole thing. At an alarming rate young girls are dropping out of sports for a variety of reasons, but research has suggested it’s mainly down to their hormonal and body changes, causing girls to be uncomfortable and awkward about their physique. After all for years we were taught women’s bodies were only things to be looked at, rarely a machine that needs oil and fuel to perform and contribute towards a healthy lifestyle.
In the incredible documentary No Woman No Try, female rugby players spoke with genuine annoyance about how rugby shorts were usually men’s sizes, causing them to slip during scrums, tackles and mauls. Ruggette RFC was started by Stefania Evans, a player with Worcester Warriors Women, in response to the growing numbers of women playing rugby, and especially women who wanted to play in woman-sized gear.
Weirdly, it’s virtually impossible to get football boots for girls and women. Even weirder, I can actually buy a vegan football boot but not something tailor-made for girls. According to an article in the journal Sports Engineering, written by women with a vested interest in the women’s game, boots and balls are designed by men for men, which could contribute to stress fractures, blisters and other unnecessary injuries in women.
Supply and demand dictates whether a company would find it profitable to invest in development.