Gender inequalities do not only concern the world of work or the family sphere. They are also very strong regarding sports practices. An awareness-raising operation is being carried out in March to try to remove these obstacles and encourage women to get started.
Night has just fallen. A small group gathers on the forecourt of the Basilica of Saint-Denis (Seine-Saint-Denis), a dozen women including mothers and three men, sneakers on their feet. All wore a purple jersey with an inscription on the chest, “Run for Equality” (run for equality). After a quick warm-up, this small peloton will embark on a small loop in town. On the program that evening: a course of “5-6 kilometers”.
>> “It’s not that we are limited, it’s more sneaky”: how stereotypes (still) influence the practice of women in sport
It is the association Sine Qua None which is at the initiative of this night outing. Created in 2017, it organizes running sessions several times a week in Paris and the Paris region (and recently in La Rochelle and Bordeaux). “I don’t like to run alone, explains Léa Berthelot who joined the association less than a year ago. Being in a group obliges me and protects me on the pitch.”
“I don’t run alone at night”
This is one of the main factors that limit women’s sporting activities in the public space. And Léa Berthelot knows something about it. “I’m not comfortable being in shorts on the street, says the young woman. And when I’ve just run 6 kilometres, I can’t sprint anymore if someone bothers me.”
This notion of group is essential to put women in confidence but also in security. Helen Moesta, “always sporty” as she defines herself, is one of the association’s twenty ambassadors. “We always have comments, exasperated Hélène. There is not a single time when we have gone out with men who say to us: Bravo! It’s not mean, it’s always encouragement, but it wouldn’t occur to them to say it to men who are running. It has to be part of the morals, it has to be normal to see women running. Why would it be any different?”
The first obstacle is a lack of self-confidence
A study by Strava, a leading running application, reveals that in France women devote 25% less time to sport than men. This rate skyrockets at certain times of the day. “At nightfall, we can fall up to -50%”, regrets Mathilde Castres, co-founder of Sine Qua None.
A victim of sexual assault in the context of her work, she has made sport a vector of emancipation and equality: if women run in the street, they will dare more to occupy public space. Even today, there are too many obstacles. “The first brake is a lack of self-confidence and fears that have been internalized since childhood, develops Mathilde Castres. The second is very often injunctions due to the mental load in the family and the lack of time. The third is to make the public space safer for them, on issues of lighting or the width of the roads.
The association calls on communities to make public space more open. In Saint-Denis, that evening, on the large concrete square of the Basilica, there are only men. “I used to say that the men settle and the women move on,” says Oriane Filhol, assistant to the town hall for solidarity, access to rights, women’s rights and the fight against discrimination. .
“We see it around us, as soon as night falls, women disappear quite quickly…”
Oriane Filholat franceinfo
“Our goal, she continues, it is to see women at night in the public space, together we feel more confident and little by little, it will normalize behavior.” For six years, the Sine Qua None association has taken 2,000 women under its wing. She also wants to invest football fields in city-stadiums, too often used only by men.