I took freshman gym over 8 years ago, and it was an all-girls class. While I participated everyday (except for one day with killer cramps, although my teacher insisted that physical exercise would relieve them) to get my grade, there were a group of girls who never ever dressed. Several of them were heavier, and I recall at the beginning of the year one of those girls panicking about the teacher weighing everyone.
I honestly don't know how to make gym class more inclusive. Maybe it's offering a variety of activities, rather than focusing on one sport for several weeks. We spent so much time on football, a game I still don't understand, but less than a week on basketball, the one sport I had actual experience with before playing it in class. AS valuable as knowing the rules of different athletic events may be (I, sadly, may never know), perhaps we should focus on simply finding activities that will get kids moving in class, and inspire them to keep moving after school (or at least after freshman year).

Every school I've been to and know of in my area separates the girls and boys around 4th grade.

The way the teachers I've had experience with made it more inclusive was to do short units. Each unit would be 3-4 classes on a particular sport, game or activity. So if you hated one thing it wouldn't last long. think that is good. It helps you experience different things and maybe find something you do like.

In my high school (same one my kids will attend) they require you take 2 physical education credits I think to graduate. It ends up being two semesters of something physical. All the classes are single gender which I think in this case is good. They offer aerobics, swimming, weight training, dance and regular gym. They also count being in marching band towards those credits. I like this as well. It gives you options and makes it easier to find something that suits your skills and ability.

Anyone who wants more challenge and to be more competitive can join sports teams. Our school is even open to girls joining traditionally "boys" sports. In fact when I was in school the wrestling coach approached several of us girls who were smaller/thin for the team. They needed people in certain weight classes and noticed we had the right body types. So it isn't just a matter of putting up with girls on the teams they actively go after boys and girls who fit the needs of the team/sport.

I think part of it is "proper feminine behavior." Girls are often socialized to think that being sweaty or dirty, not to mention competitive, is not good because it is not "girly". When I was in middle and high school, I did not want to be gross and sweaty around people, mostly because I didn't want to have to use the gross school showers, but also because I was afraid of what others would think of me.

I don't know that separation is necessary, (though I can see how it would be successful) but offering more than one option or having shorter units is a good way to go. During high school, we could often choose form three or so activities to do and there were things like team building games, archery, flag football, etc so most people could find something they liked.

I participated in gym class but only begrudingly. I am, simply put, not very athletically coordinated and I hated being one of the worst in the class.

I was also totally put off by the competitiveness of my male classmates and the fact that there was no emphasis on LEARNING how to do anything, just on being able to do it.

Finally, my school offered a general dance class for gym credit. Problem solved! It was open to all but only girls tended to sign up and the teacher had everyone write (on note cards) what their goals were for the class. She then tailored the class to that experience. It was awesome.

I think a variety of choices for physical activity is necessary, especially if you have mixed classes.

I remember doing a lot of standing on the sidelines for the sports I wasn't good at (which was most of them). In high school we had different options for PE and I found that taking aerobics or weight lifting was much more my style. Aerobics always had a majority girls and weight lifting also had a fair number of girls as well. I think those options were vital. It sucks if your primary daily exercise is dependent on your ability to catch a ball, shoot a basket or swing a racket. No one ever taught me HOW to catch a ball. An elementary gym teacher with 30 kids can only give so much attention to each one. And by the time 4-5 grade rolls around a lot of kids have given up on the concept of competitive sports because they just don't have the skills that some of their peers have. I think this happens more often with girls because girls (in general) are less encouraged to go out and play and less likely to have one-on-one sports time with their family. I know that I never once played catch with my mom or dad until my step-brother was old enough to play then suddenly my dad was all about playing catch (by then I was a teenager).

Now, I get lots of exercise and I've found that the forms of exercise I enjoy such as hiking, mountain biking, weight lifting, yoga, snowboarding, aerobics (I don't dance, but that would be another common example) are largely not taught in school, not competitive and not requiring catching a ball.

So, if I were designing a gym curriculum to encourage girls to be active I'd focus on: teaching sports skills young and with individual attention so that girls have the ability to participate in the competitive games, include non-competitive work outs into gym classes such as aerobics and yoga and occasional field trips for hiking and other outdoor sports.

When I was in grade school and middle school, gym class was split up. I can't say what happened on the girls' side, but even the scrubbiest of scrub guys had to partake in what we were doing. If any girls were allowed to sit, that's just the teacher requiring an attitude adjustment.

In high school it went mixed, but there wasn't much in the way of non-participation there, either. For our last two years, we were given a choice of four activities, six times during the school year. As noted in other comments, this tends to eliminate the desire to sit there, since there's probably something everyone can get themselves to do for four or five weeks.

There are certain "females shouldn't get sweaty" factors at work, I'm sure, but given the variety of comments and the structure of the education system in America, it's more likely these issues crop up in different ways in different school districts. A large part of that in recent years has been a lack of importance placed on gym class and a reduction in support for physical education. That's a major issue nationwide, and if that were to be solved, we would probably see a lot less of what you're talking about (maybe even more so than if we focused specifically on the problem of female participation in phys ed).

I was one of those sideliners years ago. Not because I wasn't good at competitive sports, but because I just hated them. I for the life of me could not and still cannot understand why people find so much pleasure in throwing randomly shaped balls into goals. I was a little feminist and I really tried to enjoy traditionally masculine sports, but all I wanted to do was get back to class and do my homework.

I don't think that separating girls and boys is necessarily a good idea. There are very sporty girls and very timid boys who would probably not be happy with this arrangement. Plus separating girls and boys would probably send an even stronger message to kids that they need to fit into gender norms.

I think the best solution would be to have a wider variety of activities, especially individual activities (like running, weightlifting) that kids are more likely to continue into their adult years. And I personally think gym class would be much better for everyone if there was a more even balance between the cutthroat, competitive sports and more peaceful and artistic activities like yoga and dance. Both boys and girls should be exposed to both types of activities so they can choose for themselves what they like the most. The problem is that boy's gender roles when it comes to sports are probably even more severely enforced than girl's roles, so we're not likely to see boys willing to try ballet. And I find that really unfortunate.

"So, now as much as then, I had some serious values-dissonance about valuing female competition and athletic participation...and yet wanting absolutely nothing to do with them in gym class."

You can value female competition while realizing that aggressive athletic activities are not for everyone. For me it's not so much about upholding female aggressiveness as an ideal, but more about valuing everyone's right to participate in whatever activity they enjoy and makes them feel good about themselves, whether that's something aggressive like football or more artistic like ballet. There's nothing anti-feminist about a girl liking ballet as long as she realizes that there are other options available to her and decides for herself that this is what she loves the most.

So I don't think you should not enjoy yoga simply because it's considered to be feminine. For the life of me, I tried to love hockey because I thought it would be super feminist of me to participate in a traditionally masculine sport. But I ended up absolutely hating it and all I ever wanted to do was figure skate (I've now been skating for 15 years). If I had not started figure skating simply to avoid doing something traditionally feminine I would have just been letting patriarchy define my choices in a roundabout way.

I dislike competition on general principles and am not very coordinated. I did, however, run cross-country and track in high school and enjoyed it. I wish gym classes in middle school and high school would focus of life-long sports that kids can continue post-school, such as running, biking, weight-lifting, yoga and dance. Those are activities that can be done in most places with a minimum of equipment. These activities can help kids focus on improving their own strength and speed. They lessen competition as well and could build self-esteem as kids see themselves get stronger and faster. Too often, kids who aren't athletic feel horrible in gym classes and see themselves as weak. Activities where they can see themselves improve might help these kids enjoy gym more. I would have liked gym better if these activities were the norm.

Joan

I suspect it's less a socialized 'girls shouldn't sweat' thing as it is a socialized 'guys should be aggressive' thing and/or innate gender differences. I hated gym class (especially as puberty hit) largely because it is really not fun for a non-aggressive girl to play alongside boys who are trying to figure out who can throw the hardest bean-ball. In high school I only knew one girl (who wasn't even in my grade) who could match them. For someone like me who was weak even for a girl...you can do the math. Gym class was little more than an exercise in embarrassment, even without a teacher who was trying for it.

There are two things that stopped me from participating in most physical activities: being laughed at by the boys, and being differently-abled than everyone else past a certain point. Up until the age of 15, I loved playing sports (especially competitive ones) but usually wasn't very good at it, and was friends with a lot of girls who weren't very good at it either, so we all got picked on a lot by the boys, which really discouraged us from even wanting to try.

Then, when I was 15, I had surgery that changed what I was able to do; I couldn't do sit-ups, couldn't (and still can't) throw balls in certain ways without pain, etc. (It probably didn't help that I went to small, rural schools for the most part so there wasn't a ton of money or much variety that could be supplied; it's really impossible for a small, rural school to offer classes in specific sports only or to try to incorporate something like yoga that parents will see as frivolous "liberal crap" rather than truly 'physical education'.) But rather than trying to find activities that I could do, the teachers would just tell me to sit out or to walk around the court/track.

Side note that writing this comment only just made me realize: I ended up loving to walk. It is still my main source of exercise and I was happiest when I lived in a place where I could walk to a large variety of places.

We were separated in grade 9 and I think I participated more than ever. It was great. Some girls still participated as little as possible and some girls were still pretty competitive. Only about a third of the girls seemed athletic and competitive but that might've been luck. I favour a competitive and a less competitive gym class. The less competitive one can have some of the same sports as the other but you'll know the people in the class will be less into competition. This class would also have some days that are aerobics, yoga or some other activity that is just about getting active. I sure wasn't very active in volleyball. If you aren't at least decent at certain they aren't going to give you much physical activity.

I’m getting a strong vibe from this post that seems to say, in general, on average, women not as comfortable engaging in competitive activities as men. This is of course very anecdotal, but I find that this is also the same vibe I get when I was in school, in regards to sports, or most other endeavours.

So when I hear a girl/woman saying how she doesn’t like competitiveness, I’m thinking it’s probably due to socialization? After all, if it was personal preference (ie. Not related to socialization), then you’d expect to see the same number of men and women who dislike engaging in competitive activities. Therefore, there must be some other factor that affects whether one is competitive or not, rather than just “I’m built that way”.

I’d say it was based on socialization as men are often encouraged to be more competitive, one of them being in sports. I also read an article a long time ago, which stated something along the lines that if a man wins in a competition, his body produces something or other that gives him a “high”, and that this elation, this feeling of being “high”, lasts much longer than a similar victory by a woman.

I especially dislike the notion that women can’t play in competitive sports or are not as good as men or are somehow less “womanly” if engaged in said sports….For example, I overheard some ladies who watched the Beijing Olympics and sniggered at women playing in such sports, saying how all those women athletes are all built like men and look like men. Clearly they have been brainwashed into thinking that sports is a male domain.

We definitely need more female athletes and good role models for women in sports.

I’ve always been curious though….why does Netball exist? Are men allowed to participate in netball competitions? I remember my school (in Asia) having a girls team for netball, but always wondered why there was no boys team for netball?

I've hated sports and phys-ed since primary school. It didn't help that I was never very good at it (host of medical issues which caused me to faint).

I have memories of being at sport carnivals, not doing much because I wasn't selected for a lot of sports. But I would bring a book and spend time reading. Until, of course, I got told off for that, and why wasn't I supporting my faction? And I had my books taken off me. So now I'm sitting in the sun and bored out of my mind.

I joined a Netball team once, and was picked on by the rest of my team and by the coach. She made me GS, then told me I was "not allowed to try shooting a goal". So, bad.

I have a visceral reaction to most sporting activities. The thought of sport just makes me angry for these reasons.

I still get a lot of exercise though. I walk everywhere, and I work in child care which requires a lot of running and lifting. And my favourite physical activity is roller blading, because I can do that at my own pace, move quickly without fainting and I love the feel of wind moving past my face and body when I'm moving quickly.