Being a female athlete

I’ve been fortunate enough that I grew up sailing from a young age surrounded by other girls who loved the sport just as much as I did. We pushed each other hard on the water and so our rate of progression was always high. Off the water we were just a group of girls who loved spending time together. There was never a time where I felt I was missing out on a school social life due to my weekend commitment to training away from home and that had a massive impact on why I’m still in the sport today and where I’ve got to. The reality for many other girls in sport is entirely the opposite. Across all sports, we see a massive decline in female participation during and after puberty, research shows girls drop out of sport at 3 times the rate of boys during puberty. Sailing is no different. World Sailing in 2019 reported a lack of good support and opportunities was causing girls to give up the sport ‘from the age of 17 with dropout peaking at 25’. One of causes of this was cited as a lack of female role models. This is something I can relate to. When I was younger it was clear there was a glaringly obvious lack of females excelling at the top of our sport, particularly beyond Olympic sailing in events such as the America’s Cup and, more recently, SailGP.  This was never because these female athletes didn’t exist or weren't worthy of the top spots, rather it was the result of gender inequality and discrimination preventing access to the professional sailing world for the majority. I remember my first ILCA 6 training weekend and our coach asked us all to identify someone in the fleet we looked up to. Our whole group referenced male ILCA sailors. I was the only one to identify a female- Ali Young (a three time Olympian and World Champion- probably worthy of a mention). That was a pinnacle moment where I realised how important it was for girls to have female role models growing up- I could relate more to Ali and therefore was more inspired by her. Fast forward to being a full time British Sailing Team athlete, I’m incredibly proud to be part of a strong British ILCA 6 female squad. Our goal is twofold, to become the best ILCA 6 athletes in the world by working together and to inspire younger girls coming up through the sport.

The work I’m doing

I feel incredibly passionate about this topic. The landscape is changing- 2024 was the first ever Women’s America’s Cup and SailGP has it’s first ever female driver. But the reality is there is such a long way to go before we reach gender equality in our sport. It’s so important that whilst we celebrate the progress being made, we challenge inequalities that still exist. Sailing has a distinct advantage over many other sports in our quest to achieve gender equality. As a sport with a huge mental and decision making component there is no reason why females aren’t just as capable of doing the same roles as males- they just need to be given the opportunity and support to do so. I’ve had the privilege of giving ‘Women in Sailing’ talks at local sailing clubs, schools and companies, focused on challenging our own perceptions of female athletes and how we go about achieving true gender equality.