Middle school students at Poly have 20 clubs to choose from and usually end up with their first or second choice. However, in the 2024-2025 school year, there has been a shortage of female-identifying students in sports clubs.
There are only five athletics clubs out of the twenty, including flag football, soccer for the fifth and sixth graders, soccer for the seventh and eighth graders, basketball, and general fitness. Almost all of these clubs have one hundred percent male students. Because of this ratio, many female students don’t want to be the only female student in the club, and due to this, they don’t put sports clubs high in their interest form at all.
Jared Winston, director of student life at Poly, said, “Only twenty percent of female student-athletes in the DEIB girls’ group are athletes who put a club high up on their interest and an even lower percentage of female students throughout middle school.”
This is important because it happens almost every year. But why? A potential explanation is that female students don’t want to be the only female students in the sports club due to hearing about past experiences.
Should there be divided-gender sports clubs?
The answer is yes and no.
Gender-divided sports clubs would bring both positive and negative additions to the Poly Middle School. It has problem-causing potential. For example, non-binary students might feel excluded and left out of some sports because of their non-gender-conforming identity. At Poly, we strive to make our community members feel included and welcomed, regardless of their appearance or sexuality. However, gender-divided sports clubs could also unite students as it allows them to find people who have something in common with them, such as a love for the same sport.
Winston shared, “We can have a good sports program that says we have different gendered athletics teams here at Poly, so why not have different gendered clubs from an athletic standpoint here at Poly?”
With gender-divided sports clubs, a greater number of advisers will be needed due to the increasing size of the clubs. However, gender-divided sports clubs also have many upsides. It would possibly make the way that they perform in athletics even stronger. For example, female-identifying student-athletes may feel more comfortable in a club environment that is more welcoming and filled with people who can relate to one another as females. It’s important in a club community that everyone feels comfortable and can be their best selves with people to relate to. Some studies show that same-sex relationships appear to be healthier than heterosexual relationships because they have the same roles and face the same discrimination society places on them. We believe this idea can be applied to gender-divided sports clubs.
Co-ed sports clubs, however, also offer an opportunity for community. Winston considers this a teaching opportunity. “That’s an opportunity to say to our middle school students who are male-identifying in those groups with female-identifying students, ‘Hey,’ the expectation here is that everybody is involved, right? That’s an important lesson as we strive to create equal opportunity. I will listen to the wants and needs of our students.”
In a survey, eleven Poly Middle Schoolers responded to the question, “Have [you] experienced bias in sports clubs or PE classes at Poly?” A female sixth-grade student wrote to the Polygon: “In PE, [some of] the coaches often favor the boys, especially in male-dominated sports like football. My sister faces similar challenges on her soccer team, where the coach tends to favor the boys despite it being a mixed team. There’s a lot of bias in the world, not just around gender but also race and ethnicity. It’s unfortunate how the community can be unkind to people from different backgrounds for no reason. To combat this, we should encourage more inclusive activities that aren’t influenced by gender biases, especially in school settings.”
“We’re always looking to get better in physical education,” said Physical Education Faculty member, Football Coach, and Track and Field Coach Jerell Jones. “But we do the best we can in making it inclusive for everyone. Fifth and sixth grade is co-ed so we’re not split in gender, but that’s not to say that when we do have sports it can be male-dominated because of the nature of some of the students in the fifth and sixth grades that are very competitive in the games we play. But we are mindful of that and do different things to make sure it’s inclusive for everyone.”
Although there is a clear intention to create a gender-inclusive sports environment in both PE and sports clubs, many students feel that a divide remains. “What I want to do at the end of the day is just make sure that students feel like they have ownership over their school experience,” concluded Winston.
Let’s move this idea forward and try it out.
