Skateparks are not inclusive for women and teenage girls - Susannah Walker full presentation 🤢Susannah Walker had to say on LinkedIn “Usually I aim to post positive things and examples of good practice, but today I'm breaking the self imposed rule because a) the discrimination against teenage girls is so shocking and b) it's happening on my doorstep. I live in Frome in the southwest of England, and like a lot of other places across the UK its facilities for teenager are a skate park, a MUGA (fenced pitch) and a pump track. All of those are, on average, 90% used by boys and young men. A lot of other places are realising that this is a problem and co-designing more equitable facilities with teenage girls. But no, not Frome, whose slogan is "Built differently". So differently that last night frome town council voted to approve a new skate park and a fundraiser to get the money for it, with a total budget of £445k. So, with the stuff that's already there, that means that they have in total spent and budgeted well north of £500k on facilities which will predominantly be used by boys and young men. And the amount on facilities which will be mostly used by girls and young women? A big fat £0. There's more to this too - because skate parks are not just gendered in themselves, the research shows that they deter girls from using a park where they are. So building it makes things worse. But for now I am too boggled and outraged to deal with any of the detail, and I just have two questions. The first one is surely this level of sex discrimination is illegal? And if it's not, do we need to change the law?”