Over the past 6 months, Hackney Laces has been working with Sisterhood, a brilliant social enterprise that builds confidence in young women, and London Football Journeys, a charity that uses film and football to strengthen communities.
Through workshops and co-design sessions, Sisterhood has worked with the girls teaching them how to film and edit. And, empowering them to tell their stories as female footballers.
It’s incredibly frustrating when you tell people you play football and they respond with ‘why?’ or a series of other questions. Women playing football feels like a foreign concept to many – it must be, given the things I get asked quite regularly as of late.
These questions range from, “but your boyfriend plays, right?” to, “are you American?”. I also get asked “do you play with the offside rule?” and “are your matches 90 minutes?”. I also hear “but you don’t look like a footballer” often. These questions and statements seem to facilitate a guided discovery process to ignorant people that need to prescribe a reason as to why a woman plays or has an interest in football.