In the finale of the first season of the Fight for Peace podcast, LutaPod, hosts Athena and Asmaa took the opportunity to discuss learnings and reflections from their inspiring podcast guests – Angel, Maëlle, Catisa and Coach Star.
LutaPod is a podcast that provides a space for young women and girls to discuss and share their thoughts, views and experiences in sport. Each podcast features a special guest and one of the aims of the series is to positively influence how women and girls are viewed and received in sport by the wider public.
In the finale, Asmaa and Athena summarise learnings and reflections of each of the inspiring guests, and discuss their hopes for the future of women in sport and how they can continue to positively influence perspectives on a wider scale.
Asmaa and Athena spoke a lot about the power of bringing women from across different sports together in order to raise awareness of issues women face in their sporting lives, shining light on the importance of individual journeys and challenges, and how barriers women face are universal.
Many of the guests spoke about issues and challenges such as the menstrual cycle, the male gaze in sporting environments, stereotypes of female athletes, and patriarchal views of male coaches and athletes – all of which highlighted how key it is to break generational views.
They shared how much they valued having each of the women on the podcast, learning something with every one of them. For example, how Angel articulated herself and put things into perspective in terms of being a female footballer, and by sharing the journey it took her to get there.
While our youngest guest, Catisa, spoke about juggling multiple sports while finding a healthy balance with her school studies and GCSE’s, which is often misconceived as a distraction, but Athena shared that boxing actually helped her during her studies as a way to release stress.
Muay thai coach, Star expressed her belief that there will be change, although women should also build the ability to be able to push through the barriers in their way, without letting it deter them.
Then there was Maëlle, who shared that she was never into sports growing up, and her love for martial arts has been a recent development. This is really surprising as Maëlle continues to be a positive role model for young women, competing in muay thai, and a regular attendee in our MMA sessions.
So what do Asmaa and Athena want to see put in place for women and girls’ futures in sport, and how can LutaPod contribute to the change society needs to see?
“We can’t expect people to hear us if we don’t even make ourselves heard. We can’t [say we’re] all for speaking out, and [we want] women to be more represented if [we] don’t even want to actively do something about it,’ explained Asmaa.
There’s a lot of power in this acknowledgement, but of course it takes all genders coming together and learning from each other to really make a difference.
“We’re not going to stop here…we’re not going to talk about something just for the sake of [it],” said Athena.
“Hopefully season two can be a run up of what we’re going to be doing with what we’ve learned… Hopefully we can create training for both male and female coaches across London. Teaching them what we’ve learned and what the main issues are when engaging women in sport,” she continued.
“If I were to make a training programme to teach men, this podcast would be one of the things they would need to watch as recommended learning…especially if you’re a coach – you need to know how to work with both genders.”
Seeing LutaPod take off over previous months has been refreshing and thought-provoking, and as we wave goodbye to our pilot season we are keen to continue providing this space for young women to share their experiences and provoke change.
Thank you to the generosity of Sport England for funding LutaPod season one to help promote increased access to sport for young people.
If you or your organisation is interested in supporting LutaPod season two, please contact our Partnerships Manager, harry@fightforpeace.net.
