Playground twist

Remember the friend I wrote about the other week, whose daughter stated that boys know more than girls?
Well, today, Kate came home from school and started complaining about co-ed sports, which seems to be a breeding ground for stereotypical gender behavior.
- As soon as one of the girls don't do that well in German Football or Kickball the boys starts pointing and shouting "Is there any girl who knows how to kick a ball?", she said. And they do it to Heather!!
Heather is Kate's best friend, and one of the most quiet and shy girls in their year. To point and shout at anything that Heather attempts to do equals a slow, torturous death in Heathers book and is not likely to make her feel any less self-conscious than she already does. And to be fair, I think many girls out there feel like Heather.

- And when we play at recess, the boys take up so much space, Kate continues. So, like, they play basket ball, or wall ball or soccer, and there is no room left for the girls, so we usually just stay around the benches and talk. And if I start dribbling a ball that I get hold of, there is a boy right there and he dribbles it out of my hand and then I don't get it back.
- It's so unfair, she says abjectly.

My husband, who went to an all-boys school and has no idea what happens to girls before the age of 16, when he started dating them, looks at me and says:
- But isn't that just how it is? The girls rule the class-room and the boys rule the school-yard.
- Honey, the girls don't rule the class-room, I say. Even if they were to be more mentally advanced they don't have a chance to show it because the boys are louder anyway. At this age, the girls don't stand a chance.

No, it's not fair at all. The thing is, how do I explain to Kate that I have no idea how to solve this issue. That whatever she is going through right now is exactly what her mother went through 30 odd years ago, in another country, another continent. It seems to be a universal problem, and not one that is likely to be solved anytime soon.
But that doesn't mean we should shrug our shoulders and accept it. We should not let "boys be boys" and think that this will magically solve itself. Me and my husband take a solemn vow right there at the dinner-table to our best to try and work this out. But where do we start?

The first thing I do is send an email to the sports-teachers and the Principal, cc:ing the class-teacher, who is well aware of the dynamics between the boys and the girls. This was only a few hours ago, I am still waiting for a reply.
It is important that the teachers are on board. The parents need to feel confident that the teachers will nip any kind of macho-behavior in the bud straight away by communicating to the boys that girls can, and show that girls that they too have sufficient space to grow and thrive. The teachers need to assert that shouting, pointing, commenting and belittling is not OK, even if it is done in jest. The boys might very well think that they are just being funny, but these comments can be incredibly hurtful to the girls.

But one other issue that we could spot is unsupervised school-yard recess time .This is where a lot of the problems took place, according to Kate. Ours is a standard inner-city school yard, concreted and lacking of elbow room and, although supposedly supervised, there is a clear absence of observant and intervening adults. Apart from a very sad little play structure in one corner, there are nothing apart from a basket ball hoop and some fading white lines to mark out a soccer pitch. The only toys at hand are some balls. In other words, the little there is, is clearly aimed towards the boys.
So not only is the school yard is run down and out-dated it is also the one guaranteed spot in school where Lord of the Flies can rule freely since no adults interact with the kids.

This is not the only area that needs addressing, of course, but it is a part of the problem, and it is better to start somewhere than nowhere at all.
I need to get hold of research that will tell me that there is a way of changing the lay-out of the school yard that will encourage the boys and the girls to, if not suddenly play harmoniously together to the sound of a playing harp, then at least make the boys take less space and the girls feel less intruded on. I might completely be barking up the wrong tree here, and if I am, I will hold my hands up, but it is worth a shot.
We have a daunting task ahead of us, but we are both willing to take on the challenge!
If anyone has any tips, ideas, or can guide me in the direction of an architect who specializes in gender neutral urban school yards - please, let me know!!