Where women feel welcome: How Warwick is changing the game for female students in sport

This time last year a few University of Warwick students found themselves dreaming of a female focused gym and fitness community on campus. They imagined a place where women, whether they were frequent gym goers or had never before lifted a weight, would feel safe to workout, make friends and share fitness tips. The more they discussed this idea, the more necessary it seemed and therefore they took it upon themselves to create Warwick Girls Who Gym.

In under a year, the Warwick Girls Who Gym Instagram page has amassed over 500 followers

Now an official Students’ Union Society, the group regularly hold free gym sessions, sober and drinking socials, and have launched a sub-community which focuses on running.

In a 2024 investigation into the relationship between women at Warwick and sport, students told The Boar that they have seen a “lack of diversity” in sports societies with male dominant clubs making them feel “isolated and excluded”.

“I was one of about six female runners (compared to about 60 male runners),” said one student about their experience at one of the University’s sports clubs. The disproportionate female to male ratio led this individual to stop attending events and start her “own training”.

Thanks to Warwick Girls Who Gym this student, and thousands more, can attend a female only run club where they feel included and safe.

“The group aims to help female students at all abilities to meet others who share the same passion and build friendships to help overcome the barriers of gym intimidation,” the society’s president, Jess Sills told The Boar.

In under a year, the Warwick Girls Who Gym Instagram page has amassed over 500 followers, highlighting how many students are taking an interest in this female focused space.

Their large following and popular events show that the society has already achieved its initial goal “of creating a supportive community of girls who enjoy going to the gym and engaging in fitness”.

It is not only Warwick’s students who deem it necessary to build environments where women feel compelled and happy to participate in sport and exercise; the University’s Active Wellbeing Team delivers an annual Women’s Night In that focuses on physical activity.

The evening aims to get students and staff involved in “a range of beginner-friendly activities and connect with the University community in a relaxed and fun environment”.

The event allows women to chat to the Active Wellbeing team about how they can get moving across campus.

Beyond this, on the day over 35 drop-in or bookable sessions are held, these include everything from rowing to dance to self-defence.

Building communities gives girls the confidence to start exercising and going to the gym

Jess Sills, President of Warwick Girls Who Gym

Through its variety of sports on offer, including those that are typically male dominated, like football, the event challenges stereotypes by showing that women have a place in all forms of exercise.

Pushing the same message that women can play any sport, no matter its history, are those on Warwick’s women-in-male-dominated (WMD) Sports Committee.

Last year, the presidents of the University’s women’s cricket, football and rugby clubs sat down with The Boar to speak about how “beneficial” the aforementioned committee has been when fighting for changes.

Warwick’s staff have begun to remove barriers between women and university sport

Committee discussions with the Students’ Union Vice President for Sports, Louis Gosling, and BUCS coordinator, Marcus Henson, led club members to notice an improvement in their pitch priority against men’s teams.

“If there are women’s and men’s rugby/football matches on the same days, women’s first teams will be allocated the best pitches over men’s second and third teams which hasn’t been seen before this year,” said Maddy Smith, the president of Warwick Women’s rugby.

Evidently the University’s approach, and the work of student groups, is helping to improve inequality in sport.

By listening to students on committees and creating female focused events, Warwick’s staff have begun to remove barriers between women and university sport. With the help of student founded and led initiatives, the University now has numerous spaces where females feel comfortable and accepted.

As Sills says, “building communities gives girls the confidence to start exercising and going to the gym” and, as she has seen happen at Warwick Girls Who Gym, “make new friends in the process”.