Changing rooms with hairdryers and full-length mirrors would help to encourage women and girls to take up sport, a poll published today suggests.

More than half of those surveyed would take part in sport if they could style their hair afterwards. Fifty-six per cent of girls aged 10 to 15 said that hairdryers were essential, and 91 per cent cited private cubicles as a must-have.

The findings, by the Women’s Sport and Fitness Foundation, will be used to urge schools to upgrade changing facilities as part of a push to increase females’ level of physical activity.

Less than 3 per cent of women play competitive team sports while those aged 16 to 24 are half as active as their male peers. Nearly a quarter said that PE classes at school put them off sport for life.

The publication of the latest female attitudes to sport is a precursor to a national campaign to begin next year as part of the antiobesity agenda backed by ministers. Provisionally titled Make Active Attractive, it is pitched against centuries of gender-bias in competitive sports that have traditionally been overwhelmingly male pursuits run by men in blazers – the “57 old farts” referred to by the former England rugby captain Will Carling.

The campaign will build on the work of an independent commission announced in July by Andy Burnham, the Culture, Media and Sport Secretary, to address the absence of female leadership in sport, a lack of media interest and lower investment levels compared with men’s sport. Chaired by Dame Tanni Grey-Thompson, who won 11 Paralympic gold medals, the commission holds its first board meeting next week.

Only four out of the top 35 national governing bodies of sport have a female chief executive and only 2 per cent of press articles and 1 per cent of pictures are devoted to elite female athletes and women’s sport. Unlike in the US, where equal investment is a legal requirement at school and college level, women’s sport in Britain receives significantly less public and private funding than men’s sport. A “gender duty” exists in UK legislation but discrimination would need to be proved in the courts and a test case has yet to emerge.

The drive to attract more women to sport comes after a pledge by ministers to increase the number of people active in sport by a million by 2012. Traditional sports have ignored their needs, which are driven by busy careers, the demands of children and the mere practicalities of showering after a workout.

“We’re talking about half the population here, not a minority group,” Sue Tibballs, the foundation’s chief executive, said. “If sport wants to attract more women, it needs to be less old-fashioned and masculine and find out what women want from sport.”

There is evidence that the culture of sport is slowly changing. Next month the Rugby Football League will approve the appointment of Clare Morrow, head of the Yorkshire Tourist Board, as its first female board director.

In September the Football Association backed a new women’s league and approved central contracts for members of the England women’s team. At an estimated £16,000 a year, they are worth a fraction of the contracts awarded to the men who pull on an England shirt, but will allow the top female players to train full-time.

Tessa Jowell, the Olympics Minister, will tell a sports conference today at Arsenal’s Emirates Stadium that Britain must capitalise on the raised profile of women’s sport prompted by the success in Beijing of Rebecca Adlington, the double Olympic swimming champion, and Rebecca Romero and Victoria Pendleton, who won gold medals in track cycling.

This unsporting life

40% of girls feel self-conscious of their bodies in PE lessons

25% of women hate the way they look when they are physically active

25% of girls think it is cool to play sports

61% of women would exercise more if they could do it with their families

80% women believe that sport should be more like shopping

20% of women think that M&S would design the most female-friendly sports facility, followed by John Lewis and Boots

Source: Women’s Sport and Fitness Foundation

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