SPORT England’s campaign This Girl Can has been inspiring women across the globe for the past year.

According to the BBC, the campaign has reached over 2.8 million women between the ages of 14 and 40, and 1.6 million women have started exercising as a result.

This is a monumental push to bridge the gender gap in sport participation. The gap currently sits at 1.73 million fewer women playing sports in England than men.

This Girl Can started on 12 January, 2015, and has since thrived on social media channels. The campaign’s most popular drive has been it’s video content:

Inspirational videos are a common trope in the age of social media. Various global companies have targeted women to encourage them to participate in sport and exercise. BBC Get Inspired has produced a homage to the This Girl Can campaign.

The female sanitation company Always published the #LikeAGirl video on 26 June, 2014. The video has been viewed on Youtube 60,415,799 times.

The director, Lauren Greenfield said: “When the words ‘like a girl’ are used to mean something bad, it is profoundly disempowering. I am proud to partner with Always to shed light on how this simple phrase can have a significant and long-lasting impact on girls and women. I am excited to be a part of the movement to redefine ‘like a girl’ into a positive affirmation.”

Sport England’s ‘This Girl Can’ and the Always #LikeAGirl campaigns are both trying to make gender a positive factor in the rhetoric of sporting ability. This is important. We are women and we play sport as women. Gender should never dissuade someone from taking part in sport or exercise.

What else can we do to inspire future generations of girls to participate? 

I believe there needs to be a celebration of inspirational, older women, who naturally inherit the position of role model through life experience and tradition. It’s all very well presenting current sport stars as female role models but that does not often leave a lot of time for girls and teenagers to strive for sporting potential in their prime.

We should be applauding mothers, grandmothers, teachers and grass-roots coaches as women who can show girls how to really be #LikeAGirl and that #EveryGirlCan.

Looking back and honouring great sporting achievements of the past is a great way to inspire the sportigirls of the future.

We must recognise the often un-sung heroes that are our mothers. My mother has driven me countless miles across the UK for sporting events. She has picked me up after many failures and has shared in my joy of success. She has been team doctor, team mascot, team mum and my all-time greatest supporter. It is mothers who show us #ThisGirlCan.

Have any ideas about how to increase female participation in sport? Let me know by commenting below or contacting Sportigirl on Facebook or Twitter.