“A lioness doesn’t wake up and care that it’s Saturday.

She wakes up doing scary-ass shit, because she’s a lioness.”

– unknown

Her roar

• The lioness has the loudest roar of all big cats; it can be heard 8 km away.

Her pride

• The only social big cat; females live together for life.

Lionesses in the pride

• All females within a pride are related; they are sisters, nieces, aunties.
• There is no rank amongst the females; they are all equal.
• All lionesses know one another and when they meet, their greeting ceremony reaffirms their connections.
• If a female shows no self-assurance to meet and greet, this sends a signal that she doesn’t belong in the pride and is treated as an intruder.

Her hunting tactics

• Females are the hunters of the pride.
• Females hunt in a group because there is a higher chance of a kill.

What’s with the lionesses, Boydy?

Well, earlier this week Suzanne Wrack from The Guardian wrote an article about the impact England’s Women’s National Football team (The Lionesses) is having on the future of sport for girls in the UK. It started with a chat on a bus between two Lionesses.

The day after winning Euro 2022 at Wembley, the Lionesses wrote an open letter to Tory leadership laying out demands which are now being met.

Lionesses…

The UK government has announced its plan:

• make the same sports available to boys and girls;
• a minimum 2 hours of PE a week up to the end of year 11; 
• more than £600m over the next 2 years to improve PE and sports in primary schools;
• up to £57m to open more school sport facilities outside school hours, targeted at girls.

Recent England Football data showed 72% of girls play as much football as boys in primary school but that the figure drops to 44% in secondary school and that only 40% of secondary schools offer girls the same access to football via after-school clubs as boys. The education secretary said the move was “breaking down the barriers some children face to access sport and building on the Lionesses’ legacy to ensure girls have the same access to all their favourite sports as boys”.

Lionesses…

“This is the legacy that we want to live much longer than us as a team. We see it as our responsibility to open the doors for them.”

– Leah Williamson, the England captain

Lionesses…

We should all be lionesses.

Lions – I’m talking to you, too.

Full article here:

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2023/mar/08/government-pledges-equal-access-to-school-pe-sports-for-boys-and-girls?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other