Table Tennis England’s work to get more women and girls into the sport has been highlighted on UK Government social media platforms.

The Department for Culture, Media and Sport posted on Instagram and Facebook to praise our work in creating competitive and social play opportunities, helping females to get into the coaching pathway and creating an online community for women and girls.

The posts featured three striking images of female players taken by photographer Marie-Anne Ventoura, who has been helping us to create an outstanding portfolio of images to support our work in this area.

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A post shared by Department for Culture, Media and Sport (@dcmsgovuk)

Table Tennis England Head of Engagement Keely Armitt said: “We’re delighted that one of our key funding partners is recognising the work we’ve done this year to create more opportunities for women and girls in table tennis – and this is only the beginning of our work towards gender parity in our sport.

“It’s wonderful to see some of Marie-Anne’s photos under the spotlight as well as they really capture the joy and fellowship that table tennis can bring to female players and coaches.”

Click here to find out more about our work with women and girls

Our commitment to gender parity

Through surveys and direct contact with our female members and women involved in the sport, we have a clear understanding that, for many people, table tennis looks and feels like a space designed and dominated by and for men. This doesn’t negate that there are women and girls having fantastic experiences in the sport and that there are clubs, leagues, coaches and volunteers doing some great work to create inclusive spaces but, we cannot ignore that there are also females having very bad experiences in our sport and who are being put off playing and participating.

Our insight shows that females would like to engage more in our sport and, when provided with the right opportunities, they do! So gender parity is not only important for our inclusivity agenda, but for the growth, development and future of our sport too.

Our commitment to females does not mean that male participation becomes less important – we will continue to work hard to develop opportunities for men and boys too – but we must acknowledge the disparity that exists. We are therefore wholehearted committed to #LevelTheTable for women and girls and, going forwards, a much higher percentage of our time, funding and energy will be directed towards increasing opportunities for females in our sport.