A couple of years ago I was taken by an item on BBC breakfast 'Girls and sport: Schools urged to make PE more attractive to girls'. (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-17873519). Suddenly the memories filled my brain of the years I was studying for my PhD and of the literature I was reading back then (2000-2003). I remember it like it was yesterday even though nearly 14 years have passed since then and suddenly we are still discussing the same issues of gender gap in participation in PE and sport; but somehow this has become more complex as the gap is evident in specific settings and situations.

I debated and commented on many of the issues that emerged in the BBC item back then; such as girls don't participate because they hate to get sweaty; they hate PE; they hate competitive games and most importantly they hate 'doing PE' in front of boys. So I found myself asking numerous questions: Why are we still ignoring the elephant in the room? Whose fault is it really? Why are we still (even after the three years since this item was aired) discussing the issue of girls and PE participation even more now, even though their participation rates have increased (look at the Start Young, Stay Active 2013 report - link below)? Is it the fault of the PE teachers who many tried to blame straight after the programme on various blog sites and twitter? Is it the curriculum? Is it a combination of factors? What is it I wonder?

I think, in my humble opinion, the problem lies exactly in the way the report was structured, approached and executed on BBC breakfast in front of millions of viewers; an old fashioned approach that existing attitudes to sport and PE perpetuate. The item was broadcast from what I call a mainly 'white' middle class school with excellent sporting facilities and staff who appeared committed to the promotion of physical activity and sport through PE. Girls who are active were given their voice and they spoke of their pleasure in participating, in what they termed the best subject on the school curriculum; they commented on how great PE is and how taking part in PE and sport can make you feel happy. The 'sporty girl' or as my colleague Associate Professor Laura Azzarito (from Teachers College, Columbia University, NY, USA) has termed in the past, the 'alpha girl' was present in this report.

But the report failed to mention the 'other' girl; the inner city schoolgirl; and the ethnically diverse girl; or the new girl who faces isolation in her school and in her immediate social environment. Where was the voice of the girl who attends school and lives in the difficult area where safety, and measures against knife and gun crime are the main priority? The problem lies in the fact that we have always adopted a blind eye to the social inequalities that exist and permeate everyday life; from chances to better and equal education for all to opportunities for participation in sport and physical activity. We need to 're-think' gender and sport in the local, as well as in the global context. We need to think of gender and sport as an old issue and reconsider it in new ways for new times to examine and understand old challenges. But ultimately we need to provide a platform for those girls who have been given the stigma of 'at risk' in many official strategies and policies (the overweight; the inactive; the ethnically diverse girl and many more) to voice their anxieties and opinions of their experiences of PE and school sport and stop blaming them for their own seeming failures.

Dr Symeon Dagkas is Reader in Youth Sport and Physical Activity at the University of East London

Twitter: @SymeonDagkas