Today is a good day to pause and reflect on an important question: how much is a young woman really expected to carry?
I have seen many girls and young women give up sports and physical activity, even though these should support their wellbeing, confidence, and ability to cope with everyday life. Often, it is not a lack of motivation or interest. The reality is that the pressure becomes too much.
Young women are expected to do a lot. They are expected to succeed in their studies, build their future, take care of their wellbeing, stay active, be social, and remain ambitious. At the same time, they are expected to look a certain way, make all the right choices, and somehow know exactly what they want from life. Amid all these expectations, exercise and sport can become just another thing to perform.
But sport and physical activity should be a place where young people can breathe. A place where they can try, grow, succeed, and fail safely. A place where their worth is not measured by results, rankings, or the opinions of others. For too many girls, sport loses what made them fall in love with it in the first place: joy, community, and the feeling of being accepted as they are.
Yet too many girls feel they are not enough. They feel they should be faster, stronger, better, or simply more than they are. When the joy of movement is replaced by constant comparison and performance pressure, many choose to walk away altogether. That is a loss not only for sport, but above all for the young person herself.
At its best, sport teaches us that our value is not defined by our achievements. It teaches resilience, self-belief, and the courage to try again even when things do not go according to plan.
Perhaps the more important question is not why so many girls leave sport, but what kind of pressures we have built around them.
The most important message of International Day of the Girl is not that girls should stretch themselves even further. It is that they should not have to carry so much.
Every girl and young woman deserves the right to dream big, find her own path, and take her place in the world without constantly having to prove that she is good enough.
The world does not need perfect girls.
It needs girls who dare to believe in themselves, and people who believe in them before they believe in themselves.
Jasmin Tuominen
Candidate for President of the Student Sports Federation 2027″
