‘It’s about changing attitudes,” says Belinda Scarlett, the curator of women’s football at the National Football Museum. “Sometimes the only way you can do that is by making really big bold statements.” Scarlett is talking about the pledge to increase representation of women’s football to 50% of its displays by 2022.
“It’s really pushed the National Football Museum,” she says. “Every time we approach a new project now the question is: ‘How do we make this 50-50?’ That would not have happened a couple of years ago. Even though we’re miles away from it at the moment, we start every conversation with that as a non-negotiable, which is fantastic.”
There is still be a long way to go, but progress has been fast. When the museum moved to Manchester in 2012, Scarlett instigated what she describes as “a cursory attempt” to honour the women’s game.
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