Dr Kirsten Morris - Gendered spaces and the impact on lived experience: reflections from Euro 2025 and my doctoral research

Pre-match build up

There are some uncanny comparisons between one of my personal passions and my doctoral research. As I explore pregnancy experiences within the British Army, the impact of gendered spaces is impossible to ignore, and I see noticeable similarities in women’s football. This piece engages with the theme of Body and Mind, considering how lived, physical realities of women’s bodies (including pregnancy) challenge the ways institutions — like the military and professional football — are organised around male norms. Looking at how bodies and organisational “minds” interact helps reveal where gender still influences opportunity and experience.

Kick off

Attending the first of the Homecoming Series (England Lionesses vs Brazil at the Etihad Stadium last Saturday) took me back to this summer, when I spent ten glorious days travelling around Switzerland for Euro 2025, immersing myself in the atmosphere of women’s football. Across stadiums, fans from rival teams mingled with a shared sense of enjoyment and celebration.

However, one issue stood out, and it’s one I raised with UEFA officials at two separate venues: toilet provision, specifically, the bemusing inadequacy of women’s facilities. At one stadium, the stand I was seated in had four times as many men’s toilet blocks as women’s. The result was predictable: long, slow-moving queues for women, while the men’s facilities stood virtually unused. It felt like an obvious and avoidable oversight. Why wasn’t this anticipated and planned for? When I raised the issue with stadium officials, the response came with resigned familiarity: “We know, we know, we know.” So, why does it keep happening?

This seemingly mundane issue is symbolic of a broader structural problem: the challenges women face when navigating traditionally male-dominated spaces. The design and logistics of public spaces — including stadiums — often reflect assumptions about who occupies them. Women’s bodies often mean longer visits and greater demand for toilet facilities than men’s, yet even at a women’s sporting event, the male body remains the unspoken norm.

This everyday example of inadequate facilities may seem minor, but it reflects a deeper organisational logic. Drawing on Joan Acker’s theory of gendered organisations, both football institutions and the military are structured around implicit male norms — from the design of spaces to policies and expectations. Just as stadiums are planned with the male body as the default, military structures (including policies, facilities and cultural norms) often assume an “ideal” soldier who is unencumbered by pregnancy or caregiving responsibilities. 

Enter my doctoral research: a feminist qualitative study exploring the experiences and perspectives of pregnant active-duty service women in the British Army, using a diary-interview approach. The study seeks to centre the voices of pregnant service women. These are a group that, until now, have not been the subject of research by either the UK Armed Forces (UKAF) or the NHS; two institutions responsible for their care and management during pregnancy. Furthermore, until 1990, women were required to leave the UKAF if they became pregnant, meaning the organisation was not originally designed with pregnant service women in mind. 

Similarly, football has long been a gendered space. In the UK, women were banned from playing on Football Association pitches from 1921 to 1971, and even after the ban was lifted, investment and resources for the women’s game remained minimal for decades. It is only in recent years that professional women’s football has begun to receive greater support, yet the legacy of exclusion continues to shape facilities, opportunities and cultural expectations around the sport.

The impact of gendered spaces on lived experience was clearly visible in the Euro 2025 stadiums. Limited facilities shaped how women could engage with matches — forget grabbing a drink at half-time; most were just hoping to return to their seats before play resumed. Similarly, my literature review includes a qualitative evidence synthesis (QES) of 21 studies examining pregnancy experiences in the armed forces (worldwide). Findings from this part of my doctoral research indicate that existing within these military gendered spaces has tangible implications for the lived experiences of pregnant service women.

The QES identified five main themes, two of which are particularly relevant here. The first examines the structural conditions shaping pregnancy, including how institutional constraints can limit reproductive autonomy and access to services. The second focuses on the varied forms of resistance to pregnancy within the military, evident across multiple levels — from interpersonal interactions to wider institutional practices. Within this second theme sits a sub-theme exploring how pregnancy is often framed, both culturally and institutionally, as incompatible with military identity.

Women at the Euro 2025 stadiums adapted creatively to navigate inadequate facilities. Some left their seats before half-time to join the queues early; others avoided using the toilets altogether, while a few ‘broke the rules’ and used the men’s facilities instead. Similarly, data forming theme four (response strategies and adaptation) from the QES shows that pregnant service women develop their own strategies to continue participation within a gendered organisation. These strategies — differing in scope and intensity — can be summarised as resisting, navigating, hiding and surviving. Together, they show both the constraints imposed by gendered spaces and the agency women exercise to negotiate and challenge them.

Overall, this comparative piece aims to highlight a key issue around integration: it’s not enough to open the door to women in historically male-dominated spaces. It highlights how everyday infrastructures — from toilets in stadiums to maternity policies in institutions — can shape women’s participation and sense of belonging. The infrastructure, the culture and the assumptions that underpin those spaces must also evolve. Until they do, women’s presence will continue to be negotiated, rather than fully supported.

Extra time

As a PhD researcher at the Centre for Military Women’s Research (CMWR), Anglia Ruskin University, I’m proud to contribute to the Centre’s mission of improving the wellbeing and inclusion of women in the military and veteran community. Under the supervision of Dr Claire Hooks and Dr Lauren Godier-McBard, my research aims to capture the lived experiences of service women during pregnancy and develop novel insights into these experiences. Ultimately, this work seeks to generate new knowledge that can help make the military environment more inclusive. If you would like to learn more or discuss this work, please feel free to email me.