Sarah Glenn has a big university assignment due this summer. In between playing the Ashes for England and the Hundred for London Spirit, she will be researching the scrutiny female athletes face when it comes to body image.
First case study: herself. Glenn is known to England team-mates as the one who brings the “glamour” on tour – including a nail bar – and is a self-confessed beauty junkie. But as much as she is accepted by her team, she has come to understand that this also means she will be underestimated, objectified and receive online abuse for simply being herself.
Frankly, she is tired of it. On International Women’s Day this year, Glenn posted a tongue-in-cheek video to TikTok of herself in front of a mirror, putting on make-up ahead of a match.
“The amount of men who are triggered just for women being themselves in sport is beyond me,” she says in the voiceover. “Girls will simply put on false lashes in their sport and men are commenting, ‘Why are you wearing that? You should be focusing on the game. Blah, blah, blah’.”
She sarcastically adds: “You know what, I do think it could be linked: because of this bit of eyeliner, I think I’m going to bowl pies now in this game. This bit of focus time is definitely going to distract me from all the hours I’ve trained, early mornings, ups and downs of international or any level of sport. For the girls who are afraid to express themselves, I am always here for you.”
Unfortunately, Glenn’s experience runs back more than a decade. When she started playing cricket with a boys’ team and was entering her teens, it coincided with her experimenting with make-up. Team-mates and opponents ridiculed her and told her she was attention-seeking. “I’m just being myself, but everyone would be like, ‘Who are you doing that for?’ or ‘She just wants to be liked by the boys, she’s there for attention’,” Glenn, 23, says.
“These comments are flying around and I just want to play cricket. Do I have to look like a boy or not do girly things in order not to get those comments? I’d feel self-conscious turning up if it looked like I’d made an effort or I’d turn up not feeling fully confident when I’m out there trying to perform. It carried on to when I started to play for England. It was really a difficult balance being the only girl on the team.”
Glenn is talking on a sunny spring morning at Trent Bridge, where England will open the Ashes with a five-day Test in June – a record-breaking 55,000 tickets have already been sold for the multi-format series against Australia.
The Derby-born leg-spinner is sporting a full England kit and a fresh layer of fake tan. Her manicure is clean white and she has a dainty collection of silver rings and matching small hoops in her ears.
Her sense of style is a part of her every day, whether on the field or off it, and even a part of her pre-match routine to calm her nerves. Glenn, who has played at three World Cups and is ranked fourth in the ICC’s Twenty20 international bowling listings, says women’s cricket is the most accepting space she has experienced in sport, but still the focus on her appearance remains.
It mostly manifests itself online, where she has 120,000 followers on Instagram and TikTok. “I’m damned if I do, damned if I don’t,” she says of wearing make-up while playing cricket. “I do it to feel more confident, but people would comment, saying really demeaning stuff. Do you really think one layer of foundation is going to affect how I bowl?”
She is not alone. Less than 24 hours after winning the European Championship with England last summer, Ella Toone went viral for saying she was “really gutted” that she had not been wearing her signature false eyelashes for the occasion. Sprinter Dina Asher-Smith has described the joy and confidence from experimenting with her make-up on race days, and is one of a long line of track-and-field athletes who have shown off their style in competition.
Tennis player Coco Gauff told Telegraph Sport last year that while on tour, she hunts down the best beauty salon in every city she visits to update her intricate nail art. But the evidence shows that women in sport are often taken less seriously simply for embracing or following beauty regimes that break the mould.
For this reason, Glenn is researching some of the worst examples of trolling of elite sportswomen for her sport science degree, which she is doing through the Open University.
Aston Villa’s Alisha Lehmann, who has 12 million Instagram followers, contends with abuse every day and has voiced her anger about it.
“When I looked at the comments on her Instagram, it really annoyed me,” Glenn says of her research. “It’s all about her looks. It’s demeaning and quite seedy, saying she just does it for publicity. People think she doesn’t work or train as hard, because she’s too busy doing this kind of thing. Do people not realise how long it takes to put some lashes on – not long, by the way. I think she’s really cool, a class footballer and she's got style. It’s just sad to see she gets that amount of hate for wearing a couple of milligrams of foundation.”
For Glenn, even her white-ball England debut was marred by trolling, as she received derogatory comments about her size and for getting a manicure for the occasion.
She says women cannot win either way. “I performed well, and I was really excited, but there were so many comments on how I look or rating me – I felt objectified a little bit. Don’t get me wrong, I see it happen in the men’s game – girls posting about footballers they fancy – but I think they don’t get comments saying they do it for attention, making out like I haven’t worked my a--- off to get to where I am. That’s the frustrating thing.”
Glenn has previously spoken about her ambition to potentially set up an all-female gym one day, to help women who feel judged while exercising.
For now, she is going to continue addressing the issue publicly. “I just want to try to remove that stigma because I know there are lots of girls growing up that might shy away from being themselves in sport. It doesn’t have to be make-up, it could be anything, for anyone not doing what is expected of them in their sport.
“I don’t want girls to feel like they have to fit into a category to take part.”
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