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March IS. 2006
Page A 7
Celebrating Women's Histoiy & Careers
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Toward Equality in Sports
Olympic inclusion followed struggle
In the 2(XX) Olympic Games. there were
nearly two female athletes to every three
male athletes and 44 percent of the events
were open to women. Although there is
still a gap to bridge until there will be
equality between female and male athlete
participation, the statistics are phenom­
enal when they are examined from a his­
torical perspective.
In the 1890s, Baron Pierre de Coubert in
of France proposed a revival of the Olym­
pic Games. Although his goals were admi­
rable. promoting the development of ama­
teur sports and bringing together interna­
tional athletes in the hopes of creating
worldwide peace, he excluded women.
Coubertin and the members of the Inter­
national Olympic Committee opposed
women’s participation and included them
through claiming that their applause would
be apart of the male athletes’ awards cer­
emony.
Fortunately, the attitude o f the IOC
changed within a few years, but their mind-
MCâitSB
77
Alice Coachman, clearing the high
jump bar, became the first African
American woman allowed to join
the U.S. All-American Track and
Field Team in 1946.
Marion Jones is considered one of
the greatest female athletes o f all
time. She won three gold medals and
two bronze medals at the 2000
Summer Games in Sydney. Australia.
Florence Griffith Joyner (right) and Valerie Brisco-Hookes celebrate their 1-2
finish at the 1983 World Championships. Joyner later claimed the title of
“fastest woman in the world" when she shattered records at the 1988
Olympics in Seoul.
set was not unusual for the time period.
During the 19th Century, acommon belief
was that men were naturally aggressive
and competitive and women were emo­
tional and passive, making men better
suited for strenuous exercise and sports.
Doctors at the time argued that because of
the amount of energy women expended on
reproductive functions, minimal energy
was left for physical, psychic or intellec­
tual endeavors.
But near the turn of the century, many
physicians decided that gentle forms of
physical exercise in small doses could aid
women's health and their ability to bear
strong children. The main activities they
were allowed to participate in were walk­
ing and a few recreational sports like cro­
quet, archery, and skating. By the end of
the century, a few middle and upper class
women also participated in tennis and
golf.
Around the same time, social changes
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Wilma Rudolph captured the world's attention at the 1960 Olympics in Rome
when she became the first woman to win three gold medals at one Olympiad.
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such as industrialization, urbanization, the
women’s reform movements, and an alter­
ation of the restrictive clothing women
wore brought more women into the leisure
sports world, which led to their inclusion
in competitive sports.
An American woman named Margaret
Abbot is recognized as the first female
American Olympian winner. Excluded from
the 1896 Olympics, she was among 19
women who competed at the 19(X) Games
in Paris. She won the nine-hole golf tour­
nament with a score of 47. For her prize she
received a bowl of Old Saxon porcelain
mounted in chiseled gold but due to the
confusion at the Games, she never knew
she was an Olympic champion. Only re­
cent research has shown that the golf
tournament was on the Olympic program.
Golf was never played at the Olympics
again.
Source: The National Women's His­
tory Museum.
First Gold
Medal Winner
On the eve of the Civil Rights Move­
ment, Alice Coachman was the first Af­
rican American woman allowed to join
the U.S. All-American Track and Field
team in 1946.
T wo years later, out of the 12 women
at the U.S. Olympic Trials, she was one
of the nine African American women.
By the last days o f the 1948 London
Games when Coachman com peted in
the high jum p, only one American
woman had earned a medal and it was
a bronze. But after several jum ps.
Coachman set an O lympic record at
five feet, six and 1/8 inches and won
the only gold medal for the U.S. team
and became the first A frican-A m eri­
can woman in U.S. O lympic history to
win gold.
In the U.S. she was met with parades
and a full scholarship to complete col­
lege. She later became a teacher.
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