Gender Equality and the Olympics
There is an isssue being put before the courts on Monday in which 15 female ski jumpers from Canada, Austria, Norway, Slovenia and the U.S. will challenge the Vancouver Organizing Committee for the 2010 Winter Olympics on the issue that they are entitled to comptete in the upcoming winter games in accordance with the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Currently, ski jumping is the only sport at the Winter Olympics that exclusively allows male athletes to participate while shutting out female competitors.
Fingers are pointing in all directions as VANOC says it is the International Olympic Committee that is discriminating, the IOC blames the Federation Internationale de Ski and the FSI says look to the IOC for answers. While the red tape is hacked through the women ski jumpers sit waiting, and waiting…
Sad to say, but there still seems to be resistance to the idea that strength, athleticism and feminitity can co-exist in one body. Although there is ample evidence of positive role models for women athletes to be found in the pages of fitness magazines and on websites such as this one, there is also persists a shocking amount of media images supporting football wives and cheerleader babes as the closest any girl should aspire to in sport.
There is some reasoning, however, behind the argument against awarding women a chance at ski jumping gold. Much like there are no male rhythmic gymnasts, synchronized swimmers, or female sumo wrestlers at the Olympics, there does not appear to be enough athletes from enough countries with the requsite skill level to compete in the winter games to justify -for the time being- to include female ski jumping as an Olympic sport. In fact, in certain sports, of which women’s hockey is a glaring example, there is a danger of these events being dropped due to two or three countries continually dominating while the rest of the field lags far behind in skill and funding in their home countries.
I believe that the issue of equality in sport needs to take a more important role within the IOC but it can only succeed with the support of individual countries putting the funding and support for encouraging and developing girls and women to take up and excel in athletics. While the boys sort this issue out the girls wait for a chance to play.
