2024-07-25 22:35:09
Los Olympic Games in Paris 2024 They are going to be the first games with equal numbers of men and women participating. 5,250 athletes of all genders will participate between July 26 and August 11 in the modern XXXIII Olympic Games.
Thus the International Olympic Committee (IOC) complies with the 11th recommendation of the Olympic Schedule 2020which established a 50% participation quota for women in the Games and promoted the introduction of events with mixed teams, which will be twenty of the 329 that will be part of the Olympic Games.
Women’s participation in the Olympic Games. OO. It began unofficially in the second edition of the modern Olympic Games, also held in Paris in 1900. Of the 997 athletes, 22 were women, competing in five disciplines: tennis, sailing, cricket, horse riding and golf.
It is common to assert that women hardly practiced sports at that time, as if this was due to the least interest in physical activity and not due to a sex policy that protected a strict separation between young men and women , and in which sport played a central role. central role.
What was muscular Christianity?
he the educational project of the creator of the modern Olympic Games, Pierre de Frédy, Baron de Coubertinwhich was framed in something called the muscular Christianitya movement that considered sport to be central to training young people (men) in religion and humanity.
Coubertin stone. Remove News Service/Wikimedia commons
In 1883, at the age of 20, Pierre de Coubertin took the physical education program at Rugby School, the private school that gave its name to that sport and where Thomas Hughes’ novel takes place. Tom Brown’s School Dayswhich inspired the movement.
Because of the humiliation of the French victory in the Franco-Prussian War, Coubertin saw in the English example a solution to the poor preparation of the French for the war. Over time, he also praised the diplomatic potential of sport to keep peace between empires. This association of sport with the struggle between nations, imperialism and war destroyed more fun and pluralistic versions of sport and gave rise to an Olympic Games that Coubertin thought was entirely masculine and celebrated a supposed white supremacy.
Women were not “kindly” incorporated into the Olympics. Indeed, the JJ. OO. They were essential in the masculinization process of modern sport and it only succeeded in widening a very harmful attitude and making the presence of women official.
Francesca Pianzola, winner of the javelin gold medal at the 1922 Women’s World Games in Paris. Agece Rol / Wikimedia Commons
He was a key figure in this process Alice Milliatwhich founded the International Women’s Sports Federation (FSFI) in 1921 and the IOC organized the Women’s Olympic Games that same year, followed by three more and four more World Games.
The Second Women’s Olympics in Paris in 1922 brought together 20,000 spectators. As one of its members pointed out in 1960, the IOC in 1923 discussed how to deal with the effects of feminism in sport and reluctantly agreed to expand women’s events to take control of the sport practiced by women.
Lack of parity in the executive of the IOC
Parity, while historically a feminist demand, can mask another motivation: the continuation of control. Indeed, the Olympic Charter In 1996, it included the commitment of the IOC to promote the presence of women “at all levels and in all structures, especially in the executive committees of national and international sports organizations in order to apply the principle of equality between men and women to rigid .””. “Executive” parity was not included in the Agenda for the 2020 Olympic Games since, if it were, the 11th recommendation would not be fulfilled: there are currently 11 men and 5 women on the IOC board.
But beyond the numbers, the sport is tied to precepts that make effective equality impossible. The dogma of sex separation, which also supports parity itself, is one of them.
Apparently defended to protect the female category, the decisions of the respective federations have been marked by the separation of the sexes whenever an athlete has questioned the superiority of men.
Happened to Zhang Shan after winning the gold and Olympic record in mixed clay pigeon shooting in Barcelona ’92. After her victory, the International Shooting Union banned women from participating, so Shan was unable to defend her gold in Atlanta ’96, the so-called “Women’s Olympics”.
In Paris 2024 there will be a mixed shooting event, but with teams made up of men and women, the “mixed” model being imposed to avoid direct competition between men and women.
Lindsey Van during the training round before the women’s individual competition at the Nordic World Ski Championships in Oslo. Tadeusz Mieczyński/Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA
Lindsay Van also failed to defend her ski jumping record at the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver. since the participation of women was prohibited in the trial, despite the entire record being held by a woman. The International Ski Federation then cited potential future reproductive problems for jumpers to justify the ban. In 2010, the same arguments that displaced women from sports at the beginning of the 20th century were made again.
Although they may seem anecdotal, these incidents show that any policy of naturalization of the fair sex and its competitive restrictive functions will always place women on it. For years they were sex verification tests; today there are testosterone levelswhich is removing many African women from the competition.
On the other hand, France blocked his participation in the Olympic team veiled athletesand players in different disciplines they rebel against the imposition of clothing that sexizes them.
The bodies of female athletes remain one of the main regulatory objectives of executive committees. After all, as long as sexual segregation is the organizing principle, a difference that justifies it must always be preserved.
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