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Women's Ski Jumping and a Brief History of Olympic Gender Discrimination
Women will finally be able to compete in ski jumping in this year's Olympics! Hooray! And if you're sitting there thinking, "Wait women were still prohibited from competing in a whole Olympic event in the 21st century?" then this will knock your socks off: The original reason they were banned from competing was, drum roll please, it might damage their wombs.
And even more outrageously, Gian Franco Kasper, president of the International Ski Federation, doubled down on that rationale in 2005. That's two thousand and freaking five! Yes, in the twenty-first century guys seem to think that uteruses, which can take the abuse of baby kicks for months and months, are dainty and delicate while clearly testicles are tough and strong. Sounds about right.
Unfortunately, the Olympics has a long history of gender discrimination, going all the way back to Ancient Greece. Here are some highlights.
Image: Getty
Ancient Greece
Women were not allowed to compete in the original Olympic Games when they were first performed back in 776 B.C.E. In fact, they weren’t even allowed to watch, which just seems like a waste since the games were performed in the nude. Oh those wacky, naked, sexist Greeks!
Image: Wikipedia Commons
Modern Games: 1896
When the Olympics were revived in Athens in 1896, women were not allowed to compete at all. In fact one organizer publicly stated that their presence would be ”impractical, uninteresting, unaesthetic, and incorrect.“ Women were finally allowed to watch, of course, but the contestants were no longer naked, so really, it’s not as great as it sounds.
Image: Wikipedia Commons
Paris: 1900
Over two millennia after the first games were held, women were finally allowed to compete in the Paris Olympics in 1900, but only in two sports: golf and lawn tennis. Though a few women also wrangled their way onto the men’s teams in other categories. Good for you, ladies!
And the first woman to compete in those games, and by extension ever, was Helen de Pourtales of Switzerland on May 22, 1900 in the category of yachting. Yachting? Yachting.
Image: Wikipedia Commons
Stockholm: 1912
Women were barred from Olympic swimming events until 1912, even though women did compete in swimming elsewhere (in fact a woman held the 110 yard world record in 1912). But the Olympics finally caught up with the rest of the world.
Image: Wikipedia Commons
Amsterdam: 1928
It seems odd that women were allowed to compete in swimming, with its skin tight suits, before track and field, but there you have it. The Olympic committee finally allowed women to do scandalous things like run around in 1928 _ and then promptly banned it again after several women collapsed during the 800 meter dash. It wasn’t overturned until 1960.
Image: Wikipedia Commons
Los Angeles: 1984
If running around was a dangerous thing to let women do, it’s no wonder that there was no women’s event in shooting until 1984. Perhaps thinking that an Orwellian world might descend at any moment anyway, the Olympic committee finally let women handle rifles and pistols.
Image: Wikipedia Commons
Sydney: 2000
I know what you’re thinking: there was still gender discrimination in the Olympics all the way up to the year 2000? That’s like… a year I remember being alive. I hear you. But women still weren’t allowed to weight lift until 2000.
Image: Wikipedia Commons
London: 2012
Yes, 2012. And no, I don’t know whose hair-brained idea it was to keep women from Olympic boxing all the way through the first decade of the the new millennium, but hey, they finally fixed it right? And with that change, women are now competing in every Summer Olympic category (and from every country, at long last).
Now we just need the Winter Olympics to catch up.
Image: Wikipedia Commons
