My five year old had the stomach bug this weekend which meant she spent most of the last two days lying on the couch, snuggling her Daddy and watching the Winter Olympics on TV. How sweet. Not really. Why? Because the Olympics are just one more piece of evidence for my little girl that women are not equal; that she can’t grow up and be anything she wants to be. At least not yet.
It’s disheartening. Men have been competing in ski jumping as an Olympic event since 1924. Women, however, are not allowed to compete in this event.
It’s not for lack of interest. Several women jumpers filed a discrimination suit against the Vancouver Organizing Committee (VANOC) and the International Olympic Committee (IOC), hoping to be able to compete this year.
David Amber of ESPN asked Alan Johnson, director and coach for the men’s project X U.S. Ski Jumping team, why women can’t compete. The numbers seem to be there. From the ESPN inteview: “This season [2009-10] there are eight ski cross International Ski Federation (FIS) events, with an average of 18 competitors representing seven different nations; there are 12 ski jumping FIS events with an average of 45 competitors representing 12 nations. So you must ask yourself, if the IOC denied ladies ski jumping based on lack of numbers and development of the sport on the same day they invited in ladies ski cross, how can this be justified when skier cross is far less developed than ski jumping? It’s not even close.”
Supposedly, in 2005 Gian-Franco Kasper, president of the International Ski Federation, said ski jumping was harmful to women’s reproductive health. How can that be the reason when young girls train so hard to be Olympic gymnasts they don’t begin to menstruate until they are in their 20s? I don’t buy the IOC’s concern for women’s health.
The most convincing argument I’ve read for barring women from ski jumping was this quote from Women’s Ski Jumping Vice President Vic Method in a Wall Street Journal article. “This is a big macho event in Europe. If suddenly you’ve got these little size-four girls jumping comparable distances, the men don’t look so macho anymore.”
For more on this topic, visit the website for “Women On Top,” a documentary that follows the U.S. Women’s Ski Jumping Team and their quest to compete in the Olympics.
I will hold off for now on telling my daughter that girls are considered equal to boys and can do or be anything. It’s not true at the Olympics. It’s not the case at work. It doesn’t play out on the Op-Ed pages. It’s not the case in Washington. Some people don’t even want girls to make their own medical decisions.
But I do plan on telling her someday (perhap during the next Winter Olympics). So let’s get to work and reach true parity.
