Olympics

Clare Balding has been a regular fixture on the sports scene since the early ‘90s. She’s a former amateur jockey, and she’s one of the few out lesbians in British television. Her coverage of the 2012 Olympics drew rave reviews, and won her a prestigious contract as the face of Channel 4’s racing coverage as well as the Paralympics coverage starting next week over on the BBC.

But it hasn’t all been a feminist Balding lovefest in the British media.

In the aftermath of the Olympics, ending as it did with a whimper rather than a bang thanks to Friday’s disappointing closing ceremonies, the impact of the past two weeks is only just starting to sink in. It marked a number of firsts for women, including the first women from Saudi Arabia to participate in the Games, and the first female boxers to compete for an Olympic medal.

Following Tiki Gelena’s record-breaking win for Ethiopia in the women’s marathon on Sunday, it’s easy to forget that women’s distance running has a relatively short history in the Olympics.


Ethiopia's Tiki Gelana crosses the finish line. Image: EPA

If you thought this year’s Olympics would be a sexism-free zone, you were forgetting about the notoriously chauvinistic Mayor of London, who likened the female volleyball players to “wet otters” when urging viewers to tune in to the Games. Boris Johnson’s mammalian predilections aside, we have to resist the temptation to gloss over the issues that still affect women athletes, while still celebrating their success.

Zoe Smith kicking ass in the Games.

Handy reading resource website A Mighty Girl, "the world's largest collection of books and movies for smart, confident, and courageous girls," has a list up just in time for the Olympics!

The Olympics started as an über-macho, male-only competition in ancient Greece. While a lot has changed since then, women are still facing sexism when it comes to the Games.

• Have you been reading Ladydrawers' interview comic with Alison Bechdel? Catch up with part two of three over at Truth Out.
• Women's Media Center writes about Ibtihaj Muhammad's journey to become the first women to compete for the U.S. Olympic team wearing a headscarf.
• In the "Something actually good occuring at Penn State this week" category, Angela Davis and Eric Stanley spoke about Stanley's new anthology, Captive Genders: Trans Embodiment and the Prison Industrial Complex. (Thanks Toshio!)
• Ms. Magazine writes on the importance of net neutrality—and how lucky we are that Obama vetoed it.
• Sady Doyle gives the Spice Girls a second chance over at Rookie.
• Dahlia Lithwick writes about and the old-school misogyny and the frightening new-school sexual harassment denial surrounding the Herman Cain scandals.
• Maxwell Zachs weighs the pros and cons of the new BBC series, My Transsexual Summer.
• We're still taking who-to-follow recommendations for Twitter! Leave your suggestions in the comments.

Tell us what you think and what you've been reading in the comments below!

I used to live in a neighborhood boasting several martial-arts schools, and always liked walking by at night to see them all lit up and peopled with serious-looking little girls and boys in their crisp white gis. But it wasn’t until recently that I heard about the woman who was partially responsible for making sure that girls got an equal shake in martial-arts training and competition. Rusty Kanokogi, who died in November, 2009 at the age of 74, was the first woman to earn a seventh-degree black belt in judo. But perhaps more important, she was a pioneer in making the sport accessible to women in a time before Title IX.

Oh hai. So it's been a while since the last installment of I Can Has Feminizm?, but fear not: Feminizt LOLz r bak. And just in time for the sporting event of the season! (You knew that cats love the Winter Olympics, right?)

Where to even begin with Dana Vollmer? Not only is she one of the best swimmers in the world, she's been in the elite ranks since she was a pre-teen. That's right: Vollmer was 12 (!) when she competed in the 2000 U.S. Olympic Trials. The Texas native failed to make the team that year but, as usual, she moved fast: she won a gold medal at the 2004 Olympics as part of the 4x200 freestyle relay team that broke a world record that had stood for seventeen years.

It is not, however, all smooth sailing (smooth swimming?) for Vollmer. In 2003--the year before she would win her gold medal--Vollmer had heart surgery for a medical condition that nearly kept her out of the pool for good.