Victory! Women Ski Jumpers Will Be on the Olympic Ramp in 2014

by Alex DiBranco · 2011-04-08 11:38:00 UTC
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Last year, I wrote about the the head of the International Ski Federation's ridiculous assertion that ski jumping could mess with a gal's child-bearing ladybits to justify barring female athletes from that Olympic event. Frustrated that ski jumping is the only Winter Olympic sport reserved for men only -- even though female ski jumper Lindsay Van set the record on the Olympic ramp during practice runs -- Change.org member Sarah Nelson launched a petition demanding that the International Olympic Committee (IOC) let women jump. And in 2014, they will.

That's right: after fretting over women's uteri being bounced around and then weakly protesting that there weren't enough elite female competitors (a poor argument in the face of Lindsay Van's achievement), the IOC caved and announced that women ski jumpers will take their rightful place in the upcoming Russia Olympics. And though Van herself, who fought for entry into the Vancouver 2010 Olympics and the future of her beloved sport, doesn't know whether she'll still be competing in three years, the event should still be exciting to watch.

Was the hubbub over keeping women out of the ski jump really just about sexist concerns for women's reproductive health or was there more at stake? It's been argued that what's really got the Olympic Committee shaking is the possibility that female ski jumpers will massively show up their male counterparts. In addition to the fact that these women are extremely hard-working and dedicated athletes, certain advantages of size and weight regarding the sports' design may give women a natural advantage -- a frightening thought to men who've attempted to keep the rules of sports arranged so as to preserve their superiority.

I'd like to end by remembering an extremely petty statement by Dick Pound, a member of the IOC, who said that the committee might just take revenge on those troublesome female athletes for embarrassing them in Vancouver with protests for equal access by excluding women even longer. Women should never be afraid to speak up for themselves -- the female ski jumpers are a model of tenacity, and they won. If some snotty group wants to try to shut women up by threatening juvenile retaliation, it just means that it's time to be even louder.

Photo credit: Michael Francis McCarthy

Alex DiBranco is a Change.org Editor who has worked for the Nation, Political Research Associates, and the Center for American Progress. She is now based in New York City.

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Ask the International Olympic Committee to Include Women's Ski Jumping In 2014 Games
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