October 10th, 2019 could be another ground breaking day for women in sports. Iran is expected to lift the ban on women attending football matches for the first time in 40 years on that day.
The ban against women going to stadiums where men are playing was introduced shortly after the 1979 Islamic Revolution.
While FIFA had claimed that the Iranian authorities have assured them of the impending change of stance that would allow women to watch the Iranian men’s team take on Cambodia, whether it happens is still uncertain.
FIFA’s pressure on Iran to allow women be allowed to attend men’s football matches went on an overdrive following the death of 29-year-old Sahar Khodayri, who set herself on fire after being charged for entering the stadium dressed as a man.
She was charged with “‘openly committing a sinful act by “appearing in public without a hijab'”.
The men are still not allowed to attend any sporting events involving women and it is highly unlikely that this would be relaxed.
While many may feel that Iran were not committed in enabling and giving rights for women, women have been enduring such bias all over the world too.
It was not until 1972 that women were allowed to enter the Boston Marathon and another 12 years before women raced the distance at the Olympics 1984 LA Olympics. In contrast men’s marathon was first contested at the modern Olympics in 1896.
At the 1967 Boston Marathon, the race director attempted to remove Kathrine Switzer from the race. She raced under the name K.V. Switzer to circumvent the rules barring women from participating and managed to finish the race.
No women competed at the 1896 Olympic in Athens with the founder of the modern Olympics Pierre de Coubertin looking that their inclusion as “impractical, uninteresting, unaesthetic, and incorrect.”.
At the 1900 Games, only only 12 female athletes participated out of the 1066 athletes from 19 countries. They competed in only two events which were golf and tennis.
Alice Milliat of France helped launch the inaugural Women’s Olympic Game sin Paris in 1922 where women competed in events like the 1,000 meter race and shot put.
The men were naturally not happy with this and the International Olympic Council (IOC) decided to include women’s’ track and field events including the 800 meter race at the Games in Amsterdam.
The 800m race was deemed not womanly and was banned from the Olympics until 1960.
Women’s tennis introduced equal prize money only in 2007 after a concerted campaign led by Venus Williams.
It took another three years before Jenny Higgs was appointed as the first female umpire at Wimbledon.
Stefi Graf was the first tennis player, men or women, to win a Golden Slam. She won the Wimbledon, Australian, French and US Opens as well as the Olympics in 1988.
The American women’s football team may be the reigning world champions, but they have yet to get equal wages compared to their men. The US women have three World Cup and four Olympic titles while their men even failed to qualify for the last World Cup.
And FIFA did not conduct a women’s World Cup until 1991 and women’s football did not make the Olympic roster for another five years.
The 2012 London Olympics was the first multi-sports games in which women competed in every sport.
While critics have used the lame excuse that women were physically weaker to stop them from sports, that no women was given the opportunity to drive at Indy 500 until 1977 was also without much merit. Janet Guthrie was the first female driver at the race.
“It is indecent that spectators should be exposed to the risk of seeing the body of a women being smashed before their eyes. Besides, no matter how toughened a sportswoman may be, her organism is not cut out to sustain certain shocks. Her nerves rule her muscles, nature wanted it that way.”
— Pierre de Coubertin
In 1926. New York native Gertrude was the first woman to swim the English Channel, covering the 56 km distance in 14 hr 31 min, beating the then men’s world record by 1 hr 59 min.
While sports fans lauded the four medal effort from Jesse Owens at the 1936 Berlin Olympics, it was not the same with Dutch athlete Fanny Blankers-Koen. She was criticised for not attending her duties as a wife and a mother of two. Not many will remember that the talented track star also won four gold medals at the 1948 Olympics.
Manchester United may be one of the most popular football club in the world with many women supporting them. But ,it was only in March 2018 that they finally started a women’s football team.
Gender equality in sport has come a long way, but there is still much to be done.
Caster Semenya being forced out of athletic competitions based on testosterone levels puts a standard that is confined only to women. Men are not subjected to such standards with their whole range of genetic and biologic variation deemed acceptable.
The media still prefers to provide more coverage for men sports although the number of women spectators have increased tremendously in recent years.
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