Getting their due from Frank Bruni:
There’s much to savor in the quadrennial spectacle of the Olympics, which will begin in London next weekend, but perhaps nothing more exhilarating than the way it showcases and celebrates the athleticism of women almost as much as it does the athleticism of men.
That’s hardly the norm in this world. Or this country.
Four decades after the passage of Title IX and a stated national determination to create, in publicly financed educational institutions, as many athletic opportunities for women as for men, high schools and colleges indeed do a better job of investing in, and promoting, women’s sports.
But in the realm of professional athletics and the sorts of televised competitions that turn the best athletes into mini-industries, women still lag far behind.
In tennis arenas, sure, Serena Williams can elicit the kind of fascination that Roger Federer does, just as Steffi Graf achieved a renown comparable to that of her future husband, Andre Agassi.
But women’s professional golf has nowhere near the following of men’s. And of the Big Four pro sports for men — football, baseball, ice hockey and basketball — only basketball has an analogous women’s league, which doesn’t have an analogous commercial heft.
Then come the Olympics, a sporting event as raptly watched as any other, with the ability to bestow fame and lucre on the victors, and much of this disparity collapses. Girl power gets its sweaty, sinewy due.
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That’s important not because of any vague, reflexive political correctness but because saluting women’s athletic achievements encourages their athletic pursuits, which can impart invaluable life lessons: about teamwork, tenacity, sacrifice, conviction. Women deserve the same access to those as men. Women also deserve credit.
In one of the many interviews Kerri Strug gave after her Olympics, she lamented the widely stated worry that she and other female gymnasts were unduly imperiling themselves. “If it’s a boy, it’s fine, he’s tough,” she said. “When it’s a gymnast, we’re being abused and ruining our bodies.”
Her point was that she was calling her own shots, taking her own risks and tapping a strength not to be underestimated. In London, we’ll be seeing, and cheering, a whole lot of that.
I’ve written about the importance of Title IX and women in sports before, and I think Bruni’s right — sports may not be for everyone, but for a lot of us they hold invaluable physical, social and intellectual lessons. It’s great to see Olympic women spotlighted. If only women in sports were more regularly given their due.
Thanks, Alicia, for the link.