05 May 2024
From being excluded to becoming leading athletes: the changing role of women in sport, from the first bans to the achievements of today.
Women’s sport has come a long way, overcoming obstacles and prejudice to become a force that cannot be ignored. Gender inequality in sport is still obvious, but women athletes are no longer background figures. They are leading protagonists, and an inspiration well beyond people who already love sport.
The story goes back to the ancient Greek Olympics, where women were excluded from competitions reserved for men. Women had the Heraean Games instead, which many people have never heard of — which says a lot about how little importance they were given.
A real change came in the 19th century, when English and French noblewomen began to play games of movement and opened the way to wider participation. The most popular game was a kind of badminton, so widespread that Walt Disney later included it in the famous Robin Hood film — the game played by Maid Marian and Lady Kluck.
In 1893 Senda Berenson, known as the mother of women’s basketball, adapted the rules for women. In 1896 the Greek runner Stamata Revithi tried to enter the marathon of the first modern Olympics under the name “Melpomene”. Her entry was refused, but she started anyway and was stopped before the finish. In 1900, in Paris, some women were allowed to play a tennis tournament inside the Olympic programme, and the English player Charlotte Cooper became the first woman to receive an Olympic laurel. At the next Games, London 1908, women could compete, but only in archery. And the other sports? Women were not allowed to run the marathon until 1973.
In Italy, “educational gymnastics” had been compulsory in schools since 1878, but it was only with the Fascist regime that the sporting woman began to be admired and supported in public opinion, as someone considered important to the growth of the state. Even so, when the cyclist Alfonsina Strada asked to enter the Giro d’Italia in 1924, her participation caused fierce argument, and the newspapers of the time turned her into “Alfonsino” or “Alfonsin” Strada, hiding that she was a woman.
Over time women won more and more space in competition, showing they were as capable and determined as their male colleagues. Despite the little room they were given, many women in the history of sport have moved us and made us think about bodies, inequality and stereotypes.
Today, women athletes continue to push limits and exceed expectations, with extraordinary strength and determination.
