Dare to Compete: The Struggle of Women in Sports

I cut this little snippet from a little article/paper on a couple documentaries on women in sports. It came from the website--http://serendip.brynmawr.edu/local/scisoc/sports/s05/papers/jscott.html (I want to give them credit for this because I didn't write it.) I do want to write my own thoughts about this documentary. However, I feel lazy right now. Anyhow, I really REALLY recommend watching it. The documentary is entitled "Dare to Compete: The Struggle of Women in Sports".

"The documentary 'Dare to Compete: The Struggle of Women in Sports' is an uplifting journey through the history of women in sports. A large portion of the film traces how the women-in-sports movement coincides with the greater women's rights movement that occurred in the 1960's and 1970's. It addresses gender, race, and sexual orientation. Martina Navratilova, an amazing tennis player, discusses her struggle with the media in particular. Instead of focusing on her exploits on the court, the press continually asked her about her sexuality and used their sports pages to speculate on this, rather than to laud her for her victories. Another incredible athlete, Babe, also represents the fascination of the media—and society in general—with female athletes and their stereotype that a women who is good in sports might be a lesbian. Babe excelled in whatever sport she took on. Her appearance was initially considered 'masculine' and thus the rumors started to fly; later, when she returns as a golf player, she has grown out her hair and eventually marries. Even in class, we speculated whether or not she married out of societal pressure and was really a lesbian; her talents were yet again pushed to the side.

The media also played a large role in setting women's sports backward when, in the first Olympics that women were allowed to run a longer distance, the runners were reported to have "fainted" and been very distressed. The myth that physical activity jeopardized a woman's ability to conceive persisted for years and represents society's struggle to accept women as athletic and feminine. Being a mother is really the ultimate in femininity, and is the very thing society thought athletics must interfere with.

Another interesting piece of 'Dare to Compete' is the progress of black women in sports. Black women were given the chance to compete in track and field before white women; they excelled in it too. These female athletes may have helped inspire other athletes to push themselves and defy society's expectations. Thanks to everything that women achieved--from Babe, to African-American women's track teams, to Billie Jean King's beating a male tennis player—the way was paved for my generation to participate in sports and continue to challenge ourselves on the athletic field and to challenge society's norms for women. There is still work to be done, but each story of women succeeding in sports is a victory for all women." [All written by Joanna Scott]