Happy Sunday, FemWealth Friends!
Organized under unprecedented conditions, the 2020 Tokyo Olympic (July 23 - August 8) and Paralympic Games (August 24 - September 5) have nearly reached gender parity for the first time in the modern history of the Games. Since previous editions of the most anticipated sports events, significant progress has been achieved, with women representing almost 49% of Olympians and 40% Paralympians.
Steps have been made to ensure the visibility of female athletes, including having women and men flagbearers in the opening ceremony and better scheduling (less overlapping with men’s events that usually get more media attention). But the road to Tokyo was also filled with controversies and uncertainties for female athletes. New mothers were initially not allowed to bring their babies along due to COVID restrictions. Furthermore, some athletes who are different from the idea of femininity centered around whiteness have experienced dehumanization (see the ban on swimming caps for natural Black hair and the disqualification of Namibian athletes with high levels of natural testosterone from the 400 m race).
There is still much to be done in terms of equality of opportunity in sports at all performance levels: from unequal pay (gaps in prize money and sponsorships for same or even superior performance), gender-based violence, lack of targeted investments (access to facilities and equipment), and negative stereotypes and social norms (including hypersexualization of the female body and policing of sports uniform, as seen recently in the case of Paralympian Olivia Breen and the Norwegian beach handball team).
The benefits of sports for health, self-confidence, team spirit, and collaboration are too great to ignore. Girls and boys need positive role models and equal access to fulfill their athletic potential.
In today’s edition of FemWealth, meet some of the most remarkable Olympians championing gender equality in and through sports:
Marta Vieira da Silva, Football Player [Team Brazil]
Through sport, women and girls can challenge socio-cultural norms and gender stereotypes and increase their self-esteem, develop life skills and leadership; they can improve their health and ownership and understanding of their bodies; become aware of what is violence and how to prevent it, and look for available services and develop economic skills.
Considered the best female football player of all time, Marta Vieira da Silva is one of the most accomplished athletes. She is a six times FIFA World Player of the Year (consecutively from 2006-2010 and in 2018), a member of the Brazilian national team (winners of the silver medal at the 2004 and 2008 Summer Olympics), a 2007 FIFA Women's World Cup Golden Ball and Golden Boot winner, and all-time top scorer of the 2015 World Cup tournament (she scored 15 goals).
Growing up in a low-income family in Dois Riachos, Alagoas (in Brazil's northeast), she started out playing street soccer without shoes along with her male peers. She faced adversity for her choice of sports and for outplaying the boys. At the age of 14, she was scouted for a women's football team in Rio de Janeiro. In 2002, she joined the Brazilian women's national team.
She currently plays for the Orlando Pride in the US National Women's Soccer League. The first and only woman on the Maracanã Stadium sidewalk of fame - the 'temple of Brazilian soccer' - she continues to increase the visibility of Brazil's women football players.
Da Silva is also a UN Women Goodwill Ambassador, supporting the organization's work for gender equality and women's empowerment across the world, inspiring women and girls to challenge stereotypes, overcome barriers, and follow their dreams and ambitions, including in sport.
📖 Women and Girls in Sport Can Change the Global Game
Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce, Sprinter [Jamaica]
The only thing I advocate for is for equality for female athletes because we train just as hard, and we’re always having a lot of head-to-head clashes, always competing against each other.
Motherhood does not stop us from achieving our goals. If anything, it adds value to who we are. And knowing that we can create a human being and come back and be able to get the ball rolling and still be a tough mum was just awesome.
At the age of 34, Fraser-Pryce is a two-times Olympic 100m champion, nine times World Championship gold medallist, a mother, and one of the fastest sprinters in the world. She is a six-time Olympic medallist and one of only three women in history to successfully defend their Olympic 100m title (2008 and 2012).
In June 2021, she became the fastest woman alive, clocking 10.63 seconds in the 100m race and second-fastest of all time behind Florence Griffith-Joyner’s 33-year-old world record (10.49 seconds).
The Tokyo Olympics are her fourth Olympic Games and the first after becoming a mother in 2017. She bids for a third 100m gold in Tokyo, seeking to become the first woman to claim three Olympic 100m titles.
Fraser-Pryce is an advocate for gender equality in sports, a children’s book author, and a UNICEF Jamaica National Goodwill Ambassador.
📖 Tokyo Olympics: Jamaican sprinter Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce trying to reach 'great things'
📖 Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce: Who is the legendary Jamaican 100m sprinter?
Simone Biles, Gymnast [USA]
I’m not the next Usain Bolt or Michael Phelps – I’m the first Simone Biles.
I am done competing vs. beauty standards and the toxic culture of trolling when others feel as though their expectations are not met…because nobody should tell you or I what beauty should or should not look like.
Four-time Olympic gymnastics gold medallist Simone Biles is considered to be the greatest gymnast that ever lived. Since her debut at the Olympic Games in Rio in 2016, Biles became the most decorated gymnast in world championship history with 25 career medals (19 are gold). With four elements named after her, Biles has raised the standards and made her mark in gymnastics history.
In Tokyo, Biles is poised to win more medals and become the oldest woman in more than five decades to win the Olympic all-around title and the first repeat champion since Vera Caslavska did it for Czechoslovakia in 1968. But independent of the Tokyo Olympics competition outcome, she is already an extraordinary role model for new generations of girls in sports.
Biles is also a voice for change in US gymnastics after opening up about surviving sexual abuse and an advocate for social justice and for recognizing women's athletes in their own right and not by comparison to male athletes.
📖 Simone Biles: Who is the US gymnast competing at Tokyo 2020 Olympics?
📖 Gymnastics Doesn’t Know What to Do With Simone Biles’ Dominance
Learn more about Gender Equality in Sports
When Gender Equality at the Olympics Is Not So Equal
Black women athletes are still being scrutinized ahead of the Olympics despite their successes
They are Olympians. They are mothers. And they no longer have to choose.
Moments paving the way for gender equality in sport
Championing Women In Sport Is About More Than Just Coverage, Says Alex Scott
Remarkable Olympians at the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games:
Sunisa Lee - Gymnast [USA]
Angelina Melnikova - Gymnast, Olympic silver medallist at the Rio Summer Olympics [Russian Olympic Commitee]
Larisa Iordache - Gymnast, Olympic bronze medallist at the 2012 Games in London [Romania]
Oksana Chusovitina - Gymnast; at the age of 46 years she participated in her 8th and final Olympics [Uzbekistan]
Alysson Felix - Olympics Champion, nine-time Olympic medallist, won 13 gold medals at the World Championships, most decorated woman in US track and field history [US]
Aliphine Tuliamuk - Kenyan-born American long-distance runner, new mom [US]
Shaunae Miller-Uibo - Sprinter, Olympic Gold medallist [Bahamas]
Elaine Thomson Herah - Sprinter, Gold medallist in the 100m and 200m at the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro [Jamaica]
Dina Asher-Smith - British sprinter, world championships 200m gold and 100m silver medalist [Team GB]
Nafi Thiam - Heptathlete, a Gold medallist at the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro, 2017 World Championships, and 2018 European Championships. [Belgium]
Sifan Hassan - Middle- and long-distance runner, 2x Gold medallist at the 2019 World Championships, in the 1500 meters and 10,000 meters events; the only athlete in history to win both events at a single World Championships or Olympic Games [Netherlands]
Letesenbet Gidey - Long-distance runner [Ethiopia]
Faith Kipyegon - Middle-distance runner specializing in the 1500 meters, 2016 Olympic champion, a Gold medallist at the 2017 World Championships, and silver medals at the 2015 and 2019 World Championships, young mom [Kenya]
Sandra Perkovic - Discus two-time Olympic and World champion and a five-time European champion [Croatia]
Naomi Osaka - Tennis player, first Japanese person to win a Grand Slam [Japan]
Katie Ledecky - Record-breaking swimmer who, at the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro, became the most successful US female athlete in any sport at a single edition of the Games by winning four gold medals and one silver medal [USA]
Alice Dearing - Marathon swimmer, first Black woman to swim for Britain at the Olympic Games, 2016 World Junior Open Water champion, co-founder of the Black Swimming Association (BSA) [Great Britain]
If I can inspire one little black girl or one little black boy, anybody, to get into the water and give it a try, I’ve done myself proud, genuinley.
Ariarne Titmus - Swimmer, 2019 Wolrd Champion in 400 m freestyle [Australia ]
Sarah Sjostrom - Swimmer, Olympic champion, the world record holder for the 100m butterfly, participating in her 4th Olympic Games [Sweden]
Katinka Hosszu - Swimmer, three-time Olympic champion and a nine-time long-course world champion, participating in her 4th Olympic Games [Hungary]
Ona Carbonell - Artistic swimmer, 3x Olympian, won 23 medals in World Championships and two Olympic medals, mother of a < 1-year-old boy [Spain]
Laura Kenny - Cyclist, Four-time Olympic champion, mom of a young boy [Great Britain]
Lee Wai Sze - Cyclist, Bronze medallist at the 2012 London Olympic Games [Hong-Kong]
Masomah Ali Zada - Cyclist [IOC Olympic Refugee Team]
Megan Rapinoe - Soccer/Football player, co-captain, and forward player, a Gold medallist at the 2012 London Olympics, 2019 World Cup champion [USA]
Mana Iwabuchi - Football player [Japan]
Lieke Martens - Football player [The Netherlands]
Mary Kom - Boxer, 6x World Champion, MP in the Rajya Sabha, India’s upper house [India]
Caroline Dubois - Boxer, Youth Olympic champion, 4x European Youth Champion [Great Britain]
Lauren Price - Boxer [Great Britain]
Helen Glover - Rowing – women’s pair, mother of 3 [Great Britain]
An San - Record-breaking archer [South Korea]
Yang Qian - Shooter, first gold medallist at the Tokyo Olympics [China]
Nino Salukvadze – Shooter; at the age of 52 and with nine participations at the games, she is a veteran Olympian, having won a gold and a silver Olympic medal for the Soviet Union (in 1988)and bronze for Georgia at the 2008 Beijing Games [Georgia]
Hend Zaza - Table tennis player; the youngest competitor in the Tokyo Games, the youngest table tennis entrant of all time, and the youngest Olympian since the 1968 Winter Olympics [Syria]
Sandra Sanchez - Karate athlete, leader of the WFK ranking, and 2018 World Championship, six-time kata European champion [Spain]
Adeline Gray - Freestyle wrestler, 5x World Champion [USA]
Laurel Hubbard - weightlifter, first trans athlete to compete at the Olympics in an individual event [New Zealand]
Rayssa Loyal - Skater, at 13 years old she is the youngest Brazilian in the Olympic history of that country [Brazil]
Sky Brown - Skater, one of the youngest Olympic athletes [Great Britain]
Amelia Brodka – Skater [Poland], Aori Nishimura - Skater [Japan], Momiji Nishyia - Skater [Japan], Pamela Rosa - Skater [Brazil], Leticia Bufoni - Skater [Brazil]
Janja Garnbret - Climber, Bouldering six-time world champion [Slovenia]
Laura Rogora - Climber, Bouldering [Italy]
Clarissa Moore - Surfer, first American female to qualify for surfing's Olympic debut, four-time surfing world champion [USA]
Stephanie Gilmore - Surfer, seven-time world champion advocate for ocean conservation and pay equity [Australia]
Hannah Mills - Sailor, Olympic champion, sustainability advocate [Great Britain]
Who are you cheering for at the Tokyo Olympics?
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Thank you for reading FemWealth!
Wish you a sunny and exciting week ahead!
Anamaria
Founder & Writer @FemWealth