Category Archive: Gender

On the Eve of the New Year, My Favorite Posts

Roy_summer vacation_1967 maybe
Roy, sometime between the Tokyo and Mexico City Olympic Games.

On this, the last day of 2015, I’d like to thank everyone for their support of my blog – The Olympians. I have posted at least once every day since I started the blog on May 1. Out of about 300 posts, I’ve selected 25 that I personally like, in good part because I’ve had the great fortune to talk with the people mentioned in these stories.

  1. A Helicopter View of US-USSR Relations, Olympic Style
  2. American Gymnast Makoto Sakamoto and Memories of Home: Post-War Shinjuku
  3. Arnold Gordon (Part 1): Befriending Judy Garland at Manos in Shinjuku
  4. The Banning of Headgear in Boxing: The Convoluted World of Protecting Our Athletes
  5. Clumsy Handoff, Beautiful Result: A World Record Finish for the American 4X400 Relay Team in Tokyo
  6. Coach Hank Iba: The Iron Duke of Defense Who Led the Men’s Basketball Team to Gold in 1964
  7. Creativity by Committee: The 2020 Olympic Emblem and the Rio Olympic Mascots?
  8. Crowded, Noisy, Dirty, Impersonal: Tokyo in the 1960s
  9. The Dale McClements’ Diary: From Athlete to Activist
  10. Doug Rogers, Star of the Short Film “Judoka”: A Fascinating Look at Japan, and the Foreigner Studying Judo in the 1960s
  11. Escape from East Berlin in October 1964: A Love Story
  12. Escape from Manchuria: How the Father of an Olympian Left a Legacy Beyond Olympic Proportions
  13. Fame: Cover Girl and Canadian Figure Skater Sandra Bezic
  14. Frank Gorman: Harvard Star, Tokyo Olympian, and Now Inductee to the International Swimming Hall of Fame
  15. The Geesink Eclipse – The Day International Judo Grew Up
  16. India Beats Pakistan in Field Hockey: After the Partition, the Sporting Equivalent of War
  17. The Narrow Road to the Deep North
  18. On Being Grateful: Bob Schul
  19. Protesting Via Political Cartoons: Indonesia Boycotts the Tokyo Olympics
  20. The Sexist Sixties: A Sports Writers Version of “Mad Men” Would Make the Ad Men Blush
  21. “Swing” – The Danish Coxless Fours Found It, and Gold, in Tokyo
  22. Toby Gibson: Boxer, Lawyer, Convict
  23. Vesper Victorious Under Rockets Red Glare – A Dramatic Finish to One of America’s Greatest Rowing Accomplishments
  24. What it Means to Be an Olympian: Bill Cleary Remembers
  25. Who is that Bald-Headed Beauty: The Mystery of the Soviet Javelin Champion
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Caitlyn, Serena, Djokavic and Barcelona: Still counting down my Top Fifteen Sports Stories of 2015

Bruce and Caitlyn_cover to cover

NINE – Meet Caitlyn Jenner: Jenner reveals in July that she would no longer be known as Bruce Jenner, sparking a dialogue about what it means to be transgender. The 1976 gold medal-winning pentathlon men’s champion’s cover story on Vanity Fair, and follow-up television interviews helped broaden the world view on people who identify themselves as transgender.

Day Thirteen: The Championships - Wimbledon 2015
LONDON, ENGLAND – JULY 12: Serena Williams of the United States and Novak Djokovic of Serbia dance on stage at the Champions Dinner at the Guild Hall on day thirteen of the Wimbledon Lawn Tennis Championships on July 12, 2015 in London, England. (Photo by Thomas Lovelock – AELTC Pool/Getty Images)

EIGHT – Olympians Serena Williams and Novak Djokavic Win 3/4 of their Grand Slams: Williams won the Australian Open, the French Open and Wimbledon in 2015. She is a four-time gold medalist, winning gold in doubles in 2000, 2008 and 2012, as well as the singles championship in 2012. Djokavic won the Australian Open, the French Open and Wimbledon in 2015. Djokavic now has a total 10 Grand Slams, and took the bronze medal in singles play in Beijing in 2008.

fc barcelona uefa.jpg

SEVEN – Barcelona FC Wins the Treble: In the 2014–2015 season, Barcelona win La Liga, Copa del Rey and UEFA Champions League titles, becoming the first European team to have won the treble twice. Olympians on Barcelona FC include Javier Mascherano (gold for Argentina in 2004 and 2008), Lionel Messi (gold for Argentina in 2008), Neymar (silver for Brazil in 2012), Luis Suarez (competed for Uruguay in 2012)

See this link for 13 through 15, and 10 through 12.

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Candace Hill, the Youngest American, Man or Woman, to Turn Pro in Track and Field: Thank You Title IX

GATORADE NATIONAL GIRLS TRACK & FIELD 2
Candace Hill, of Rockdale County High School, after being named the Gatorade National Girls Track & Field Athlete of the Year, Thursday, June 25, 2015 in Conyers, GA.Photo/Gatorade, Susan Goldman, handout.

Candace Hill is one of the fastest women in the world. And she’s turned pro. At the age of 16.

She’ll be running in Rio, and she’ll be likely making a very, very good living along the way.

“Skipping college is attractive for three reasons: money, fame and momentum,” the sprinter from Georgia was quoted as saying in this New York Times article.

Candace Hill running

Call her arrogant. Call her the embodiment of the American dream. With the third best time ever in the 100 meters for women under 20 years old (10.98 seconds), she is not only the youngest woman to turn pro in track and field in America, she is the youngest person man or woman.

You would never have seen a woman like Hill over 40 years ago, before Title IX.

Title IX (nine) is part of the United States Education Amendments of 1972, a law that states “No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving federal financial assistance.”

Barbara Winslow in the Journal of the Gilder Lehrman Institute stated the situation this way:

It’s hard to imagine that just forty years ago, young women were not admitted into many colleges and universities, athletic scholarships were rare, and math and science was a realm reserved for boys. Girls square danced instead of playing sports, studied home economics instead of training for “male-oriented” (read: higher-paying) trades. Girls could become teachers and nurses, but not doctors or principals; women rarely were awarded tenure and even more rarely appointed college presidents. There was no such thing as sexual harassment because “boys will be boys,” after all, and if a student got pregnant, her formal education ended. Graduate professional schools openly discriminated against women.

Today a generation or two of women have grown up in a culture that has encouraged women to all the pursuits that men had previously enjoyed. Thanks to Title IX, educational systems had to begin investing in girls and womens’ teams, which resulted in the popularity for women’s team sports like soccer, basketball, and baseball. Mo’ne Davis, who was the first girl to earn a win and pitch a shutout in a Little League World Series

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Womenomics and the First Female Chef de Mission: Seiko Hashimoto

Seiko Hashimoto, one of only two athletes to have competed in two different Olympic Games in the same year (Albertville and Barcelona in 1992)

Seiko Hashimoto, one of only two athletes to have competed in two different Olympic Games in the same year (Albertville and Barcelona in 1992)

The War for Talent is fierce in the industrialized world, and it is fiercest in Japan, where the demand in particular for global, bilingual talent is sky high. The bad news is that Japanese organizations and government have not figured out how to best utilize half that talent pool, women.

In August of this year, the Japanese government signed off on legislation that requires companies with 301 or more employees to share statistical data on what percentage of female hires and managers, as well as to set targets. There is a broader goal set by the government to have 30% of all managerial roles in Japan filled by women by 2020. According to a Goldman Sachs report mentioned in this Wall Street Journal article, figuring out how to fill the gender gap could result in an increase in GDP by about 13%. That’s what is meant by Womenomics.

But for women to achieve, they have to want to achieve. And very often it is the very lack of role models that keep the number of female managers and leaders down.

Enter Seiko Hashimoto. No one in Team Japan has participated in more Olympic Games than the woman from Hokkaido. Hashimoto, now Ishizaki, has appeared in the Winter Games of Sarajevo (1984), Calgary (1988), Albertville (1992), as well as Lillehammer in 1994, competing as a speed skater. She also used her powerful legs to compete as a cycling sprinter in the Summer Games of Seoul (1988), Barcelona (1992), and Atlanta (1996). That’s seven Olympic Games from 1984 to 1996!

Hashimoto, who is also a member of the House of Councillors in the Japanese government, has been named as the chef de mission of the Japan Olympic team for the 2016 Games in Rio de Janeiro. The chef de mission, according to the IOC, is the main liaison between the National Olympic Committee and the International Olympic Committee, and has the responsibility for all the competitors, officials and staff members of that particular national team. Hashimoto, as well as Kitty Chiller in Australia who was also named chef for Rio, are the first female chef de missions in the history of the Olympic Games.

Kitty Chiller, Australian pentathlete in the 2000 Sydney Games
Kitty Chiller, Australian pentathlete in the 2000 Sydney Games

The chef de mission of an Olympic team is the sole spokesperson, in a way, like the CEO, who represents the team not only to the IOC, but to the public. Most commonly, it is the chef de mission who has to put on the brave face when athletes or officials misbehave, but they also have the potential to rally the troops and inspire.

Why has it taken so long for women to lead an Olympic team? There are multiple reasons. Hopefully, the examples of Hashimoto and Chiller will be another step in breaking barriers and allowing talented women to show the world that leadership is far more abundant than previously believed…if only gender is ignored.

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Female dorms in the Japanese Olympic Village: When the Fastest, Strongest, Most Athletic Women in the World Had to be “Protected”

The Women's Quarters in the Olympic Village, Tokyo, from the book,
The Women’s Quarters in the Olympic Village, Tokyo, from the book, “The Games of the XVIII Olympiad Tokyo 1964”

The men stayed in military barracks inside the Olympic Village. But the women were housed in a four-story building that was fenced off from the men, and according to one report, its borders demarcated with barbed wire.

The women actually had full rein of the grounds, so to one Olympian, it seemed like overkill. It’s a “bit pointless,” the coach of the women’s British gymnastics team, June Groom, told The Japan Times. “After all the girls can go anywhere they please and have access to the men’s quarters, but there you are.”

Ada Kok, a teenage swimmer on the Dutch national team, remembers being able to see people on the road, and thus was warned to watch out for peeping toms. “Our chaperones from our teams warned us to close the curtains when we were about to sleep.”

Apparently, the barriers weren’t so great that husbands and wives couldn’t connect. Discus thrower, Olga Connolly, was reported to assist her husband, hammer thrower, Hal Connolly, with his laundry. As the AP reported, Olga would wash and iron Hal’s wear, and then pass the clean clothes over the wire fence.

On the Friday before the Opening Ceremonies, the organizers offered the women in the

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Who is that Bald-Headed Beauty: The Mystery of the Soviet Javelin Champion

Elvira Ozolina
Elvira Ozolina

She was the best, holding the world record in the women’s javelin throw from May 1960 to October 1964. Elvira Ozolina, the native Latvian who was representing the Soviet Union at the 1964 Olympics, was primed to repeat as Olympic champion in Tokyo, after taking gold in Rome in 1960.

However, you have to play the game as they say. And when the competition ensued, Romanian Mihaela Penes threw nearly 7 meters better than Ozolina to win the gold medal. Ozolina threw poorly, and the Rome Champion landed in fifth place.

Then the rumors began to swirl. The US wire services filled newspapers across the country with this story from AP.

Various headlines from AP news wire stories on Ozolina
Various headlines from AP news wire stories on Ozolina

“There’s a bald-headed beauty who speaks Russian roaming the Olympic Village today. And a new Olympic mystery is swirling around her. Less than 24 hours ago the girl had beautiful, shoulder-length chestnut hair. Then she walked into a Village beauty parlor and ordered it shaved off. She walked out 20 minutes later, tears streaming down her face and her head bald as a billiard ball.”

The press suspected that it was Ozolina, but the Russian officials and press so strongly denied the report that the mystery remained a mystery. In fact, Ozolina appeared in a press conference a few days later. The AP report, without directly saying so, hints that Ozolina was now wearing a wig, but Ozolina waved the idea off. When asked why she cut her hair off, she said “Cut my hair off? Take a good look at my head.”

So did she, or didn’t she? As they say, only her hairdresser knows for sure.

Hair Salon in Olympic Village, from the book
Hair Salon in Olympic Village, from the book “Tokyo Olympiad 1964_Kyodo News Agency”
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Hiroshi Hase: Teacher, Wrestler, Politician, LGBT Activist?

Hiroshi Hase, wrestler and minister
Hiroshi Hase, Olympian, wrestler and Minster of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology

He was a teacher in classic Japanese literature. He was an Olympian, competing in Greco-Roman wrestling at the 1984 Olympiad in Los Angeles. He had a long and successful career as a pro wrestler, starting his career in Puerto Rico, Canada and the Soviet Union before becoming a star in Japan, particularly in his tag team performances with Kensuke Sasaki. Towards the end of a storied career in wrestling, Hiroshi Hase (馳 浩) followed in the footsteps of his mentor, Antonio Inoki, by being elected into the Upper House of the Japanese Diet in 2005, as an independent in Ishikawa Prefecture.

Which brings us to today.

Today, Hase is the head of the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology. And in the Japanese bureaucracy, it is the sub-departments in this Ministry that make decisions regarding the Olympic Games. And Hase has already stated that he intends to push hard for the protection of the rights of the LGBT community in Japan, using the Olympics as a platform.

“Let me be clear on this: I believe sexual-minority students at elementary and junior high schools have been left out” to the extent that people around them, including teachers, friends and family, have little understanding of the issues they face, said Hiroshi Hase, a few days ago in this Japan Times article.

In another Japan Times article from 7 months ago, Hase was quoted as saying that the Sochi Olympics were a lesson for us all, hearing that many Western leaders did not attend the opening ceremonies due to the openly hostile attitude towards the LGBT community in Russia.

As a four-time Olympic host, Japan has the responsibility of calling for social change through sports, Hase said.

Is the bureaucracy in Japan ready for this? Skepticism reigns, but optimism can conquer.

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The Single Woman in Tokyo in 1964: You Really Haven’t Come a Long Way, Baby

Cartoon entitled "Onna no Manako: Aki no Yoru wa Nagai",, from the November 11, 1964 issue of Shinfujin
Cartoon entitled “Onna no Manako: Aki no Yoru wa Nagai”,, from the November 11, 1964 issue of Shinfujin

One of my purchases in Jimbocho, the center for old books and magazines in Tokyo, is a copy of a popular woman’s magazine, Shinfujin (新婦人). The term “shinfujin” or “new woman” was a phrase that grew out of a feminist movement in Japan in the early 20th century. As Wikipedia states, shinfujin “denoted women who wore fashionable Western dress, socialized with men in public, and chose their own romantic partners.”

Shinfujin, 11 November1964
Shinfujin, 11 November1964

This particular issue was published a month after the 1964 Tokyo Olympic Games. In addition to a quick feature on the venues of the Olympic Games, it gives guidance on flower arrangement, fashion and the latest in stereo systems, for example. Towards the end of this issue is a striking cartoon about a single woman’s evening. It is surprisingly dark, with the illustration representing the start of the woman’s evening as the entrance into a snake’s mouth. A date turns into a leche, the train commute home is filled with gropers, and while she dreams of marriage, she cannot escape the nightmare of a snake.

The cartoon is drawn by someone called Inoue Yousuke, which is a man’s name. But I imagine the illustration still captured the unsaid thoughts of many women who read what appears to be a magazine targeting women of refinement.

Has Japan changed in 50 years?

Why does Japan today have train and subway cars that allow only women during rush hour?

womenonly

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Ewa Klobukowska, the Joy of Victory, and the 4X100 M World Record That Was Not: The Impact of Gender Testing in the 1960s

One of my go-to books for great images from the Tokyo Olympics is the coffee table to me, “Tokyo Olympiad 1964” published by the Kyodo News Agency. On one page, the book tells a wonderful story about the joy of victory through three fantastic pictures.

Ewa Klobukowska anchored a Polish women’s team that won gold in the 4 X 100 relay race, and set a world record time of 43.0 seconds, defeating the American and British teams that took silver and bronze respectively. Klobukowska, who also took bronze in the women’s 100 meter compeition, was so happy in victory that when requested by an official to return the baton, she didn’t want to give it back. I’ve provided the captions from the book below.

“Hannah, we’ve made it.” Poland’s anchor Eva Klobukowska (center) embraces Teresa Barbara Ciepla (extreme right), excited over the world record their team set in the Women’s 400 M Relay.
“Say, young lady, you can’t take it with you!”
“But I want to. I love this baton.” – Poland’s Eva Klobukowska.

“Eva, give it to me.” Poland’s Teresa Barbara Ciepla takes the baton past the official into the dugout.

Five years later,

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The Sexist Sixties: A Sports Writers Version of “Mad Men” Would Make the Ad Men Blush

AP, October 22, 1964
AP, October 22, 1964

“The shortest of shorts are being worn by British girls. And the tightest of sweaters appear to be worn by the women of Poland.” That’s how AP described the scene in October 22 as the 1964 Olympic Games were winding down and many of the athletes had finished their competitive pursuits.

The AMC series Mad Men have recently given us a chance to revisit the sexism of the 1960s, but it is still jarring to read in the wire clippings of the time how women were viewed by men, particularly American sports writers.

In an October 6 article, headlined “Olympic Beauty Standards Different From Any Other”, the AP writer explains “… to be brutally frank, after looking over the crop gathering for the Olympics which open Saturday, it must be reported that there are very few lady athletes whose faces will stop traffic.”

This writer goes on to explain the vocabulary used by him and his colleagues to describe women are, admittedly, hard to imagine seeing in today’s print press:

  • Attractive – Well, she must be a girl because the Russians say she is, and we can’t even get an agreement to inspect their nuclear bomb sites.
  • Pretty- Nobody has ever actually stepped on her face with a spiked shoe.
  • Lovely – She bathes after every race.
  • Gorgeous – She parked her truck outside.
  • Glamorous – She has had at last one permanent since spring.
  • Vivacious – She speaks English.
  • Shy – She doesn’t.

Somewhat relevant, here is a great video featuring Mad Men star, Christina Hendricks, showing how sexism exists in subtler ways today.

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