LEVELLING THE PLAYING FIELDS The competitive sporting world is playing catch-up with the realities of gender in modern society.
W
UFRIEDA HO
SHIVAN PARUSNATH
hen the German gymnastics team arrived at the Tokyo Olympics with arms and legs covered in unitards, it earned more attention than the team’s performance. It was the same when the Norwegian women’s beach volleyball team ditched their bikini bottoms for fitted shorts at the Euro 2021 Games and got fined for ‘improper clothing’. The defiance of the two teams were statements; a triumph of female athletes pushing back on the world’s biggest sports stages, protesting, and importantly, finding support beyond the sporting world to drive home the fight for gender parity, equal rights, women’s freedom of choice over their bodies and the longoverdue respect and recognition of athletic professionalism for women in sports.
18
“Each step forward is a triumph in raising awareness, and in keeping gender issues a priority,” says Dr Corlia Brandt, a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Physiotherapy. But, she says, these are also moments to reflect on just how much work society as a whole still needs to undertake. One of the biggest gaps is found in research data on women in sports, and research that comes out of SA in particular.
STARTING FROM SCRATCH
“We really have been starting from scratch. There are no statistics to go on that give you a base from which to start. What is available is based on men’s profiles even though of course, women athletes have such different needs,” Brandt says. A key area of focus that is overlooked, for example, is the
