Women in Sports (continued from page 7)

have women around-and I've talked to psychiatrists about this--you aren't gonna be worth a damn. No sir! Man has to dominate....The best way to treat a woman...is to knock her up and hide her shoes."

Challenging the myth of male superiority were such women as Katherine Switzer, the first woman officially to run the Boston Marathon. In 1967, Boston officials received an entry marked K. Switzer. Never dreaming that K. stood for a woman's name, they sent her a starting number. Wearing a hood to preserve her anonymity, she stood on the starting line until the press spotted her. The melee that followed will go down in history. Race Director Will Cloney tried to catch her, but couldn't. Co-Director Jock Semple tried to rip the number off her back, but Katherine's boyfriend sent Semple reeling into the curb. Katherine went on to finish the race and, because she had been assigned a number, was the first woman officially to cross the Boston finish line. Change was slow in coming; it was not until 1972 that women entrants were officially welcomed.

Although feminist groups were slow in recognizing the need for support in the area of athletics, when it did arrive, it addressed the right for a woman to control her own body, whether it be needing an abortion or wanting to strengthen it through sports. Women clearly were seeking a new definition of femininity and the image of the ideal American woman was beginning to change. Exploration of female potential was beginning to be seen as valid and important. Initially it was a monetary issue; sponsors exploiting the new boom in women's sports wanted to differentiate their products from others by using female "jocks" to endorse them. Virginia Slims sold cigarettes by asserting, "You've come a long way, baby". Women were finally being paid to use their bodies, and not for stripping. Although most of the sponsors were not altruistic in their use of figures such as Chris Evert and Dorothy Hamill, positive things happened as a result of using women who did things, rather than just look good. It was a possibility for new and active role models for girls and women to emulate.

The new image of athletics actually had more impact on the average woman than on professional athletes. Not only were pros making more money than ever before, but women who had ceased being physically active when they were children began to rediscover the joys of being invigorated by physical activity. Although much of the encouragement and support that women were getting added up to nothing more than a new fad to fit into a old mold, the end result had an overwhelming effect. Once women began taking an interest in sports, they couldn't help rearranging their attitudes along with their figures. It began to change their total way of viewing themselves-physically and mentally. Involvement in sports was more than a symbolic assertion of female vigor and possibility; once she conquered new challenges in sports, why not other areas of her life? Assertiveness training comes much easier when we don't have to fight a negative self-view. Women who are no longer estranged from their physical selves realize that they are not fragile, passive beings in need of male protection. Changing these perceptions meant an upheaval in social structures because women with this new view of self were less likely to fall into culturally mandated roles.

Dr. Kathryn Clarenbach, Professor of Political Science at the University of Wisconsin, comments on where she thinks this sports euphoria is taking women as opposed to where they've been: "The overemphasis on protecting girls from strain or injury and underemphasis on developing skills and experiencing teamwork, fits neatly into the pattern of the second sex. Girls are the spectators and the cheerleaders. They organize the pep clubs, sell the pompoms, make cute abbreviated costumes, strut a bit between halves and idolize the current football

hero. This is perfect preparation for the adult role of women to stand decoratively on the sidelines of history and cheer on the men who make the decisions. Women who have had the regular experience of performing before others, of learning to win, and to lose, of cooperating in team efforts, will be far less fearful of running for office, better able to take public positions on issues in the face of public opposition. By working toward some balance in the realm of physical activity, we may indeed begin to achieve a more wholesome, democratic balance in all phases of our life". Women are beginning to realize that there is more to life than basking in the reflective glory of their male counterparts. Expressions of physicality and spirituality, discipline of the body as well as the mind and spirit, are seen as tools able to assist individuals (both men and women) in controlling the self and surrounding environment.

Although women are making progress in this and other areas, change and support for that change is slow in arriving. Throughout history, we have been denied access to our own bodies. We have waited to be told what we are to become and upon being given an impossible task, invariably fall short, then blame ourselves. We have been taught that to be feminine is to be passive, weak, and receptive. To be strong and assertive goes against the grain of societal expectations. Those who dare step out of line risk disapproval at best and sometimes outright hostility.

Changing the pattern is a frustrating and seemingly endless task. From 'the beginning, the cards were stacked against us. Through Aristotle, sexual differentiation came into the practice of medicine and ultimately into psychiatry, defining and limiting our roles. The church and other institutions of our society leapt on the bandwagon and by the 19th century, philosophers, historians and biolog is had two millenia of precedents to quote authoritatively. How could they all be wrong? The simple fact is that women have been imprisoned in a false self image since man has been writing history. What one must → remember is that most of the images we have seen of women have been male-defined and male-created. Not until more recent history have women been at

least partially recognized as authorities on themselves.

Women commenting on women is a new experience. Our task as modern women is to redefine femininity in our own terms and not to buy the whole neat little package that we have been offered. Many women who have been angered by their restrictive roles have lacked self-confidence and initiative to create a new role. In their hostility and pain, they mimic the only role model of "success" that they see-men. What they have failed to realize is that they've been caught in the larger trap. Not only have they bought the male image, but they've been stung by the male definition of success, and all the values that go along with it. What we need to do is to sort out what we have been offered and what we have discovered and to decide what portion of it we want to reject and what we want to claim.

It is a slow and painful rebuilding process but the images we leave today will be the images that our daughters and the generations of women who follow will have to build upon.