2024 Olympics
With the Olympics a big part of the news, I spent some time researching the history of women in the Olympics, as well as looking at what’s been happening in Paris.
History
The first modern Olympics were held in 1896; women were first allowed to compete in 1900, when 22 women participated in five sports — tennis, sailing, croquet, equestrian and golf. (Fewer than 1,000 atheletes competed in total that year.) Only golf and tennis were women-only events.
Over the past 25 years, the IOC has been encouraging and working with National Olympic Committees and International Federations (IFs) to increase female participation at the Olympic Games. Key changes have included opening up of eligibility in the various sports involved; the quota places set by the IOC and filled by the IFs; and the increase of the number of medal events for female athletes. Multiple new mixed-gender events have also been added to the further promote gender diversity and equality. Tokyo 2020 doubled the number of mixed events compared to Rio 2016, while the Olympic Winter Games Beijing 2022 will see four new mixed events on the programme.
olympics.com/…
I watched the bronze medal round in the mixed archery competition, surprised that such an event existed. (The US won the bronze medal.)
Gymnastics
I haven’t had a television for more than a decade, so I can’t watch the network coverage; I watch on YouTube and other places. Which is okay with me — I was quite pissed as TV coverage showed less of the actual competition and more and more feature pieces about top atheletes/teams, or rivalries between atheletes/teams. Once, back in the 1970’s or 80’s, the networks equipment broke down during the Winter Olympics, so all we got to see were the skaters — I think it was women’s figure skating. It was quite a different experience. I know that YouTube has figure skating full events, but not until after the Olympics are over. I will look to see if the same is true for gymnastics.
The first thing that struck me about the US women’s gymnastic team was that it was made up of actual women, not girls. Four of the five team members are over 21, with Simone Biles the oldest at 27. This is the fourth oldest team in history, and the three that are older were in 1952, 1936, and 1948.
Simone Biles is the big story, and she deserves to be. In 2020, she dropped out of the team event, saying her mental health was more important than competing, she needed to take care of herself.
Biles faced backlash for her decision on social media, where some users argued her withdrawal was a moment of weakness or abandonment of her team. Others, like Ryan, viewed it as a testament to how the demands of elite gymnastics can wear down even the most talented individuals.
At the time of the Tokyo Olympics, Biles was preparing to testify at a US Senate hearing about the FBI’s suspected mishandling of the Larry Nassar sexual abuse investigation. More than 150 athletes, including Biles, said that the former USA Gymnastics team doctor sexually abused them under the guise of providing medical treatment. Allegations against Nassar were first presented in July 2015, but no arrest was made until December 2016.
Before the Senate Judiciary Committee in August 2021, Biles criticized “an entire system that enabled and perpetuated his abuse,” including USA Gymnastics and the United States Olympic and Paralympic Committee. She later told New York magazine that she “should have quit way before Tokyo, when Larry Nassar was in the media for two years.”
www.cnn.com/…
YouTube isn’t allowing me to re-post videos of the medalists in the women’s all-around. They were Simone Biles, gold medal; Rebeka Andradi (Brazil), silver medal; and Sunisa Lee (also US) bronze medal. You can see them on YouTube.
Other sports included swimming, diving, and this amazing thing I never heard of before, synchronized diving. This is the US qualifying trials, so I can show the video here. I think I love this sport.
Other News
International
An international rights group on Monday accused a paramilitary group in war-torn Sudan of sexual violence against women, including rape, gang rape, and forced and child marriage. A smaller number of incidents were also attributed to the military, it said.
Human Rights Watch called for the United Nations and the African Union to establish a joint mission to protect civilians in Sudan as more than 15 months of fighting between the military and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces has shown no signs of abating.
“The Rapid Support Forces have raped, gang raped, and forced into marriage countless women and girls in residential areas in Sudan’s capital,” said Laetitia Bader, deputy Africa director at Human Rights Watch.
www.nbcnews.com/…
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Maria Corina Machado has hiked overpasses, walked highways, ridden motorcycles, sought shelter in supporters’ homes and seen her closest collaborators detained and persecuted. She has held the calloused hands of crying men, worn dozens of gifted rosaries and listened to the pleas of the young and old while crisscrossing Venezuela.
The ruling party has blocked Machado from running in Sunday’s hotly contested presidential election, but fueled by that ban, she has become the driving force for the main opposition coalition and a symbol of hope, courage and perseverance for millions of Venezuelans. Machado, once a political outcast, is their freedom fighter and the main threat to President Nicolás Maduro’s reelection aspirations.
Supporters scream “Freedom! Freedom! Freedom!” as she arrives at rallies and while she speaks, some overwhelmed to the point of tears. The thousands-strong crowds include opponents of the self-professed socialist revolution that Maduro’s predecessor began at the turn of the century, as well as voters who supported those ideals but abandoned them because of Venezuela’s ongoing crisis.
apnews.com/…
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President Cyril Ramaphosa named Mandisa Maya, the current deputy chief justice, as the country’s new most senior judge. Her term is due to start on Sept. 1, when she will replace Chief Justice Raymond Zondo as the head of the apex Constitutional Court. Zondo is retiring.
Maya, 60, previously served as the judge president of the Supreme Court of Appeal, the second-highest court in South Africa, before her promotion to the Constitutional Court. She was the first Black woman to be appointed a judge of the Supreme Court of Appeal and the first woman to be appointed deputy president and then president of that court.
Ramaphosa nominated Maya for chief justice in February and she was interviewed by the Judicial Services Commission in May. The commission recommended her and noted her appointment “would be a significant milestone for the country,” Ramaphosa said in a statement.
apnews.com/…
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Ghana's lawmakers on Tuesday passed a law to give more opportunities to women at the national level, the speaker of parliament said, with a target to increase their participation in governance and decision-making to a minimum of 30% by 2030.
Members of parliament (MPs) unanimously passed the Affirmative Action Gender Bill 2024, ending a process started in 1998 to create an equitable society and mandate efforts to address the socio-cultural, political, economic, and educational imbalances in private and public sectors.
The law will take effect when President Nana Akufo-Addo, who supported the measure in Parliament, signs it.
Speaker of Parliament Alban Bagbin said the West African nation must now act to implement the requirements of the law, inspired by the 1992 Constitution which says the state must take steps to ensure gender equality and equity.
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Closer to Home
A Missouri woman is suing a Kansas hospital where she says she was denied an emergency abortion after she went into premature labor at 18 weeks of pregnancy, alleging she was denied emergency health-stabilizing care.
The lawsuit comes a year after a government investigation by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services found that hospitals in Missouri and Kansas violated federal law when they refused to provide Mylissa Farmer with abortion care.
abcnews.go.com/.…
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President Joe Biden plans to nominate Patrice H. Kunesh (Standing Rock Lakota) to be the next chairperson of the National Indian Gaming Commission.
Kunesh currently serves as the commissioner of the Administration for Native Americans, a federal agency that promotes self-sufficiency for Native Americans with grant funding for community-based projects, as well as training and technical assistance for tribes and Native-serving organizations.
If her appointment to the NIGC is successful, Kunesh would take over for acting chair Sharon M. Avery (Saginaw Chippewa).
tribalbusinessnews.com/…
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Utahns will continue to have access to abortion up to 18 weeks of pregnancy, the majority-woman Utah Supreme Court ruled Thursday in a long-awaited decision on whether a near-total ban on such care could take effect.
The ruling impacts only a previously ordered block on the law and does not determine the final outcome of abortion policy in the Beehive State. The case now goes to a lower court to determine the constitutionality of the trigger law.
Justices Paige Petersen, Diana Hagen and Jill Pohlman joined Associate Chief Justice John Pearce in the opinion, with Chief Justice Matthew Durrant dissenting.
thnews.org/...
Election and Childless Cat Ladies
Since JD Vance became the Republican vice presidential nominee, his record has come under intense scrutiny. In a 2021 interview, for example, Vance criticized Vice President Kamala Harris as “one of a bunch of childless cat ladies” who lived “miserable lives” and were forcing their misery on the rest of the country, even though they had no “direct stake” in the country’s future without offspring.
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Moreover, Vance’s views on childless women are sharply at odds with the attitude of his present Catholic faith. As a scholar of medieval Catholicism, I know that Catholic history is full of childless women respected for their work, many of them members of religious communities. They often contributed to lasting social and cultural change. In fact, the very existence of women’s religious communities is a testament to the value Catholicism puts on childless women’s lives.
theconversation.com/…
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“It’s possible,” writes Jessica Winter in the New Yorker, “that if JD Vance had his way, citizenship in the United States would be conferred not solely by birthright but by marriage and children.” This is no exaggeration. In a now viral 2021 clip, JD Vance said: “Let’s give votes to all children in this country, but let’s give control over those votes to the parents of those children. When you go to the polls in this country as a parent, you should have more power – you should have more of an ability to speak your voice in our democratic republic – than people who don’t have kids. Let’s face the consequences and the reality: If you don’t have as much of an investment in the future of this country, maybe you shouldn’t get nearly the same voice.”
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If you say no – if you resist their prescription for marriage, motherhood and perpetual feminine self-sacrifice – they want to let you know, in sneeringly condescending terms, that you’re “
childless cat ladies”, that you’re not as good as them, that
step-parents are not real parents, blended families are not real families, that women who don’t have children are disgusting, worthless and deserving of contempt. If you say no, they want to denigrate you in public,
punish you financially, dilute your vote and lessen your citizenship.
As the 2024 presidential election heats up following Trump’s selection of JD Vance as his running mate and Kamala Harris’s emergence as the new Democratic standard-bearer, it is becoming clear that much of the stakes of the November contest will revolve around questions of gender – and specifically, questions of family. And the view of the family that is emerging from the Republicans is a dark one indeed.
theconversation.com/…
I strongly recommend reading the whole column. And just to prove that they don’t mean real families, Senate Republicans just blocked a bill to expand the Child Tax Credit, which not only is the most effective way we’ve found to cut child poverty, but also rewards those with more children.
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As always, thanks to the WoW crew for links and thoughts, this week inclucing Tara TASW, mettle fatigue, SandraLLAP, Angmar, and elenacarlena.
