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Fighting for Acceptance FIGHTING FOR ACCEPTANCE: SIGFRID EDSTR0M AND AVERY BRUNDAGE: THEIR EFFORTS TO SHAPE AND CONTROL WOMEN'S PARTICIPATION IN THE OLYMPIC GAMES Carly Adams* In the twenty-first century, women train for and compete in grueling and physically taxing sports that were once considered appropriate for men only. Such participation was considered inappropriate by the Modern Olympic Games founder Pierre de Cou- bertin and his aristocratic colleagues who were fiercely opposed to the sight of straining, sweaty, muscular women participating in arduous physical activities. The Olympic Games, as Coubertin's personal venture, supported by traditional upper-class male sport leaders, were established to celebrate and embrace the physical accomplishments of men, not women. Reflecting Victorian notions of his time, sport to Coubertin was an arena for the development of human sporting bodies, and the traditional masculine virtues of strength and moral character. Like any other organization, these Games had leadership that mapped out specific goals and rules, with their intentions and values manifested through the creation of governing policies. There has long been a struggle for control over, and acceptance of, women's sports within the modern Olympic movement. Women have been active in sport since the 19th century; they even competed unofficially at the Olympic Games in golf and tennis as early as 1900. However, from the onset, women's participation has been an uphill battle characterized by restrictions, modera- tion, and exclusion. Since the establishment of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) in 1894, women sport leaders have been challenging the anachronistic ideas of the IOC, fighting for their right to participate in this traditionally male preserve. By the 1920s, the women's sport movement, led by the influential French activist Alice Milliat, was strengthening. Women were demanding access to this traditionally male sphere or were threatening alternatives such as hosting their own women-only Olympic Games. The struggle between the IOC and women's lobby groups was carefully manipulated and controlled by shrewd male sport leaders. Women made their way into the male dominated modern Olympic Games only because of their lobbying efforts and unwillingness to disappear. An examination of the leadership of like-minded IOC presidents, who perpetuated the dominant social ideology of women as passive, non-physical beings, capable of participating only in specific "feminized" sports, provides insight into how male sport leaders used their stature to control and shape the rapidly growing women's sport movement to fit their personal visions of the Olympic sporting ideal. Ultimately, the expansion and development of women's international sport depended upon the interest and generosity of men. Sigfrid Edstr0m and Avery Brundage were important historical figures who identified a need for the limited participation of women in sport. Through their unique political personae, these two individuals succeeded in monitoring, regulating, and controlling significant aspects of women's sport from 1913 until the early 1970s. SIGFRID EDSTR0M AND THE CREATION OF THE IAAF Sigfrid Edstr0m was involved in sport as an athlete or administrator since the first modern Olympic Games in Athens, Greece in 1896. He was an ambitious man and a shrewd politician, who meticulously manipulated and negotiated deals in accordance with the outcome he desired, while displaying a favourable public image. Edstr0m was a strong supporter of the modern Olympic movement; thus, after the success of the Games in 1912 in which he was intimately involved, he desired to gain entrance to the higher echelons of international sport.1 Consequently, primarily due to the disorganized nature of track and field, in 1912, Edstr0m, set in motion a plan to establish an international athletics federation.2 He had great respect and admiration for Pierre de Coubertin, founder of the modern Olympic Movement and realized that to obtain consent for a separate international athletics body, he would have to tread carefully.3 Through assuring Coubertin that a new international federation would not contest or interfere with the leadership of the IOC, and by asking Coubertin for his help in the formation of the new federation, Edstr0m gained the approval he * Carly Adams is a Master's student at The University of Western Ontario, London, Canada The Global Nexus Engaged Sixth International Symposium for Olympic Research, pp. 143-148 144 The Global Nexus Engaged Sixth International Symposium for Olympic Research - 2002 desired. The International Amateur Athletics Federation (IAAF), created in August 1913 with Edstr0m elected as President, became the first federation to work closely with the IOC. Edstr0m's relationship with Coubertin and his ability to gain significant positions in international sport was a measure of his political skill. In 1920, Edstr0m was co-opted as a member of the IOC, and one year later he joined the IOC's first executive board. The respect and confidence Edstr0m had among the higher levels of inter- national sport circles, allowed him to influence the direction of sport in the years to come. THE FSFI AND WOMEN'S FIGHT TO GAIN ACCESS TO THE GAMES By the 1920s, the IAAF was faced with one of the most controversial issues to impact the new Federation: the increasing demands of women to compete in international athletics, specifically at the Olympic Games. The Federation Sportive Feminine Internationale (FSFI), under the leadership of Alice Milliat, was created as a response to the rejection of women's participation in athletics. At its first meeting, the Congress of the FSFI made plans to host a Women's Olympic Games, held every four years, with the first commencing in Paris in 1922. At the first Games, 20,000 spectators attended the one-day competition, with athletes from five nations competing in eleven events.4 The success of the Games increased the awareness and fears of both the IOC and the IAAF. By 1923, Edstr0m recognized that international sport for women was growing in popularity; thus, he quietly began to lay the groundwork to have uncontested power over the expanding movement. In 1924, women officially became a part of the IAAF. However, due to a provision restricting women from the Olympic program, they were no closer to obtaining unrestricted access to the Olympic Games. In exchange for inclusion in the IAAF, the FSFI agreed to abide by all rules and regulations of the IAAF while maintaining control over women's sport as delegates of the IAAF. The agreement also allowed the FSFI to retain its interna- tional women's athletics competitions; however, the word "Olympic" had to be omitted from the title of the championship. Most significantly, the report included a recommendation to petition the IOC to include a full athletics program for women at the Amsterdam Games in 1928. Edstr0m's comments regarding the proposal blatantly demonstrated his conflicting feelings about women's participation in athletics. After the report was read, he asked the Congress to vote on whether women would have access to the Games, claiming that the question to study was whether women should be admitted to compete in athletics in the Olympic Games.5 The dialogue is interesting since the IAAF had already decided to change its charter to include jurisdiction over both men and women; yet, when presented with the real possibility of women competing in athletics at the international level, the rationale for this control was re- examined. The result of the vote regarding women's inclusion was 12 to 5 in favour of women's participation.6 By including events for women, the IAAF pacified the FSFI, while concurrently controlling the specific athletic events to which women had access. In exchange for a limited program, the FSFI was forced to forfeit its control over women's athletics to the IAAF.7 On rec- ommendation of the IAAF, the IOC opted to include an experimental program for women in the 1928 Games.8 The controversy surrounding females in the traditionally masculine sport of track and field did not end. The British contingent of female athletes was so disgusted by the IAAF and IOC's treatment of women and lack of a full athletics program that it boy- cotted the 1928 Games.9 The 800m race for women also gave male leaders the ammunition they needed to justify their opposition against women's inclusion in the athletics program. Women competing in the 800m race crossed the finish line in a state of exhaus- tion, an inappropriate physical state for women in the opinion of most male sport leaders. Despite the 800m outcome women's ath- letics events at the Amsterdam Games attracted 101 female competitors from 18 countries.10 New world records were set in all five women's athletic events.11 The IOC, drawing on negative reactions to the women's 800m race, threatened to remove women's ath- letics from the 1932 Games. At the 9th IAAF Congress in Holland in 1928, the members voted to retain a limited number of provisional women's athletics events on the program for the 1932 Games in Los Angeles. The Congress decided that six events would be included;12 however, after much debate the 800m was excluded from the list of events, not to be seen again in an Olympic program until 1960. In 1931, the IOC Congress accepted women's participation in athletics by a vote of 16-3.13 Through the negotiations between the IAAF and the IOC it becomes obvious that the expansion of athletics and all sports for women at the international level ultimately was deter- mined and shaped by the "goodwill" and interests of men. Edstr0m was instrumental in bringing women's issues to the agenda of international sporting bodies. His political persona, as an ambitious, meticulous organizer, and successful negotiator, allowed him to use his stature as president of the IAAF and member of the IOC to manipulate the proceedings regarding women's participation in athletics.
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