At the Paris Games in 2024, there will be as many men as women for the first time in 128 years. However, five Olympic medalists return for Franceinfo: sport on the gap that remains with men’s sport.
For the first time since 1896, the date of the first Olympic Games of the modern era, the Paris Olympic Games in 2024 will bring together as many female as male athletes. Wink of eye in history, it was already in the city of light, in 1900, that women were able to take part in the Games for the first time. They were then 22 (out of 997 participants). 124 years later, they will be 5,250 out of 10,500 athletes. However, this step forward, as historic as it is late, hides a less rosy reality.
“A Deception” even for sports sociologist Catherine Louveau, professor emeritus at the University of Paris Sud, who sees a confusion between parity and equality. “It is not only an error in relation to the facts observed, but it is above all an abuse of language”she is offended. “Our voice is not always considered as that of menagrees with Allison Pineau, voted best handball player in the world in 2009. We sometimes have this feeling of being a little less listened to.
A recognition far from being impartial
The lack of consideration and recognition suffered by high-level sportswomen is felt within the institutions themselves. “It has already happened that a man was appointed national coach of a French women’s team and that he was completely disgusted because he had applied to coach the men’s teams.laments Sarah Daninthe, bronze medalist in fencing at Athens in 2004. For having exchanged with several girls, it happens in a lot of sports.
/2023/04/17/643d653fec9ea_000-par2005101068609.jpg)
Sarah Ourahmoune, a boxing pioneer in France, fought throughout her career for equality. “During my first fight in 1999, people were shocked to see women in a ring, they were shouting at us, they were insulting us. We weren’t wanted”remembers the Olympic silver medalist in Tokyo in 2016. So parity at the 2024 Olympics is the symbol of “path” traveled. But no question of getting carried away: “there is more to go” warns the most titled French boxer in history.
Tenfold pressure for results
She’s right to keep her guard high. Gender parity in 2024 gives no guarantee to women engaged in disciplines threatened with losing their Olympic status, such as boxing, still uncertain at the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics. “We are in danger, she warns. Today, we are Olympic, we have this visibility and this protection that the Games bring us. If tomorrow we take away this status, I think it will be very complicated for all those who do boxing, and even more so for women. When there are fewer resources, they are the ones who suffer the most.”
/2023/04/18/643e853f68472_000-9kt9l8.jpg)
To have the chance to remain Olympic implies to shine, as the handballers feel. “Since 2016, we have given the public a bad habitlaughs Allison Pineau, silver medalist in Rio in 2016 and gold in Tokyo in 2020, world champion in 2017 and three times vice-world champion. Even having won a lot in recent years, we are still far from what we deserve. We know that if we don’t succeed, we shoot ourselves a bit in the foot, we handicap ourselves for the future. It’s a reality: there’s going to be a lot of pressure.”
Media coverage is progressing slowly
To ensure a decent place for high-level sportswomen, their visibility in the media is essential. In four years, the proportion of women’s sports broadcast on all channels French TV shows went from 3.6% in 2018 to 4.8% in 2021, according to a study of the Audiovisual and Digital Communication Regulatory Authority (Arcom), unveiled on January 26, 2023. “Those numbers are horrifying though.exasperated the fencer Sarah Daninthe. It is the responsibility of the Ministry of Sports to look into the matter. We need to bring about change in society.”
If the Arcom study indicates that the hourly volume of the broadcast of women’s sport has increased by 50% since 2018, its media coverage is still very low. “We hide behind the excuse that no one is interested, emphasizes Mélina Robert-Michon, Olympic silver medalist in the discus throw in Rio in 2016. More if you don’t show them, they won’t be interested, that’s for sure. Talking is all well and good, but nothing beats the power of images.”
The taboo of sexualization
And this lack of visibility can be all the more accentuated when sports do not correspond to the standard standards of beauty and femininity of today’s society. “They have to be sporty and feminineexplains sociologist Catherine Louveau. In athletics, I notice that some wear make-up, put on nail polish, wear jewellery… I’ve even seen some girls apologize for being in tracksuits on the field, explaining that they wear skirts outside. As if they had to justify themselves to their sponsors!”
Read also: When high-level sportswomen are subject to the diktat of physical beauty, a criterion of visibility and therefore of performance
A sexualization very badly experienced by the main interested parties. “Even if we don’t talk about it between athletes, we are all quite lucid about the situationacknowledges Allison Pineau. Through advertisements that we see on television or on social networks, we realize that the attention of the spectator is greater as soon as a woman is a little more discovered or sexy. It’s a reality, we’re not blind to it.”
The contrast of disabled athletes
On the other hand, parity will not yet concern the Paralympic Games in Paris. The President of the French Paralympic and Sports Committee, Marie-Amélie Le Fur, is sorry: “It’s something that we talked about and of which we are terribly aware. When we look at the statistics of our France team, we only have a quarter of the French delegation which is made up of women or young girls. let that change.”
According to the triple Paralympic gold medalist, social norms remain one of the main obstacles to the development of disabled sport. “Being disabled means not meeting the social expectation of a perfect body, she laments. We must act against these stereotypes which hinder access to sport for people with disabilities, especially women.
/2022/07/08/phpkD0z6d.jpg)
On the other hand, Marie-Amélie Le Fur admits never having had “the impression of being less known or recognized than (ses) male counterparts. You suffer from a glaring lack of media coverage in the Paralympic field, but it is not reinforced when you are a woman.” Parity without equality at the Olympic Games, equality without parity at the Paralympic Games, the paradox is total.
