The Waves: The Olympics Are Still Sexist. Can We Enjoy Them Anyway?

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4.6 • 6K Ratings

🗓️ 31 July 2021

⏱️ 39 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

On this week’s episode of The Waves, it’s all about the Olympics. Amira Rose Davis, assistant professor of history and African American studies at Penn State University and co-host of the feminist sports podcast Burn it All Down, is joined by Slate’s gymnastics reporter Rebecca Schuman. The pair start with a discussion of the racial and gender inequalities that have permeated the Games, past and present. Then they get into whether it’s time for us all, like Simone Biles, to “nope” out of this complicated tradition. Davis also talks about a recent piece she did for Slate, in which she interviewed several Black women Olympians about their experiences in the Games. Recommendations: Amira: Rooting for Guan Chenchen on the beam. She also recommends the podcast Blind Landing, about a disastrous equipment error that had a massive impact on the gymnastics competition in the 2000 Sydney Olympics. Rebecca: Watching Anna Cockrell in the 400-meter hurdles and Idalys Ortiz in judo. She also loves Ted Lasso. Podcast production by Cheyna Roth with editorial oversight by Susan Matthews and June Thomas. Send your comments and recommendations on what to cover to [email protected]. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	This is the waves. This is the waves. This is the waves. This is the waves.
0:12.8	Welcome to the waves. Slates podcast about gender, feminism, and swim caps.
0:18.8	Every episode you get a new pair of women to talk about the things we can't get off our minds.
0:23.7	And today you got me, Amira Rose Davis, a professor at Penn State and co-host
0:28.4	of the Feminist Sports Podcast, Burn It All Down. And me, Rebecca Schumann, a gymnastics writer for
0:34.0	Slate. So the Olympics are finally here. After a year of postponement, in despite lingering
0:39.6	COVID concerns, they are off and running, or swimming, or jumping, or whatever. The IOC is very
0:47.9	proud to announce that this is the most gendered balance games ever. And so far, the women of the
0:53.5	Olympics have certainly been showstoppers from traditional powerhouse events like swimming,
0:57.8	to new competitions like skateboarding, where teenage girls swept the medal stand. The collective
1:03.3	age, I think, was 42. The Olympic women are not just showing up, however. They are speaking out,
1:09.2	because the so-called gendered balance games are still teetering with inequities.
1:14.4	From the fight by nursing mothers to bring their children to Tokyo, to swim cap bands, or handball
1:19.5	uniforms. So what's the real story about gender at the Olympic Games? As a historian who
1:25.2	researches women athletes in the Olympics, I've been asking myself that question for years.
1:29.7	But one of the reasons I'm so interested in talking about this is because I'm also very
1:33.9	conflicted and ambivalent about the Olympics themselves. And I love to work through those
1:38.3	complexities and contradictions. I like mess. I'm still sobbing at fencing at three in the morning.
1:44.3	But I'm always thinking about how to square that with systemic racism and sexism that seems
1:49.1	seemingly as indistinguishable as the Olympic flame itself. I recently chatted with some of the
1:55.4	Black women on T-MUSA about these contradictions and messy muddled pandemic games. You can check
2:01.2	that out over on slate right now. But I'm interested in now having this conversation with you, Rebecca,
	...

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