‘Jumping like a girl’: discursive silences, exclusionary practices and the controversy over women's ski jumping

Abstract

This paper considers the recent International Olympic Committee (IOC) decision to deny women the opportunity to compete in ski jumping at the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver, Canada. Drawing on a feminist Foucauldian framework, we suggest that the Olympics is a discourse that constructs excellence and fairness as ‘within the true’, with the IOC protesting that this recent decision is not about gender, but about the upholding of Olympic ideals. We interrogate three conspicuous absences in this discourse, each of which troubles the IOC's claim that this decision is not evidence of gender discrimination. In particular, we contextualize this decision within the risk discourses upon which the IOC has historically drawn on denying women's participation in particular Olympic events, arguing that the discursive silence around the issue of risk points to ‘old wine in new bottles’ as the IOC dresses up the same paternalistic practices in new garb. We conclude with a consideration of these discursive structures as more than simply oppressive of women. Instead, they may also be understood as indicative of the ‘problem’ posed by women, especially those who threaten the gender binary that pervades many sporting structures. Finally, these structures signal opportunities for resistance and subversion as women act to shed light on the discursive silences upon which structures of domination rest.

Acknowledgements

A portion of this essay was presented at the 9th International Symposium for Olympic Research, Beijing, China, in August 2008. Thanks to those attending this session for their helpful observations and suggestions. Our thanks as well to Mary Louise Adams, Dayna Daniels, Michelle Helstein, Claudia Malacrida and the Sport in Society reviewers for their insightful comments throughout the development of this essay. We would also like to acknowledge the Revelstoke Museum and Archives for their assistance with this project.

Notes

¹ See Pound, ‘The Future of the Olympic Movement’.

² See Pound, ‘The Future of the Olympic Movement’, 1.

³ See Pound, ‘The Future of the Olympic Movement’, 2.

⁴ See most recently, Smith and Wrynn, Women in the 2000.

⁵ See most recently, Smith and Wrynn, Women in the 2000, 10.

⁶ See most recently, Smith and Wrynn, Women in the 2000 See also Adams, ‘Body Check’.

⁷ At the 1920 Games 20,000 spectators attended the one-day competition, with athletes from five nations competing in 11 events. See Leigh and Bonin, ‘The Pioneering Role’, 77. See also Kidd, The Struggle for Canadian Sport, 126. These Games were later renamed the Women's World Games.

⁸ See Birrell and Theberge, ‘Feminist Resistence, 361–2.

⁹ Hargreaves, ‘Women and the Olympic Phenomenon’, 53.

¹⁰ See Williams, Marxism and Literature.

¹¹ Jim Morris, ‘Canadian Olympic Body to Join Ottawa for Discussions with Athletes’. The Globe and Mail (Toronto), January 18, 2008, A3.

¹² Damian Inwood, ‘IOC Rethinking: Premier; Women's Ski-jumping May Make Debut, After All’. The Province (Vancouver), January 16, 2008, A10.

¹³ Jeff Lee, ‘IOC Won't Allow Women's Ski Jumping at 2010 Games Despite Outcry’. The Calgary Herald, January 10, 2008, 1. According to 2003 and 2008 IOC documents, the following technical criteria have to be met for the inclusion of women's events in the Winter Olympic programme: the sport must be widely practiced in at least 35 countries and on three continents; be admitted to the programme three years before the Olympic Games; have a recognized international standing both numerically and geographically, and have been included at least twice in world or continental championships. See International Olympic Committee, ‘Factsheet’; Olympic Charter, 81. Interestingly, these specifics on the admission of sports, disciplines, and events are not included in the 2007 Charter.

¹⁴ Stephanie Levitz, ‘Women Ski Jumpers Explain Why They're Fighting VANOC’. Globe and Mail (Toronto), May 23, 2008, A8. The statement of claim can be found at http://www.skijumpingcentral.com/docs/lawsuitstatement05212008.pdf.

¹⁵ See Wamsley and Pfister, ‘Olympic Men and Women’, 103–26.

¹⁶ Hall, Representation, 44.

¹⁷ Hall, Representation, 44

¹⁸ Hall, Representation, 44, 44, emphasis in original.

¹⁹ Helstein, ‘That's Who I Want to Be’, 278.

²⁰ Foucault, The Archaeology of Knowledge, 224.

²¹ Helstein, ‘That's Who I Want to Be’, 278.

²² Foucault, Power/Knowledge, 93.

²³ Foucault, History of Sexuality.

²⁴ Mills, Discourse.

²⁵ We use the term ‘Olympism’ here with caution. The IOC promotes the idea of ‘olympism’ as the guiding philosophy of the Modern Olympic Movement and as a philosophy of life that promotes a balancing of body, will and mind. (See International Olympic Committee, Olympic Charter, July 2007, 11; http://multimedia.olympic.org/pdf/en_report_122.pdf). Olympic critics however, suggest that the ‘inherent vacuity’ in this term renders it almost meaningless and open to interpretation. Wamsley argues that the term is a ‘metaphoric empty flask to be filled by the next political, economic, educational opportunist’. See Wamsley, ‘Laying Olympism to Rest’, 231. We use the term here to indicate that it has become a central part of the Olympic Movement discourse.

²⁶ International Olympic Committee, Olympic Charter, 2007, 14.

²⁷ International Olympic Committee, Olympic Charter, 2007, 14, 15.

²⁸ ‘Women Not Ready to Jump: IOC Boss’. The Calgary Herald, February 29, 2008, D6.

²⁹ ‘Olympics Not Unfair to Women, says IOC President’. Kamloops Daily News, February 29, 2008 A8.

³⁰ Foucault, The History of Sexuality, 27.

³¹ Hall, Representation, 44.

³² Mills, Discourse.

³³ Ward and Winstanley, ‘The Absent Presence’, 1262.

³⁴ See, for example, Forsyth, ‘Teepees and Tomahawks’, 71–6; Weaving, ‘Like Beauty, Exploitation’, 209–16.

³⁵ Canadian Olympic Team Handbook, Turin 2006, http://www.olympic.ca/EN/media/2006_handbook/skijumping/intro.shtml.

³⁶ Interview with Isabel Patricia Coursier, by Christina Mead and Gertrude Leslie, February 22, 1977. Transcripts at Revelstoke Museum and Archives, Revelstoke, British Columbia.

³⁷ Interview with Isabel Patricia Coursier, by Christina Mead and Gertrude Leslie, February 22, 1977. Transcripts at Revelstoke Museum and Archives, Revelstoke, British Columbia

³⁸ Interview with Isabel Patricia Coursier, by Christina Mead and Gertrude Leslie, February 22, 1977. Transcripts at Revelstoke Museum and Archives, Revelstoke, British Columbia

³⁹ Porter, ‘Honour’, 66.

⁴⁰ Ski joring was a pony ski race popular in Canada in the 1920s and is still a popular sport in North America, Scandinavian and European countries, where the entrant on skis drives a pony at maximum speed. See www.nasja.com and Meszoly, ‘Skijoring’, 71 for more information.

⁴¹ Porter, ‘Honour’, 66.

⁴² Patrick Brethour, ‘Female Ski Jumpers Strike Deal with Ottawa: Next up is the IOC’. The Globe and Mail (Toronto), January 9, 2008, A1.

⁴³ ‘IOC Defends Exclusion of Women's Ski Jumping’. The Canadian Press, January 9, 2008. http://www.cbc.ca/sports/amateur/story/2008/01/09/ioc-ski-jumping.html.

⁴⁴ Interview with Isabel Patricia Coursier.

⁴⁵ von der Lippe, ‘Ski Jumping’.

⁴⁶ These records are considered ‘unofficial’ as they were not sanctioned by an international federation. Women's ski jumping was sanctioned by the International Ski Federation in 2006.

⁴⁷ See ‘Alf Engen Takes Winsted Ski Jump’. The New York Times, January 15, 1934, 19; ‘Oimoen, With Leaps of 164 and 174 Feet, Wins Norge Ski Club Meet for 7th Time’. The New York Times, January 16, 1933, 18; ‘Miss Kolstad Here Tonight for Ski Meet’. Chicago Daily Tribune, January 12, 1933, 21; ‘Miss Kolstad Added to Ski Tourney Card’. Chicago Daily Tribune, January 14, 1934, A2; ‘Twin Ski Leap on Norge Card’. Chicago Daily Tribune, January 18, 1935, 26; Paul W. Kearney, ‘Keep Your Eye on Safety’. Los Angeles Times, January 2, 1938, 10–11; ‘Ski Riders Perform at New Boston’. Hartford Courant (Boston), February 2, 1936, C1; ‘Eight Ski Stars Arrive’. The New York Times, November 26, 1937, 34.

⁴⁸ See ‘Indoor Snowfall Prepares Garden for Winter Sports Show Opening Tonight’. The New York Times, December 7, 1937, 34.

⁴⁹ See for example, ‘Ski Jumping and Racing will Feature Three-Day Carnival at Polo Grounds’. The New York Times, February 14, 1937, 78.

⁵⁰ See http://www.skisprungschanzen.com/can/can_whistler.htm.

⁵¹ See http://www.skijumpingcentral.com/docs/lawsuitstatement05212008.pdf.

⁵² Kane, ‘Resistance/transformation’, 191–218.

⁵³ International Olympic Committee, Olympic Charter, 2007, 86–7.

⁵⁴ Pound, ‘The Future of the Olympic Movement’, 3.

⁵⁵ Jeff Lee, ‘Women's Ski-jump Team Presses IOC for Change; Female Jumpers want to be Allowed to Participate in 2010 Winter Olympics’. The Vancouver Sun, January 5, 2008, B5. A press report from the FIS in November 2006 suggests that these numbers are perhaps higher (men and women from 31 nations). However, even at 31 nations, this does not meet the technical requirements of the IOC which requires participation in 35 countries. In addition, the first World Cup competition for Ski Cross was in 2005 suggesting that two world championships had not taken place prior to the decision to include the event as per IOC requirements. See ‘FIS Media Info: Ski Cross accepted into the Olympics’. Fédération Internationale de Ski, 29 November 2006. http://www.fis-ski.com/uk/news/pressreleases/pressreleases2006/ski-cross.html.

⁵⁶ See Jonathan Woodward, ‘Female Ski Jumpers Set to Confront IOC’. The Globe and Mail, December 20, 2006.

⁵⁷ Rod Mickleburgh, ‘IOC Chief Touts China's Progress in B.C. Visit’. Kamloops Daily News, February 29, 2008, A8.

⁵⁸ See ‘Canada's Women Ski Jumpers To Get Their Day in Court’. The Canadian Press, November 18, 2008. Women's bobsled and skeleton were introduced by the Fédération Internationale de Bobsleigh et de Togogganing (FIBT) in the 2000 and 2004 World Championships respectively after the decision was made to debut the two sports in the 2002 Olympic programme despite the official IOC inclusion requirement that a new winter sport event must have been included in at least two world championship events. See www.fibt.com.

⁵⁹ Lupton, Risk.

⁶⁰ Romero, ‘Racial Profiling’, 448–73.

⁶¹ Yanay, ‘The Big Brother Function’, 44–58.

⁶² Markula and Pringle, Foucault.

⁶³ Deutschmann, Deviance and Social Control. As Deutschmann notes, the concept of a fair trial, as we now understand it, was not in evidence during the witch craze. Routinely, confessions were obtained through questionable means, and evidence was fabricated or simply ridiculous. This concept is wonderfully satirized in a scene from the film Monty Python and the Holy Grail – see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v = zrzMhU_4m-g.

⁶⁴ Lupton, ‘Risk and the Ontology’, 82.

⁶⁵ Lupton, ‘Risk and the Ontology’, 82, 62.

⁶⁶ Lupton, ‘Risk and the Ontology’, 82

⁶⁷ Lupton, Risk, 88–90.

⁶⁸ See Lenskyj, Out of Bounds, 18. Class and ethnicity were also implicated in these discourses. The reproductive capacities and moral virtues of Anglo-Saxon, middle-class women were constructed in medical discourse as more valuable than those of their working-class immigrant counterparts.

⁶⁹ See Lenskyj, Out of Bounds, 25.

⁷⁰ Eventually, certain women in the medical profession were able to shift the discourse somewhat, although even they were seen by many male doctors as untrustworthy when it came to matters concerning women's exercise and reproductive health. See See Lenskyj, Out of Boundsibid. and Vertinsky, The Eternally Wounded Woman. Even women who challenged the ‘malestream’ view, though, tended to further entrench the importance of women cultivating their capacities to bear and raise children.

⁷¹ As Lenskyj points out, though, the medical discourse simultaneously cast doubt upon the claims of women that they had suffered uterine injuries as a result of heavy labour: ‘The old class double standard was creating a new problem: how to convince women that heavy work was safe, while heavy play was dangerous.’ See Lenskyj, Out of Bounds, 29.

⁷² These rules and guidelines, of course, then become part of the discourse.

⁷³ Lenskyj, Out of Bounds, 29.

⁷⁴ Interview with Isabel Patricia Coursier.

⁷⁵ Porter, ‘Honour’, 66.

⁷⁶ Porter, ‘Honour’, 66

⁷⁷ See Vertinsky, The Eternally Wounded Woman. A report issued at an IOC Pedagogic conference in 1925, for example, concluded that ‘if those sports and games which are suitable for men be modified and reduced so that they cannot in any way injure the woman, and if we can create organizations which will enforce these modified regulations stringently, we will have gone a long way towards achieving our objects’ (cited in Hargreaves, Sport Females, 213). As Hargreaves points out, this discourse, based on a conflation of the biological and the social, was seen as authoritative, and provided the basis upon which the IOC and other bodies could justify limiting women's participation in track and field in the years that followed.

⁷⁸ For example, Stamata Revithi is said to have run alongside the official (i.e. male) competitors in the first running of the marathon (26.2 miles) in the modern Olympic era, in 1896. See Jutel, ‘“Thou Dost Run as in Flotation”’, 17–36.

⁷⁹ Wamsley and Pfister, ‘Olympic Men and Women’, 113.

⁸⁰ Wamsley and Pfister, ‘Olympic Men and Women’, 113

⁸¹ Wamsley and Pfister, ‘Olympic Men and Women’, 113

⁸² Wamsley and Pfister, ‘Olympic Men and Women’, 113

⁸³ For more on the risk discourses and censure of women's hockey see Adams, ‘Organizing Hockey for Women’.

⁸⁴ See for example, ‘Random Notes on Current Sports’. The Toronto Daily Star, December 18, 1922, 24.

⁸⁵ See for example, A. Gibb, ‘Sticks and Fists Fly Freely as Girl Hockeyists Battle’, The Toronto Daily Star, March 26, 1935, 12; ‘Girls Wanted Another Fight But Refferees Stopped Them’, The Toronto Daily Star, March 28, 1935, 14; ‘Hockey Amazons in Fistic Display’, The Toronto Daily Star, February 20, 1936, 16; ‘Girls Draw Major for Fistic Display’, The Toronto Daily Star, March 4, 1937, 14.

⁸⁶ See Gibb, ‘Sticks and Fists Fly Freely As Girl Hockeyists Battle’, 12.

⁸⁷ Hargreaves, Sporting Females, 209.

⁸⁸ See Wamsley and Adams, ‘Stepping in with Fists’.

⁸⁹ Palmer, ‘Death, Danger’, 66.

⁹⁰ Cited in Gilchrist, ‘‘Motherhood, Ambition and Risk’, 396.

⁹¹ Cited in Gilchrist, ‘‘Motherhood, Ambition and Risk’, 395.

⁹² Donnelly, ‘Sport and Risk Culture’.

⁹³ Palmer, ‘Death, Danger’, 55–69.

⁹⁴ See http://www.wsjusa.com/abc.htm. It should be noted that elsewhere, Kasper claims that his comments were taken out of context. See http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/22/sports/othersports/22ski.html.

⁹⁵ In the case of the FIS Continental Cup, see http://www.fis-ski.com/data/document/cocj-men-0910-e.pdf and http://www.fis-ski.com/data/document/cocj-ladies-0910-e.pdf.

⁹⁶ See http://www.olympic.org/uk/organisation/missions/women/activities/women_uk.asp.

⁹⁷ It is perhaps ironic that such a gendered term is used to describe a profoundly gendered decision.

⁹⁸ ‘Women's Ski Jump Proponents Won't Give Up the Olympic Fight’. Prince George Citizen, February 25, 2008, 8.

⁹⁹ Laura Robinson, ‘Hypocrisy about Women's Sport is one Slippery Slope’. Globe and Mail, June 4, 2008, A17.

¹⁰⁰ Von der Lippe, ‘Female Flying Bodies’, 321–43.

¹⁰¹ See http://www.skijumpingcentral.com/docs/lawsuitstatement05212008.pdf.

¹⁰² Mills, Discourse, 88–92.

¹⁰³ Messner, ‘Sports and Male Domination’.

¹⁰⁴ Smith and Wrynn, Women in the 2000, 2.

¹⁰⁵ International Olympic Committee, Olympic Charter, 2007, 14.