Breaking Barriers: A History of US Women in the Paralympics

Breaking Barriers: A History of US Womenin the Paralympics
Robin KIETLINSKI（LaGuardia Community College of the City University of New York）

Introduction
Women have played an integral role in the success of the US Paralympic team,from the moment they first took part in Tokyo in 1964 up to and especially in thepresent day. Indeed, the success of American women athletes in the Paralympics has
been a key component to the overall American dominance at the Paralympic Games
over the past half century. However, the important role women have played in the
Paralympic Games is often overlooked, due in large part to the paucity of both media
coverage and scholarship on this topic. By calling attention to this unfortunate
deficiency, this paper aims to help to begin leveling out the sharp discrepancies inscholarship between the Olympics and the Paralympics, as well as between male andfemale Paralympians. It will conclude with a consideration of possible methods to help
achieve greater equality not only in female representation on Team USA, but also in
the involvement of women with impairments in sports more broadly.

Entry of US Women into the Paralympic Games
Although 45 women took part in the first official Paralympic Games in Rome in1960, none of them were from the United States.１ The underlying reasons for this are
not entirely clear. The all-male delegation of 24 American athletes earned 25 medals,
placing them fifth overall in the medal ranking. The United States is one of only fivenations to have competed at every Summer and Winter Paralympic Games, though
only male athletes competed prior to 1964. US women have taken part in every event
since the Tokyo 1964 Paralympics. At those Games, 21 American women participated,
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helping the United States bring home 123 medals and earn a first-place finish in the
medal rankings.２
Rosalie Hixson, a 19-year-old track and field and swimming athlete, garnered eight
medals at the 1964 Paralympics, six of them gold.３ This made her one of the topperforming athletes of the entire event, male or female. She won first place in the
javelin, discus, club throw, shot put, and freestyle and backstroke swimming events.
She took silver medals in breaststroke and precision javelin events.４ Ms. Hixson had
a long career, winning gold medals at the 1968 and 1972 Paralympic Games as well.
While there is little literature available on Ms. Hixson, a few newspaper articles
mention her accomplishments（including some obituaries upon her death in 2006）.
She worked as a secretary in Pennsylvania, and had been a strong athlete（a jumper）
on her high school track and field team before she contracted polio in 1959. In 1967
Rosalie Hixson told the New York Times, “Sports was my life before I got polio. Now
it’s my life given back to me.”５
Ms. Hixon’s story illuminates several important trends in the history of Paralympic
sports for women in the United States. Firstly, the entry of women into the
Paralympic sporting arena began differently than it did for men. Adaptive sports in
the United States developed markedly in the 1960s, spurred by the need to help
rehabilitate large numbers of American veterans from WWII, the Korean War, andthe Vietnam War. But women in the US military were not eligible to serve in combat
positions until very recently. Over 90% of women deployed in the Vietnam War
served as nurses, and women were not admitted to the major service academies（West Point and the US Naval, Coast Guard, and Air Force Academies）until 1976.６
Therefore, early female Paralympic athletes were, like Ms. Hixson, individuals whose
impairments resulted from disease, injury, or who were born with congenitalconditions such as blindness or missing limbs.
Secondly, Rosalie Hixson shows the relative strength of American sportswomen in
the Paralympics as compared to their counterparts from other countries. While ofcourse not all of the 21 American women who took part in the 1964 Paralympic
Games were as successful as Ms. Hixson, American women medaled in almost every
event（the only event in 1964 in which American women did not medal was table
tennis. They medaled in archery, dartchery, swimming, and wheelchair fencing women did not compete in snooker, wheelchair basketball, or weightlifting in 1964）.７2

Breaking Barriers: A History of US Women in the Paralympics

Moreover, whereas the United States had taken fifth place in the 1960 Paralympic
Games in Rome, with only male athletes competing, they took first place in 1964 withthe help of the strong female contingent. The American women continued to help
buoy the US team to be among the top five in the medal rankings in every
subsequent Paralympic Games, indeed winning more medals than the American men
on several occasions in spite of never comprising more than half of the team. In theoverall gold medal tally for American Paralympians, the two winningest athletes are
women – the athlete with the most gold medals in the Summer Games is swimmer
Trischa Zorn（32 gold medals）and for the Winter Games the American with themost gold medals is skier Sarah Will（12 gold medals）.

Under-recognized Superstars
Trischa Zorn is the most successful Paralympic or Olympic athlete, male or female
from any country. Ms. Zorn, who was born blind, took part in the Paralympics from1980 until 2004, and won a remarkable 32 gold, nine silver, and five bronze medals（for a total of 46 medals, more than twice that of any other US Paralympic athlete）.
By means of comparison, the winningest male Paralympian from the US is wheelchair
racer Bart Dodson, who earned a total of 20 Paralympic medals during his longcareer（1980-2000）, 13 of them gold.８ By any measure, Ms. Zorn is an outstanding
athlete, and yet information about her 24-year Paralympic career is surprisingly
scant. A search of the New York Times archives uncovered only three articles inwhich Ms. Zorn is mentioned. Trying to find information about her career online, one
finds conflicting and incomplete information（the official IPC database was used forthis paper, though this database is also incomplete at times）.９ One of the only sources
for detailed information about female Paralympians is the Team USA website, which
is operated by the US Committee and contains data on past, present, and future
Olympians and Paralympians from the United States. The site discusses the life storyof Ms. Zorn, who in addition to her athletic career has also served on the US Olympic
Committee’s Athletes’ Advisory Council, and has advocated for US military veteransto get involved in Paralympic sports and other activities.10 Ms. Zorn ended her
Paralympic career at the age of 40, when she won a bronze medal and served as the
US flag bearer in the Closing Ceremony of the Athens 2004 Paralympic Games.
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The general scarcity of information, records, and scholarship on American womenin the Paralympics makes crafting a coherent history of their participation a daunting
task. Rosalie Hixson’s experience also exemplifies the woeful lack of recognition that
Paralympic sportswomen have received in the United States, despite theirconspicuously successful and pioneering achievements. Dr. Ian Brittain, author of thedefinitive book on the Paralympics（The Paralympic Games Explained, New York:
Routledge, 2010）, confirmed that no authoritative history of US women’s involvementin the Paralympics has yet been compiled. Dr. Brittain himself has been working on acomplete American Paralympic history （focusing on both men and women）, andobserved that compiling accurate information invariably presents major challenges.
Dr. Brittain maintains one of the largest historical collections in the world pertaining
to the early Paralympic and Stoke Mandeville Games as a result of extensive travel
and interviews during his postdoctoral research, and much of his research is basedon this personal archive.11

Positive Change
Despite the scarcity of reliable documentation and materials, it is clear that the
number of American women taking part in the Paralympics has steadily grown overthe past half century. The number of events open to women has continued to growas well. The IPC and the US Paralympic Committee have made efforts to increase
opportunities for women to take part at all levels. For example, in line with similar
efforts made by the IOC, the IPC adopted policies in 2003 which established the goalof having 30% of their decision-making bodies be comprised of women by 2009.
According to a 2013 research report by the University of Michigan’s SHARP Center
for Women and Girls, the IPC had mixed results in meeting this quota. While overhalf of the management/director-level positions were indeed filled by women, theCEO and COO were male in 2013（and still are five years later）, as are the president
and vice-president of the IPC. Women comprised about 85% of non-management staff,
meaning women in the IPC are over-represented in lower-level staff positions, andunder-represented at the highest levels of management and governance.12
While the vast majority of National Paralympic Committees（NPCs）are led bymen（89% according to the 2013 SHARP Center study）,13 the United States appears
4Breaking Barriers: A History of US Women in the Paralympics

to be among the few nations with significant female representation in leadership
positions. The United States does not have a sports ministry, so the US Olympic andParalympic Committees serve as the governing bodies and the fundraisers to support
elite sport in the US. The USOC is a federally-chartered nonprofit corporation thatoversees all Olympic and Paralympic sport in the US, and is responsible forgenerating its own resources（it receives no money from the government aside fromsome funds for Paralympic military veteran programs）.14 The current CEO of the US
Olympic Committee is a woman（Sarah Hirshland）, as is the Chief Financial Officer（Morane Kerek）.15 The US Paralympic Advisory Committee, which was created toadvise and enhance Paralympic programming and resources, is currently chaired bya man but 40% of its active members are women.16 In spite of the progress made inthese management structures within the USOC and USPC, many structural obstacles
remain for both female athletes and impaired athletes （and especially for female
athletes with impairments）. Two of the largest ongoing structural barriers toparticipation are the lack of options and the lack of visibility for impaired
sportswomen in the United States. While these barriers have been persistent and aretied up in larger societal issues, by examining them we can begin to see new roads
forward towards greater inclusion and acceptance of these athletes.

Ongoing Structural Barriers
Lack of programs, coaches, and role models
One of the key challenges for women taking part in adaptive sports in the US isthat they have very few options in terms of programs and coaches, and havehistorically had few role models to look up to. All too often, young women are still not
encouraged to play sports to the same extent that their male peers are, and thisdiscrepancy especially affects young women with impairments. Scholars haveidentified several critical issues faced by young women attempting to get involved in
sports, such as the lack of information and awareness of any existing programs. Given
the geographic expansiveness of the United States, it is often unfeasible for young
women, even those who show great athletic promise, to travel regularly to a facility
or a team that caters to those with impairments. Relatedly, few coaches are
sufficiently qualified to coach impaired athletes in general, and those who are qualified
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often devote most of their time and effort to training male athletes. A lack of rolemodels who can offer young impaired women accurate and realistic information onwhat is attainable is a problem compounded by the overall lack of media coverage of
the Paralympics and other adaptive sports.17 Few athletes have managed to negotiate
all these barriers to entry, yet one athlete has shown that with the right support,
resources, resolve, and talent, tremendous success is possible.
Tatyana McFadden is one of the best-known Paralympians in the US today, as wellas one of the most decorated with 17 Paralympic medals. Ms. McFadden is also thewinner of 22 major marathons, which typically receive more media coverage than the
Paralympics – as such, she has gained broader name recognition. She recently won
the prestigious 2018 Boston Marathon, the third consecutive year she has done so,and is a five-time winner of the New York City Marathon. Ms. McFadden was bornin Russia with a hole in her spine due to spina bifida, resulting in paralysis from thewaist down. She was adopted at age six by Deborah McFadden, who was thenCommissioner of Disabilities for the US Department of Health and Human Services.
In order to try to boost Tatyana’s frail strength, Deborah McFadden enrolled herdaughter in whatever sports programs were available: wheelchair basketball,swimming, and sled hockey.18
Tatyana excelled at track and field events. However, in high school she was told that
she could not race against able-bodied athletes on the track, because her wheelchaircreated a safety hazard and gave her an unfair advantage. She was permitted tocompete in separate wheelchair events, but that usually meant circling around an
empty track by herself, which she found both embarrassing and not competitive. In
2005, Tatyana and Deborah McFadden sued their local public-school system, and won
the right to race on the track against able-bodied athletes. This lawsuit laid thegroundwork for the eventual passage of the Maryland Fitness and Athletics Equity forStudents with Disabilities Act, which requires schools to give students with
impairments a fair and equitable opportunity to compete in interscholastic sports.
Tatyana continued to fight for equal access for impaired athletes, and in 2013 federal（i.
e., nation-wide）legislation was passed to enable students throughout the United Statesto have the opportunity to become involved in school sports.19 As impressive as her
Paralympic and marathon records are, the passage of this far-reaching legislation may
prove to be Tatyana McFadden’s most meaningful victory.
6Breaking Barriers: A History of US Women in the Paralympics

Lack of media coverage of the Paralympic GamesIn February 2018, the two most-watched events on American network televisionwere the Super Bowl（in early February）,and the Pyeongchang Winter Olympics（inlate February）. While millions of Americans watch the Super Bowl for the love of
football and their hometown team, many others watch it with a focus on the breaks
in-between the football action. Super Bowl commercial spots are highly coveted, very
expensive, and watched by millions of viewers. In 2018, several media outlets ranked
the number one Super Bowl commercial as an inspirational Toyota ad that focusedentirely on one female Paralympian, Lauren Woolstencroft.20 In the ad, titled “Good
Odds,” viewers see a newborn baby with missing limbs being lifted out of a hospitalbed, and a caption that reads, “Odds of winning a gold medal?” followed by “1 in
977,500,000.” This huge number then progressively decreases, as the baby becomes a
toddler walking on her knees, a frustrated child trying to ski and walk, and then an
increasingly confident young woman taking part in ever-more difficult athletic
endeavors. Backed by an evocative song with the lyrics, “if you knock me down, I’ll
get up again,” we see the young woman struggling through wipeouts and difficult
physical conditioning, and eventually speeding down an alpine skiing course. An
announcer says, “Up next, Lauren Woolstencroft,” and she zips down a course lined
by signs that read, “Paralympic Winter Games,” while the rapidly decreasing odds
finally stop at “1 in 1.” She triumphantly finishes the course, and her name andaccolades appear beneath her proud smile, “Lauren Woolstencroft: 8x Paralympic
Gold Medalist.”21 Toyota, a major Olympic and Paralympic partner, tells viewers to“Start your impossible,” and “When we’re free to move, anything is possible.”
As this memorable and widely-viewed commercial debuted during the firstcommercial break of the Super Bowl, just a few weeks before the Pyeongchang
Winter Olympics and Paralympics, it evoked a particular sense of inspiration, pride,and interest in this athlete and the struggles she has faced. However, Ms.
Woolstencroft’s nationality is never made apparent in the commercial, so many
American viewers would assume that she is an American. And since the Paralympic
Games are not broadcast on any major television networks, American viewers would
not have had the chance to see Lauren Woolstencroft in competition during theGames. If they had seen her, they would have known that she is in fact a Canadian
Paralympic athlete.
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This commercial, while an inspiring and effective marketing tool, highlights one of
the major structural barriers to the participation of American women in the
Paralympic Games – a lack of media coverage to the point where most Americans
would be unable to name even a single Paralympic athlete if asked. In the Toyota
commercial, the outstanding Canadian skier is presented as a “universal” impaired
individual. No major television network in the United States offers live coverage of
the Paralympic Games, while the Olympic Games receive extensive coverage on NBC,a major broadcast network. The IPC website, ParalympicSport. tv, receives its
highest number of viewers from the United States, since there is no other outlet
through which Americans can follow the action of the event.22 The lack of media
coverage of adaptive sports in the United States plays a major role in keeping thenumber of female Paralympians low.

Overcoming Structural Barriers
As the examples above show, there remain many structural barriers to theparticipation of women with impairments in sport at all levels, even in the wealthiest
country in the world. Beyond a lack of programs and role models, there is very
limited visibility due to the lack of media coverage of the Paralympics. These
structural barriers have the potential to create a discouraging cycle of nonparticipation, as athletes with impairments often have to go to great lengths toparticipate（and must have the resources to do so）, but often receive little recognition
when they are successful. However, in recent years we have seen the opposite trend
occur. While still participating in numbers that are less than their male counterparts,
female Paralympians have taken part in the Paralympic Games in greater and greaternumbers with every subsequent event, with tremendous success in events at boththe Summer and Winter Games. Through utilizing new online platforms, many
Paralympic athletes have built their own brands and careers, bringing greater
visibility to their sports and to the options available for athletes with impairments inthe process.
Female Paralympians in the US have circumvented the long-standing lack ofvisibility through an effective use of social media. While major television networks
such as NBC and ESPN have consistently declined to cover the Paralympic Games,
8Breaking Barriers: A History of US Women in the Paralympics

there are now many alternate ways to see and learn about Paralympic athletes.
Initially, many female Paralympians created blogs as their media outlets, but in recent
years there has been a trend towards other more interactive social media platforms.
Athletes such as Tatyana McFadden and Paralympic skier/cyclist/rower Oksana
Masters have thousands of followers on Twitter and Instagram. These athletes areable to regularly update their followers on their athletic endeavors, and can also do sothrough public speaking and other community engagements. It allows them tocultivate their own image, and to convey the message that their lives are full,
exciting, and productive. For example, rather than commercial sponsors who may
wish to focus on their missing limbs, visual impairment, or otherwise “different”
bodies, the athletes can crop their own images to show themselves in a more ordinary
light, such as partying with friends, enjoying a good meal, taking selfies withcelebrities, or relaxing at the beach. These platforms also offer the athletes
opportunities to directly engage with fans through live chats. While empirical studies
measuring the impact of social media on participation numbers in adaptive sports
have yet to be carried out, those Paralympians utilizing these new platforms haveundoubtedly helped raise awareness about the opportunities available for young
women who are living with impairments.
Through both social media platforms and traditional media and advertising, some
Paralympic athletes have had successful careers as public speakers and as
spokeswomen for products and services. For example, Sarah Reinersten, an amputee
runner who competed in the 1992 Paralympics in Barcelona, has had a subsequent
long career in track events, marathon, and triathlon. Still competing in 2018,
Reinersten now also works as spokesperson for Össur, a manufacturer of prosthetic
equipment, and as a motivational speaker. She offers presentations to large corporategroups about setting goals, facing fears, and overcoming setbacks.23 Reinersten has
also published a motivational memoir titled In a Single Bound: Losing My Leg,
Finding Myself, and Training for Life（New York: Lyons Press, 2010）. Two-timeParalympic medalist, snowboarder and double-amputee Amy Purdy also works as amotivational speaker and has authored a bestselling memoir, On My Own Two Feet:
From Losing my Legs to Learning the Dance of Life（New York: William Morrow
Paperbacks, 2015）.
Another athlete who has taken her career into her own hands is wheelchair
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basketball player, kayaker, and alpine skier Alana Jane Nichols, the first American
woman to win gold medals in both Summer and Winter Games. She is active on social
media, is a spokesperson for various organizations promoting adaptive sports andsporting opportunities for girls and women, and works as a motivational speaker. In
her recorded TED talk, “Becoming the CEO of Yourself.”24 Nichols recalls that when
she broke her back and became paralyzed at age 17 from a snowboarding accident,
she had no idea that she could still be an athlete, and there were no role models she
could look up to. She acknowledges her responsibility to show young women andgirls that they can achieve success no matter what obstacles they may face in life.
This powerful message resonates well beyond the community of young women with
impairments, but is of particular importance to them given the historic lack of rolemodels for them in the United States.

Looking Forward: US Paralympians in 2020
At the Rio de Janeiro Summer Paralympics in 2016, female Paralympians from theUnited States swept the podium three times, in two different sports. The track andfield trio of Tatyana McFadden, Chelsea McClammer and Amanda McGrory claimed
the top three spots in the T54 1,500 and 5,000-meter finals. In the debut ofparatriathlon, Allysa Seely, Hailey Danisewicz and Melissa Stockwell swept the
medals in the women’s PT2 classification. The most decorated US athletes（male orfemale）were Tatyana McFadden in track and field, and Jessica Long in swimming,
who won six medals each. American women comprised about 45 percent of the US
Paralympic Team in the 2016 Rio Games, the largest percentage to date. Although
they comprised less than half the team, they won more than half of the United States’
medals, including 24 gold, 24 silver and 21 bronze.
Women had fewer medal opportunities since there remain more events for men
than women at the Paralympics. Yet the trend is heading in the direction of more
equity across genders.25 According to event organizers, the 2020 Paralympic Games
will have 1,756 slots for female athletes, which will be the most female participation
ever.26 Women will compete in two new Paralympic sports, badminton andtaekwondo, though it remains to be seen if American women will qualify for either
sport. If past performance is any indication, American women are expected to have a
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Breaking Barriers: A History of US Women in the Paralympics

very strong showing at the Tokyo 2020 Paralympic Games, particularly in wheelchairbasketball, cycling, athletics, and swimming events.

Conclusion and Future Research
The IOC and the IPC have long histories of proactively influencing increased
participation in sports by marginalized groups, and nowhere has this been more
apparent than in their role promoting elite, competitive sports for people with
impairments. The number of women participating in the Paralympics has continued
to climb with every subsequent Games, and forthcoming changes to the events open
to women are expected to bring even greater parity between male and female
participants. Women have also started to play an increasingly large role in positionsof management and governance, with the United States well exceeding the 30% goallaid out by the IPC. However, while the numbers are heading in the right direction,
there are still major discrepancies between the visibility of Paralympic athletes andthat of their Olympic counterparts, despite the highly successful performances ofmany Paralympians. The media coverage is one factor responsible for this imbalance,
as television networks do not cover the Paralympics, nor do major news outlets
regularly run stories about athletes with impairments. Some resourceful Paralympians
have taken media coverage into their own hands by managing popular social media
platforms and promoting themselves on their own terms. The long-term impacts ofthese new forms of promotion and information-spreading have yet to be studied but
hold promise for bringing greater visibility.
In-depth studies on the Paralympic Games, on Paralympians, and on adaptive
sports remain extremely limited. Scholarship on women’s sports is also still an
emerging area of study, making research on women in the Paralympics a daunting
task for an Olympic historian accustomed to finding robust and accurate archives andother documentation that can be used in research. There are many directions that
future research could take, which could in turn help strengthen adaptive sports for
women in a more global context.
While the earliest women athletes entered adaptive sports exclusively throughcongenital conditions, injuries, or illnesses, American women who have served in thearmed forces are now increasingly entering the adaptive sports arena as well. As the11

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US remains militarily engaged abroad, there is still a strong link between theforerunner of the Paralympics（the Stoke Mandeville Games）and the future of the
US Paralympic team, in that it is still used to restore a sense of purpose to injured
war veterans. The Paralympic Military Program began in 2004, and actively promotes
Paralympic sporting opportunities to injured American military service members andveterans. The program runs camps and clinics across the United States, which
introduce Paralympic sports and local resources to military members. The USOC has
partnered with the US Department of Defense and the US Department of VeteranAffairs （both federal government bureaus） to receive funding to help connect
wounded service members with Paralympic sport. The program serves over 2000
athletes annually.27
In Pyeongchang, the American roster was comprised of 24.3 percent veterans,
whereas in 2012 the team was 22.5 percent veterans, and in 2010 only 10 percent
were military veterans.28 According to Rusty Schieber, the coach of the US
wheelchair curling team, the increasing proportion of veterans on the Paralympic
team is attributable in part to the fact that injured veterans are eligible to receive
various types of special financial support. As adaptive sports can be extremely
expensive, many potential Paralympians simply do not have the necessary financial
resources to participate in them. Coach Schieber notes that from the earliest stages of
involvement, veterans are eligible to receive subsidies from the US government that
offset the substantial costs of equipment, training, and travel that all competitive
athletes face. With an increasing portion of the US Paralympic team comprised ofthese subsidized veterans, and with an increasing proportion of veterans being
women, a closer examination of American female veterans in the Paralympics should
be conducted. Anecdotally we hear stories about adaptive sports helping to restore
purpose to veterans’ lives, but empirical studies that look specifically at women have
not yet been carried out.
More research should also be done on the social impacts of using female Paralympic
athletes in advertising campaigns. Do these campaigns reach beyond their intended
goals of selling products? Do they raise awareness about adaptive sports andpositively affect the number of young women participating? Do they foster social
acceptance of individuals with differences, or do such advertising campaigns set an
impossible standard for those individuals? One study, “Docile Bodies, Supercrips, and12

Breaking Barriers: A History of US Women in the Paralympics

the Plays of Prosthetics,” supports the latter view, taking an approach that appears
mainly theoretical.29 An empirical study on this topic would be of particularimportance in the United States, where the Paralympics are not broadcast on
network television – advertising campaigns may be the only point of reference formany when it comes to Paralympic women.
While much work remains to be done to raise awareness about past and present
issues affecting American women in the Paralympics, I hope that this paper will be
one of many building blocks towards a more robust literature on this subject.
References
１

IPC Historical Results Archive online.

２

Ibid.

３

Ibid.

４

Savitz, Harriet May. Wheelchair Champions: A History of Wheelchair Sports. New York:iUniverse, 2006, p. 63.

５

Radosta, John. “Spirits are high at Wheelchair Games: Contestants greeted by Campanella atOpening Event.” New York Times, June 17, 1967.

６

http://www.history.org/history/teaching/enewsletter/volume7/images/nov/women_
military_timeline.pdf.

７

IPC Historical Results Archive online.

８

Ibid.

９

The disclaimer on the IPC Historical Results Archive reads: “The results data of the IPC
Historical Results Archive is based on information contained/ sourced in the original
hardcopy final results publications. Some information from earlier Paralympic Games（i. e.
1960-1988）such as relay and team members are not presented in these sources. Therefore,
final results, medal standings and derived statistics may not be complete.”10

https://www.teamusa.org/US-Paralympics/Features/2016/March/23/The-Most-DecoratedAthlete-Youve-Never-Heard-Of-Meet-55-Time-Medalist-Trischa-Zorn-Hudson.

11

Ian Brittain, personal correspondence（May 2, 2018）.

12“Women in the Olympic and Paralympic Games: An Analysis of Participation and Leadership
Opportunities.” April 2013 research report by the University of Michigan’s SHARP Center（Sport | Health | Activity | Research | Policy）, p. 34-35. http://sharp.research.umich.edu/wpcontent/uploads/2017/03/olympic_report_2012_final-4-11-13.pdf.

13

Ibid, p. 36.

14

https://www.teamusa.org/About-the-USOC/Inside-the-USOC.

15

https://www.teamusa.org/About-the-USOC/Inside-the-USOC/Leadership/Executive-Team.

16

https://www.teamusa.org/US-Paralympics/About/Paralympic-Advisory-Committee.

17

Brittain, Ian. The Paralympic Games Explained. New York: Routledge, 2010, p. 110.

18

“The Journey from a Russian Orphanage to the Paralympics,” by Julia Polloreno. Women’s
Running Magazine, March 5, 2017. http://womensrunning.competitor.com/2017/03/
inspiration/journey-russian-orphanage-paralympics_72615.

19

http://tatyanamcfadden.com/about-tatyana/.
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20

See, for example, http://www.adweek.com/creativity/toyotas-good-odds-is-called-the-mosteffective-super-bowl-ad-on-key-brand-metrics/, https://unruly.co/blog/article/2018/02/09/
toyota-super-bowl-effectiveness/.

21

The commercial can be viewed online at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sefscV3GvWM

22

Brittain, p. 131.

23

https://www.alwaystri.com/about-sarah/.

24

http://www.alanajanenichols.com/.

25“Women in the Olympic and Paralympic Games: An Analysis of Participation and Leadership
Opportunities.” University of Michigan SHARP （sport/health/activity/research/policy）
Center Research Report, April 2013, p. 15 .

26

https://www.paralympic.org/news/tokyo-2020-paralympic-medal-event-programmeannounced.

27

https://www.teamusa.org/US-Paralympics/Resources/Military.

28“Buoyed by Financial Support, Military Veterans Are a Growing Part of the Paralympics.”
New York Times, March 18, 2018.

29

Booher, Amanda K. “Docile Bodies, Supercrips, and the Plays of Prosthetics.” International
Journal of Feminist Approaches to Bioethics, vol. 3, no. 2, 2010, pp. 63-89.

14

障壁を超えて：パラリンピックにおけるアメリカ人女性の歴史

障壁を超えて：パラリンピックにおけるアメリカ人女性の歴史
ロビン・ケットリンスキー（ニューヨーク市立ラガーディアコミュニティカレッジ）

女性パラリンピアンの増加，女性がコーチ，その他の指導的立場に就く機会拡大のために，過去数十年間で，いくつかの注目すべき取り組みが行われてきた。しかしながら，
パラリンピックにおける全体的な変化の速度は，依然として非常に緩慢であり，オリンピックよりも遅い。
オリンピック競技における女性アスリートの包摂の歴史に関する研究を基に，この論文では，米国人女性パラリンピアンが直面した大きな課題に加えて，彼女たちが過去半世紀以上に亘りもたらした多大なる功績，パラリンピックにおける完全な平等の担保を妨げる多くの構造的な問題について論じる。例えば，女性アスリートは様々なレベル（アマチュアからプロに至るまで）での参加の機会や，コーチや尊敬できるロールモデ
ルの数も少ない。また成長過程においても，男性と同じようなスポーツ参加は奨励されていないことが多い。それに加え，意義深い職業を見つける際にも，男性障がい者以上に苦労することが多い。ゆえに，彼女たちは，エリートアスリートとして，自身を支えるに必要な物質的資源も持っていないと言えるだろう。
米国においては，パラリンピック大会報道がメインストリーム化されるにあたって未解
決の課題が横たわっており，それは，米国人女性パラリンピアンが次世代の障がい者アス
リートに与える全般的な影響を弱めている。国際パラリンピック委員会（IPC）とアメリカ
パラリンピック委員会は，女性パラリンピアンに対して平等とインクルージョンを約束してきたが，この約束が現在も守られていないことは，米国人女性の参加者数によって示されている。米国のパラリンピック選手団において女性アスリートの割合が50％以上になったことがないにも拘わらず，直前の夏季および冬季パラリンピック大会において，メダル獲得という視点から最も大きな成功を収めたのは女性だった。本論文では，こうした矛盾について検証し，平等を妨げる構造的障がいを今後克服していく方法について考察する。
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