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OLYMPIC WOMEN: STILL IN THE QUEST FOR 50% INCLUSION
Ana Miragaya
The Olympic Games of the modern era started officially on April 6, 1896, in Athens Greece,with the participation of 245 male athletes from 14 nations of the western world. The main
proponent of the Games, Baron Pierre de Coubertin (1863-1937), a typical European man of histime, chose to follow the tradition of the Ancient Games not only by revering the figure of theancient hero with his own extraordinary physical and moral virtues but also by keeping women outof courts, fields and other sports arenas. Although the first edition of the modern Olympic Games
did not include any women athletes, excluding at least 50% of humanity, it is possible to observe a
gradual increase in the number of women athletes from 1900 to 2020 (from 1.9% in 1900 to 48.7%
in 2020)1 and a small number of women taking up administrative and management positions in
the Olympic Committees after 1981.
The objective of this research was both to review and discuss the evolution of theparticipation of women in the modern Olympic Games: from 0.0% participation, in 1896, to partial
inclusion (48.7% participation) in 2020, pressured by innovation and a change in gender roles
brought about by transformations that occurred during the course of the 20th century. Empiricalcontributions illustrate this theme, which is here primarily seen as an interplay between
oppositions. Have women reached the final objective of being totally included (50% ofparticipation) as athletes and as administrators?
The inclusion of women in the Olympic Games came to being done gradually by the womenthemselves as a result of their development and awareness of the new active role they werebeginning to play in the new industrialized society of the second half of the 19th century, during
the whole 20th century and the already 3rd decade of the 21st century. Women were conquering
new positions in their countries, becoming more active, especially struggling to become fullcitizens with the right to vote. If women were increasingly calling for a place in the social order, it
was not different in the sport sphere. Slowly women started to get into a realm that did notbelong to them in the first place and they were beginning to enjoy it. They were streaming from a
passive to an active position. Sport had always been a male construct in which very rarely did

1women take part. Traditional beliefs had always held that physical exertion and competition were
contrary to a woman's nature. Besides, it was believed that the place of the woman was in thehome (indoors), taking care of the house and the children, and that the place of the man was
outside the home (outdoors), working as the sole breadwinner of the family2.
The history of the inclusion of women in sport is identified by some researchers 3, 4, 5, 6 not
only as a history of power and male domination over women but also as a history of inequalities
where women always played roles of submission, not being allowed to search for respect andequality. Other researchers have qualified it as a product of European and North Americancolonialism, a mirror of the games of these regions and not representative of indigenous peoplesof the rest of the world3. It has been a history based on tradition where changes and innovation
played a very minor role. However, with the advancements of society itself in face of newtechnology and information, women began to realize that their history had to be retaken fromanother perspective: that of innovation, participation, activity and inclusion. The situation of
women in the Olympic Games evolved then from total exclusion at the very beginning to someinclusion along the years. Women’s advancement and awareness of their new positioningpressured society to come to a point where the next quest was not whether women should
participate but how women should participate. In what sports and events and in what otherpositions, including as officials and administrators in international and national Olympic bodies,were women to participate actively. The ‘permission’ and the extension of this participation are
still being prescribed by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) members, the majority ofwhom are men.
The Tradition of Ancient Olympic Games
Back in Greek times, at the root of all western tradition, Athenians believed that womenshould be covered up and not seen; therefore, they were not allowed to take part in athleticcompetitions because they would have to expose themselves. Moreover, female bodies were to
be conditioned for childbirth. On the other hand and at the same time, the Games of the Goddess
Hera, Heraean Games, whose first records were believed to date back to 500 B.C., were games
that included young, adolescent, and unmarried women athletes in competitions held every four
years 3.
The first recorded information of the Ancient Olympic Games dates back to 776 B.C. They
were actually religious festivals in which competitive athletics activities were believed to entertain
the spirits of the dead. Therefore, a period of peace was supposed to happen during the Games.
2The tribes and cities constantly at war with one another welcomed the month of truce every four
years for the Olympic Festivals. It was a welcome recess for everyone, especially because it wasthought to please the gods. Although only men were allowed to take part in the competitions thatwere held in honor of Zeus, certain women were allowed to watch the Games. These were young
unmarried women in search of a husband. They were there to watch the handsome male bodies
and talk with their brothers or father about the one man each wanted as their mate. However,married women were prohibited from attending the Olympic Games on penalty of death. The only
married woman allowed to watch the Games was the Priestess of Demeter 3.
As time went by, women were allowed to participate indirectly as unofficial competitors in
the Olympic Games, in the condition of horse owners. For instance, the Spartan princess Kyniska
entered her horses in the four-horse chariot races of 396 B.C. and 392 B.C. and became thewinner. As a result, and following male athletes’ tradition, Kyniska had two bronze statues built at
the Olympia site to celebrate her horse team’s triumphs. 3
It is interesting to observe that the first women athletes to participate in the HeraeanGames came from Sparta especially because Spartans believed that fit and healthy women thatexercised regularly would have healthy children. At first this could seem a radically different
thought than that held by the Athenians, who preferred their women covered up and left to theirown passive household routines 3. Actually, the Spartans were putting physical activity to theservice of women’s old function of procreation. Women did not play any role model of heroines in
the condition of being active and becoming athletes. Women’s participation was considered
unimportant especially because the ancient Greeks were highly competitive and believed strongly
in the nexus of ‘agon’ or competition for excellence.
The ultimate Greek goal was to be the best by means of comparative conducts andcelebrations. All aspects of life, especially athletics, were centered on this cultural belief. They
valued physical strength, agility, speed, and other physical qualities believed to be inherent to men
only. Because Olympic champions were considered victors, they enjoyed great honors and wereentitled to receive several privileges such as (i) being given a crown made from olive leaves (the‘cotinus’); (ii) having statues made of themselves placed at Olympia; (iii) having all their meals paid
for at the public's expense; (iv) getting front-row seats at theaters and (v) occupying high offices.
Furthermore, because they were believed to bring their cities into favor with the Greek gods, theircompatriots pulled down part of the walls of their original cities for them to enter upon theirreturn. The culture of the victor developed into the culture of the male hero, which has been3

carried on throughout the times from the tradition of the past to the inherited tradition of today’ssociety 3.
On the other hand, women were valued for the quality of children they produced;
therefore, they could not compete or participate in similar physical activities or competitions as
they had been thought of for being very delicate. Women were not heroines because they did not
fulfill the same pre-requisites of Olympic heroes related to size, physical strength, abilities andskills. On the contrary, seen as weak individuals, women were supposed to stay at home, leading avery passive life. This belief had been cultivated throughout the centuries and still existed when
the Olympic Games were revived by Coubertin. It was then gradually modified as science evolved
to prove that women could follow the same paths men did and still have children. However, in thethird decade of the 21st century, there are still some countries where women are still considered
inferior to men, do not have the same rights, have to be covered in public, must not have an
education and must not do sports.
The Revival of the Games: Tradition Maintained
The Ancient Olympic Games lasted for almost 12 centuries, being abolished only in 393
A.D. by the Christian Emperor Theodosius II, not only because of the bitterness of the relations
between Greeks and Romans or the brutality and corruption that reigned during the Games, butalso because he believed that the festivals were pagan. Some years later, the Stadium of Olympia,
where those events were held, was razed and the Olympic fields pulled down 3. The athleticcelebrations of the ancient Olympic Games disappeared almost entirely for more than a thousand
years.
During centuries the places where the competitions were held continued to be empty andprey to floods, earthquakes and thieves. Finally, in 1776, some ancient ruins of Olympia werediscovered by the British archeologist Richard Chandeler from Oxford. This discovery inspired
many enthusiastic attempts in reviving the ancient Olympic Games of the past in the 19th century
although the veneration of Greece had begun in the 15th century during the period of humanism
and Renaissance3.

However, the main dig-up of the ancient site took place between 1875 and 1881, headedby the German professor and archaeologist Ernst Curtius (1814-1896), who had been interested inAncient Greece for a very long time as he had visited the site at least three times3.
4Inspired by the German discovery, Baron Pierre de Coubertin took a personal interest in
the site due to French educational and nationalistic claims. His vague proposal for an international
sports festival and competition was initially greeted by blank stares, but in his capacity as generalsecretary of the Union of French Societies of Athletic Sports, he visited colleges, universities, andprivate sports clubs, talking to anyone who would listen. Then in 1894, speaking at the Sorbonnein Paris to a gathering of representatives from several nations, he argued for and proposed that
the Ancient Games be revived on an international scale. With his hearers' approval, he formed the
IOC to organize the Olympic Games and make the rules 8.
Following tradition, the IOC declared that all competing athletes had to be amateurs, notprofessionals, and decided to hold the first modern Olympic Games in Athens, the original homeof that celebration. Coubertin appointed the Greek representative Demetrius Vikelas (1835-1908)as first IOC president and nominated himself as secretary. However, with the same enthusiasmthat he hailed the archaeological finding in Greece and with the same energy that he pushed therevival of the Olympic Games, Pierre de Coubertin completely kept his coherence with the old
Greek tradition when he did not include women in the Games. He was completely against thepractice of sports and physical activities by women, as most men of his time. According to him,
women only had the function of bearing children: "a woman’s glory would come through thenumber and quality of children she produced. As far as sports were concerned women’s role wasto encourage their sons to excel. She was not to seek records for herself ". The Games were "thesolemn periodic manifestation of male sport based on internationalism, on loyalty as a means, onarts as a background and the applause of women as a recompense"3. As Lunzenfichter (1996)
reports, Coubertin still claimed that a "female Olympiad would be impractical, uninteresting,unaesthetic and incorrect" just after receiving the support of Pope Pius XI, who had seriously
condemned the playing of sport by women9.
By not including women and still keeping traditional values of other people from anotherera, it is possible that Coubertin fired up the ancient Olympic spirit of the male hero, which has
inspired athletes around the world along decades. It is important to observe that the figure of themale hero was rescued with the revival of the Games and with the non-inclusion of women. There
was no rescue of the figure of the heroine once it did not exist in the Ancient Olympic Games.
Neither did Coubertin want to develop the new role model of the heroine. The only role modelthat was reconstructed was that of the male hero.
The Response of the Women: the Olympian woman in the very first Olympic Games
5

Although no women athletes entered the competitions of the 1896 Olympic Games inAthens, there was an unofficial female competitor in the marathon, a poor Greek woman, Stamata
Revithi. She was not allowed to compete in the men’s race, but ran by herself the next day as she
had heard there would be some recompense for those who ran the race and she needed themoney to buy food for her children. The final lap was completed outside the stadium as she had
her entry denied. After her marathon run, athletics officials could not remember her name so theylabeled her ‘Melpomene’, who is the Greek muse of Tragedy. Looking at Stamata Revithi, they
could see only tragedy, not her extraordinary feat 3. She had finished less than two hours after thewinner (in four and a half hours) and had beaten some of her male competitors.3 She was the firstinnovator to face the barriers of tradition.
The first modern Olympic Games took place at the very end of the 19th century, at a time
when the western world was harvesting years of new inventions, hard work and technology thatwould change the face of the 20th century. Industrialization and social reform were essential indetermining which direction the richest countries such as the United States and European nations
would take from then on. With the evolution of technology and new inventions being added to theindustries that started to flourish, more labor had been necessary to move the different
economies ahead. Women had already started gradually to work outside their home and join thelabor force; therefore, they were taking on new roles. As they began to participate more in theeconomy of their countries, they wanted to be heard as citizens. They also wanted to vote. Many
women organizations were founded to strive for citizenship. Slowly women were going from a
passive to an active position. The end of the 19th century and especially the beginning of the 20th
century saw the changes that also motivated women’s actions in sports.
Although the IOC regulated over the Olympic activities, National Olympic Committees(NOCs) had to be created in the different nations that wanted to participate in the Games. In thevery beginning, the local national committees were the ones that organized the Games in their
host sites. The Games of 1900 and 1904 were connected with World Fairs; accordingly, theselection of events to be included in the Olympic program was mainly in the hands of the fairs'organizing committees and thus to a large extent beyond the control of the IOC11. In fact, theOlympic Games were slow to catch on. The Games held in Paris in 1900, in Saint Louis in 1904 andin London in 1908 were sparsely attended and badly organized. That made the inclusion of womenin these Games a little less difficult. However, since the admission of women to these Games did
not have the official consent of the IOC, they did not have their status recognized. As a result,
women competitors were awarded diplomas instead of medals and olive branches 5, which were6

supposed to only go to the male heroes. The role model of the female Olympian was still to beconstructed.
The official information of the IOC shows that 22 women competed in the 1900 Olympic
Games in Paris: 7 in lawn tennis, 10 in golf, 3 in croquet, 1 in equestrian sports and 1 in yachting.
However, 3 women have not yet been acknowledged by the IOC: 2 in ballooning (sport later on
not considered Olympic by the IOC), and another 1 in equestrian3.
Women athletes did not struggle to participate in the 1900 Olympic Games, neither did
they need a permission or authorization. They were recruited or invited because they belonged tothe clubs they usually attended to regularly play their games. It is important to add that these
women, who belonged to the upper classes, had the free time necessary to devote to the sport asthey possessed the financial and independent condition to pay for their outfit, equipment or
membership. Such circumstances were not found in women who belonged to lower-income orworking classes. But Coubertin’s IOC would never admit to the fact that women were invited
especially because the Baron was against the participation of women in competitive sport3.
Although the Olympic Games of 1904, in Saint Louis, had a large number of sporting events,
archery was the only sport for women. Eight American women participated in two archery events,
especially because they had been competing in it since 1879 as part of the National Archery
Association events3. No women athletes from other countries participated in that edition of theGames. Since it was very costly to send male athletes overseas, sending women athletes, very rareat that time, was unthinkable. Women had very little participation in competitive sport at thattime.
The Olympic Games of 1908 in London had 37 women competing in four sports: tennis,
sailing, ice-skating and archery, all of which sports of high social prestige. The participation of
women was beginning to grow. Although the Olympic Games of 1912 in Stockholm had 48 womenathletes (2.2% of all competitors) from 11 countries participating in six events of two sports,
including swimming, women's sports remained a marginal phenomenon and were still not
officially recognized by the IOC. According to Pfister11, it was the ‘feminist’ Swedes who introduced
the swimming competitions to the Olympic Games, the first battle of women Olympians formeters and seconds. Swimming was a very popular sport at that time and considerably
contributed to the participation of a greater number of women in the Games.
It is important to mention that financing has always been an important factor for theparticipation of women in the Games. Not all women have the credibility and the support theyneed from the local committees or from sponsors; therefore, it becomes very hard for many7

women athletes to travel on their own to the places of competition. Most of them do not work
and when they do work, their remuneration tends to be lower than men’s pay. Male athletes, on
the other hand, have more credibility because of tradition; as a result, it is easier for them to beoffered more opportunities. Besides, their income tends to be higher than that of women, which
permits them to make up for traveling investments. As the number of women athletes increases
from one edition to the next, the same happens with the number of male athletes and with thetotal number of athletes as it can be seen in Table 1.

Table 1: Participation of women athletes in the modern Olympic Gamesaccording to the IOC 1, 12
YearSports

Women’s

Total

Men

Women

%

events
1896

-

-

241

241

-

0

1900

5

5

997

975

22

2.2

1904

1

2

651

645

8

0.9

1908

2

3

2,008

1,971

37

1.8

1912

2

6

2,497

2,359

48

2.0

1920

2

6

2,626

2,561

63

2.4

1924

3

11

3,089

2,954

135

4.4

1928

4

14

2,883

2,606

277

9.6

1932

3

14

1,332

1,206

126

9.0

1936

4

15

3,963

3,632

331

8.3

1948

5

19

4,104

3,714

390

9.5

1952

6

25

4,955

4,436

519

10.5

1956

6

26

3,314

2,936

376

13.3

1960

6

29

5,338

4,727

611

11.4

1964

7

33

5,151

4,473

678

13.2

8

1968

7

39

5,216

4,435

781

14.2

1972

8

43

7,134

6,075

1,059

14.6

1976

11

49

6,084

4,824

1,260

20.7

1980

12

50

5,179

4,064

1,115

21.5

1984

14

62

6,829

5,263

1,566

23

1988

17

72

8,391

6,197

2,194

26.1

1992

19

86

9,356

6,652

2,704

28.8

1996

21

97

10,318

6,806

3,512

34.0

2000

25

120

10,651

6,582

4,069

38.2

2004

26

125

10,625

6,296

4,329

40.7

2008

26

127

10,942

6,305

4,637

42.4

2012

26

132

10,568

5,892

4,676

44.2

2016

28

136

11,238

6,179

5,059

45.0

2020

33

156

11,037

5,651

5,457

48.7

The Inclusion of Women: Different Periods, Different Readingsa. From 1896 to 1928
Hargreaves 5 identifies three periods of women’s participation in the modern Olympic
Games: (1) from 1896 to 1928; (2) from 1928 to 1952 and (3) from 1952 to today.
The first period is characterized by a tradition of exclusion and some efforts to resist thesepractices. It was also the time when women were searching for jobs, getting access to education,fighting to have the right to vote and trying to get adjusted to constant changes of the new societythat required new gender roles. This period includes the twenties, when, according to Théberge 6,
there was some struggle over the control of women’s international sport and the form anddefinition of women’s participation. As progress pushed the industrialized countries ahead it also
went for a change in women’s international sport. Since the IOC refused to include women’s
athletics (American track and field) in the Olympic Games, the Frenchwoman Alice Milliat defied

9the status quo, founded the Fédération Sportive Féminine Internationale (FSFI) and organized thefirst Women’s Olympics in 1922. They were so outstanding that the Games were held again in
1926, 1930 and 1934 as Women’s World Games. They became visible to the IOC especiallybecause of the public interest women sports received. The Women’s World Games were so
successful that they not only pressured the IOC to eventually incorporate them permanently to
the Olympic Games after extensive negotiations and maneuvers 13, 3 but they also influenced
Women’s Games in Brazil in 1933 14 and in 1949 15.
Women were beginning to win their battles for inclusion. This can be observed in
Coubertin’s words when he left the IOC presidency in 1925: "I remain hostile to the participationof women in the Games. They have been admitted to a growing number of events against mywishes" 3.
It was still during the period 1896-1928 that two main debates about women’s
involvement in sport came up. They would influence the view over women’s sport and women’s
participation in the Olympics for a long time. The first one, still based on tradition and thenrelated to the poor and limited medical wisdom of the time, with no evidence that could prove it,promoted beliefs in women’s natural frailty and condemned vigorous physical activity as
dangerous to women’s health and well being. As a result, along the editions of the Games,
women’s participation in athletics and other sports was done on a limited basis according to amodel of what was considered the ideal of female frailty prescribed by male doctors. As winds ofthe past were still blowing, women were excluded from the strength events in athletics and only
gradually were women’s team events introduced into the Games.
The second debate was about the control of women’s sport, which was new to society andto the women themselves. According to tradition, the active positions of command should belong
to men and not to women, who were supposed to obey orders, usually males’, and to be passive.
Struggles were waged over who would control women’s national and international sport and whatform and definition of women’s participation would be. To follow tradition, women continued tohave no control of their own participation in national or international sport.
Summing up, it is possible to say that the events of the 1920s and then of the 1930s had
two essential meanings which were both cultural and social: (1) definition and meaning of
women’s sports based on biological differences and (2) the control of the organization of women’s
sports as an Olympic male dominant function.
b. From 1928 to 1952
10

The two meanings above were carried on throughout the second phase. Hargreaves 5
identified the period between 1928 and 1952 as one of consolidation and struggle. It was exactly
during this period that women fought to be seen and to consolidate their position as
sportswomen. This was a new concept not only to women themselves but to society as a whole.
Women were in a very complex situation, which demanded the development of role models for
women who did sports and who would compete in the Olympic Games. Their only role models
were the male heroes. Women athletes were then in a crossroads which pointed to two different
directions. They were either to follow previously established models or to construct new femalerole models from scratch. Due to the limited basis of access to Olympic sports that had been set by
the IOC in 1928, women seemed to have chosen the first alternative.
Even though women had taken another little step, they wanted to guarantee their role asactive participants in sport and in society. This positioning was strengthened during the 1940s as
women had to be mobilized to take up posts left by men who had to go to the battlefields in
Europe. As a result of the World War II, there were no Olympic Games in 1940 or 1944. The
massive direct and indirect participation and more inclusion of women in the economy of theircountries at war greatly contributed for women’s new positioning in their society and theirawareness of the place they occupied.
During this time, the model of women’s sport based on biological differences between thesexes which had been constructed in the thirties was also taken to school sport programs andended up limiting the way women looked at their own athleticism. At the end of this period,
female participation in the Olympic Games became a fact, but the gains women had made wereconservative because the model of women’s sport that had been adopted conformed to the idealof feminine athleticism and its cultural significance was still to reinforce the myth of female frailty
6. It is then possible to observe society’s maintenance of women’s traditional functions.

c. After 1952
However, according to Hargreaves5, 1952 starts a period of challenge to male andmasculine hegemony in Olympic sport especially because of two events. This fact did not meanthat gender relations would be reconstructed to make up for past inequalities. It meant rather
that women found other ways to fight exclusion, tradition, passivity, and the chores imposed bysociety to then try to reach their objectives of inclusion, innovation, activity, and design of newroles in the fast-changing world.

11

( i ) Two events
The first event was the entry of the Soviet Union and other countries of the Eastern Bloc as
new participants in the expansion of the Games that took place in Helsinki, Finland, in this post
World War II era. These countries were gender blind. They had different cultural traditions as well
as objectives. They had already included women their own way in the past. Since they placed apremium on athletic success with little attention to the gender of the winners, they had made alarge material and social investment on the training of their athletes for the Games.
TEXT TO BE CONTINUED AND FINISHED.

Possible Conclusions
Looking back to 1896, it is possible to observe that women have progressed a lot in theirchallenges and struggles. They fought very bravely to enter men’s sphere and have succeeded inmany aspects. They have conquered their citizenship and their inclusion in the Olympic Games but
have not yet reached equality in terms of numbers. Have they become heroes, heroines ormediators 19? Have they achieved the position of equilibrium yet?
It would have been unthinkable half century ago that women would compete in themarathon and in the 10,000-meter race or play basketball with the skill, dedication and power ofwomen Olympians of the 2000s. At the same time, it would be very hard to imagine that women
would become a member of the IOC or would head a National Olympic Committee although theextent of change in the administrative and organizational levels has not been so dramatic asamong participants. There are still some barriers to overcome, the most crucial of which is toshare the power with the male figures that represent the traditions of sport. Women havequestioned traditional roles and become more aware of their place in the third millennium. They
have come a long way to thinking of their biological differences as part of themselves that would
allow them to compete in their own terms but having the same opportunities as men.
It is important to mention that the innovation brought about by the inclusion of women in
the modern Olympic Games pressured science and technology for research and new discoveries
that have shown that women can in fact do more than they had thought they could: not only interms of those athletes who participate in the Olympic Games, but also for the common women interms of exercising and taking up any kind of physical activity to do. The pressure women have12

made to have the right to participate in the Olympic Games as human beings has greatly
contributed for the right women have now to participate in sports and physical activity.
More female role models would be needed to provide encouragement for girls in sport,
and this means there will be the role models in all domains: in the family and school, high-level
coaching, Olympic committees, government officials concerned with sport, athletics and so on.
Women Olympians have come a long way in the fields, courts, pools, streets, sea, tracks,
but they are still striving to reach 50% of participation. For example, by watching the Tokyo Gamesand having access to the IOC official reports, it is possible to observe that there are still several
countries that did not send a balanced number of male and female athletes, and still others that
did not send any women athletes.
In terms of the women’s inclusion in positions related to administration and power, it ispossible to verify, according to the documents available and to the specialized literature, that it
has been a long and painful process. The IOC itself took 87 years to include a woman as a member(1894-1981). As women have been reaching seats of power in politics and in relevant companies
and institutions in many countries, it is then natural for them to seek participation in decisionmaking positions elsewhere. And this is particularly true when it comes to sports.
Although the IOC has been making progress, encouraging feminine participation andgender equality in its own administrative structure, it is clear that there is still a long way to go. For
example, according to the IOC 1, in 2020, 38% of the active IOC members were women, 33% of
women were members of the IOC Executive Board and 37% of women chaired IOC Commissions.
This demonstrates how conservative and traditional the IOC itself has been.
The IOC also proposed several actions, part of the IOC’s Gender Equality and Inclusion
Objectives 2021-20241, together with IFs, NOCs and Olympic Movement Stakeholders in order topromote the inclusion of women in administrative positions and seats of power, but has been very
reticent in giving the example.
Finally, we reach several questions:
1. Are these entities willing to follow the IOC propositions even if the IOC has not yet set
the example of 50% inclusion? (“Do as I say not as I do”)
2. Why doesn’t the IOC set the example of sharing 50% of power with women incommanding positions?
3. When we think of the IOC, we think of the center of Olympism, located in Lausanne,
Switzerland, Europe. What about the 207 nations that participate in the Games and in a
number of sport governing bodies around the world. Do they all share the same way of13thinking and cultural principles of the IOC? Do they all share the same principles or dothey still keep the echoes of the past, keeping women out of administrative positions
and positions of power?
4. What role do tradition and culture play in the 50% inclusion of women?

References:
1. International Olympic Committee (2021). Factsheet Women in the Olympic Movement.
Available at Women-in-the-Olympic-Movement.pdf (olympics.com)
2. Miragaya, A & DaCosta, L. (1997). Atividades físicas sistemáticas e a mulher: inclusão nolazer, na família e no trabalho (unpublished paper).
3. Miragaya, A & DaCosta, L. (2006). The process of inclusion of women in the Olympic
Games. Dissertation presented in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree ofdoctor of philosophy in the programa de pós-graduação em Educação Física da
Universidade

Gama

Filho

Available at Microsoft Word - Tese Ana Miragaya completa (sportsinbrazil.com.br)
4. DeFrantz, A. (1997). The Changing Role of Women in the Olympic Games. Paper presented
at the 37th International Session for Young Participants - IOA Report, Ancient Olympia.
5. Hargreaves, J. (1984). Women and the Olympic phenomenon. In Tomlinson A, Whannel G(eds) Five Ring Circus. London: Pluto Press p 53-70.
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Presses de l' Université Laval, Sainte - Foy - Canada, pp. 385 - 396.
7. Boutilier, M. & Giovanni, L. (1991) Ideology, Public Policy and Female Olympic
Achievement: a Cross-National Analysis of the Seoul Olympic Games. In Landry, F., Landry,
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presented at the 36th International Session for Young Participants - IOA Report, Ancient
Olympia.

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10. DANIELS, Stephanie & TEDDER, Anita (2000). A Proper Spectacle’ Women Olympians 19001936. Bedfordshire: ZeNaNa Press & Walla Walla Press.
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14. Tavares, O. Women’s Games in Brazil in 1933 (research in progress).
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19. See Tavares, O. (2002). The Olympic Athlete: Hero or Mediator, chapter 12, in this book.

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