Women and Sport in the Ancient World Is there evidence of female participation in the ancient Olympic Games? According to the International Olympic Committee (IOC) there have been over 30,923 women participating in the modern Olympic Games over the period of 108 years since the first women participated at the 1900 Paris Olympic Games. At the latest Olympic Games held in Beijing, out of the 11,196 total athletes, 4,746 were women that were involved at the Games. Although female participation has grown, the number of female athletes is still less than half of those participating.
Women are still fighting stereotypes that began with the Olympics in Ancient Greece where women were banned from watching and participating in the Ancient Olympic Games. Instead they fought back and held their own Olympic Games dedicated to the goddess Hera. [1] Pausanias who was a Greek traveler and a geographer informs in his book of Elis that women were prohibited in watching the Olympic Games. [2] If women were caught entering the Olympic festival, their penalty was death by being thrown from a precipitous mountain with high rocks called Typaion. 3] Only one known married women called either Callipateira or Pherenike gain entrance to the Games. She was the daughter of Diagoras of Rhodes who was a famous boxer. As her husband was dead, she disguised herself as a gymnastic trainer and brought her son Pisirodos to Olympia to compete. Pisirodos was victorious and as excited as Callipateira was, she jumped over the enclosure in which they kept the trainer and enclosed herself which relieved her sex. The authorities let her go unpunished out of respect for her father, her brothers and her son, all of whom had won at the Olympic Games.
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For the future trainers, a law was passed that required them to strip before entering the arena. We don’t know whether Callipateira was the first mother to attend the Olympia but since she was discovered, she was responsible for the failure of other mothers sneaking in. She might be the last mother at the ancient Olympics Games. [4] Even though Pausanias stated that women were prohibited from attending the Olympic Games, unmarried women were allowed to watch the Games so their fathers could find them a suitable husband.
Women were not allowed to complete in the Games but that didn’t stop them participating indirectly. When equestrian events were added, women were allowed to own competing chariot teams and individual horses, but couldn’t ride the horses or guide the team themselves. The first was Kyniska, daughter of King Archidanos of Sparta. Her brother Agesilios convinced her to enter one of the chariot races to prove that victory in equestrian events was a result of wealth and not skill.
Pausanias stated that Kyniska had always dreamed to win an Olympic victory which she was able to accomplish and in celebration of the event she set up two bronze monuments representing chariots, a small one in the antechamber of the temple of Zeus, and a larger one in the grounds of the Altis. Part of the inscribed base of the larger monument has been found and it read: [5] “Sparta’s kings were fathers and brothers of mine, But since with my chariot and storming horses I, Kyniska, Have won the prize, I place my effigy here And proudly proclaim
That of all Grecian women I first bore the crown” (Swadding 2000, p. 43).
Athletes in Ancient Greece were considered a male domain. Yet there was an exception for unmarried women. They held their own Olympic festival at the Olympia called the Heraea Games in honor of the Goddess Hera sister-wife of Zeus. It was only celebrated every four years but with only one type of event – footrace organized. It was categorized into three separate contests for virgin girls of different age groups: the youngest first, the slightly older ones next, and then the oldest virgins final. 6] The race was held at the Olympic Stadium, but for women the track was shortened by one-sixth making it over the 160 metres. One could assume that women could run 180 metres without having to shorten the race to 160 metres. But maybe it was the Greek male’s view that women were by nature inferior to men. The winners of the race were rewarded with a crown of olives like the victors of the Olympics and they also received a portion of a cow sacrificed to Hera.
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The winners of the race were allowed to dedicate statues of themselves so the victors had the privilege of setting up their images in the temple of Hera. Religious conservatism was probably the reason why no other competitions were ever introduced for women at the Olympia even though most of the major Greek games included women’s events. However women raised in Sparta were encouraged to be athletes where they were trained in the same athletic events as men because Spartans believed tough, strong mothers produced good Spartan soldiers.
Even Plato advocated running and sword-fighting for women. We don’t know whether women participated in other events besides the foot-race but eventually the Heraea Games discontinued about the time the Romans conquered Greece. [7] In conclusion, women of modern society have the freedom to do what they want to compared to women from Ancient Greece. Ancient Greek married women were forbidden to watch or participate in the Olympic Games or they were sentenced to death. There hasn’t been any evidence of women being thrown to death by being caught at the Ancient Games.
Today women are competing at the Olympic Games but it hasn’t always been smooth sailing. Even though women first competed at the Olympic Games in 1900, the number of events were strictly limited to tennis and in 1904 to archery. Slowly the contest open to women increased but for many years the longest running event was the 3,000 metre run and it wasn’t until 1984 that the women’s marathon was introduced at the Games. I believe that women participating in the Olympic Games has come a long way from Ancient times.
Even though the founder of the Modern Olympic Games Pierre de Coubertin disapproved of women participating, unless they could play every sport as well as men, I believe women could have played every sport as well as men if they were given the opportunity. Women should be proud of their achievements and what they have accomplished throughout the Ancient and Modern Olympic Games. Reference: Scanlon, T, 2002, Eros and Greek Athletics, Oxford University Press, USA. Swadding, J, 2002, The Ancient Olympic Games, 2nd edn, University of Texas Press.
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