13 Times Women in Sports Fought for Equality

Shortly before the tournament, the athletes and USA Hockey reached a four-year agreement that brought big wins for the women. Among them: a pay boost that bumped annual compensation to about $70,000 per player and substantial performance bonuses if athletes won World Championship or Olympic titles. Other positive changes: USA Hockey agreed to look into improvements for its marketing, scheduling, public relations, and promotion of the women’s game, as well as fundraising and other efforts for girls’ developmental teams, per ESPN.

After the agreement was announced, the women wasted no time in collecting those performance bonuses: At the 2018 PyeongChang Olympics, the team defeated Canada to clinch their first Olympic win in 20 years.

Adidas Aims to Increase Media Coverage of Women Athletes

Women make up about 40% of all sports participants, but women athletes comprise just 4% of sports media coverage. As Glamour previously reported, that lack of airtime is more than just unfair: It can cost women athletes sponsors, fans, and money, and limit the number of role models for young girls in sports.

Adidas is on a mission to close the gap. In December 2018 a women-led team at the sports-apparel behemoth announced a global initiative that aims to amplify women in athletics. Called She Breaks Barriers, the initiative is focused on taking action through events like town halls, partnerships with organizations like Girls on the Run and Starlings Volleyball, and a live-streamed series of girls’ sports on Twitter. “We believe that through sports, we have the power to change lives,” Nicole Vollebregt, the woman behind She Breaks Barriers and senior vice president of global purpose at Adidas, previously told Glamour. “For us, it’s about providing better access, removing gender stereotypes, and creating visibility.”

Women Ski Jumpers Demand a Place at the Olympics

Ski jumping has been an Olympic sport since the very first Winter Games in 1924. But for 90 years, only men were allowed to compete. That changed when a coalition of international women ski jumpers filed a 2008 lawsuit against the Vancouver Organizing Committee, fighting their exclusion from the 2010 Winter Games in Canada on the grounds that it “violates every woman’s right to equal benefit under the law.” Though the women didn’t win the right compete in Vancouver, they did gain access to the 2014 Sochi Games, representing a giant leap (or should we say jump) forward for the sport.

Even so, glaring equality gaps persist: At the 2014 and 2018 Winter Games, men had three separate ski jump events, while women only had one. “It’s like, ‘Here, we’ll give you a little piece,’ and then, ‘Go away, leave us alone,’” Lindsey Van, a now retired American ski jumper who helped lead the discrimination lawsuit, told the Chicago Tribune in 2018. “I still think that it’s an old boys’ club.” According to the 2022 Beijing Games website, there will be a new mixed-team event in ski jumping; there is no mention of any new women’s competitions.

Olympic Runners Speak Out About Poor Industry Maternity Policies

Last spring several Olympians-slash-mothers—including Alysia Montaño, Allyson Felix, and Kara Goucher—spoke out about the sporting industry’s lack of support for women athletes both during and after pregnancy. “The sports industry allows for men to have a full career,” Montaño said in an op-ed video for the Times last May. “When a woman decides to have a baby, it pushes women out at their prime.” The women specifically called out Nike, Asics, the United States Olympic Committee, and USA Track & Field. “I asked Nike to contractually guarantee that I wouldn’t be punished if I didn’t perform at my best in the months surrounding childbirth,” Felix wrote in an op-ed for the Times published in May. “I wanted to set a new standard.”