The title of this post is a quote from Serena Williams. If anyone should know the meaning of overpower overtake overcome, she should. Actually, most female participants in sport understand the struggle more than male competitors. It may be 2021 but the path to success is still more difficult for women. Chauvinism still plagues sport.

In my lifetime I have seen women deal with difficulties no man has to endure.

For example, the New Zealand Athletic Federation boss who justified a 1960’s Olympic selection with: “No female should be selected for the Games if a good male was available.”

In the gym, track and pool men regularly skirt the edges of a heart attack to avoid being passed by a woman.

In the gym my female swimmers were constantly being told their weights were too heavy for a girl. No one says that to a guy.

A well-known New Zealand National Coach told me the women on my team should not be doing chin-ups. It was, he said, bad for having babies.

How long has it taken for women to run a marathon, play rugby, participate in boxing, swim 1500m?

When I was coaching in Saudi Arabia, I found it difficult to understand why the nation’s three main pools had plenty of changing and toilet facilities for female swimmers, and yet prohibited women from entering the pool. Great facilities, no women.

Even visionary coaches, like Lydiard, used to set programmes for women that were less than male programmes. That was odd when there is an argument that says women are probably capable of more.

When I was studying in a master’s program at Victoria University, the Senior Lecturer was Alan Laidlaw. I was explaining my progressive views on coaching using the example of my female runners always doing the same mileage as John Walker. Alan paused, looked at me, and said: “Why was it necessary to make a comparison with a man.” He was right. The comparison was blatant chauvinism. I have never done it since.

Oh, I know you will be thinking all that chauvinism was in the past. In 2021 we have moved on. The anti-chauvinism battle has been fought and won. Some of you may even blame women for the minor chauvinistic attitudes that remain. Mothers, schools and churches that teach that God is a man. Female employees who always negotiate for less pay than men. Criticising women who chose to remain single or child free. Assuming women are in charge of the home and children.

It is a long list. A list that suggests chauvinism is not a thing of the past. Proof of that truth occurred in the United States recently. Here is a story reported in the Bucks County Courier Times a week ago.

https://eu.buckscountycouriertimes.com/story/sports/2021/12/01/running-star-tori-gerlach-reminded-chauvinism-still-plagues-her-sport/8823959002/

Tori Gerlach, got a taste of this still alive-and-well chauvinism while competing in the Turkey Trot recently. Gerlach, 27, a former two-time, two-mile state champion at Pennridge High School, a Big 10 titlist with Penn State and a recent U.S. Olympic Trials competitor in the steeplechase, ran a brilliant time of 16:19 and not only finished first woman but also fifth overall. 

When her name wasn’t announced at the awards ceremony, she went to the desk and asked the assistant director “what’s the deal?” She pointed out she was pretty sure she was the first woman, but the director wasn’t buying it. 

Then, to Gerlach’s amazement, she learned she had been “disqualified.” Why? Because the race director, didn’t believe that a woman could run that fast. So, no listing in the final results and no trophy.

“It really had nothing to do with my running,” said Gerlach. “It was just totally wrong. I didn’t take it like a personal thing. It was more like why would you assume something like that?” 

The race director also had the nerve to ask one of his staff members if Gerlach “looked thin, or real fit.”  Hopefully, these “old school” figures are a dying breed, and we can move on to true equality in the sport of running/track-field.”

Hopefully indeed, but don’t count on it. Male’s will cling on to power for as long as they can. I count myself as fairly liberal. But I can remember being beaten for the first time by Alison in a 16k training run around Windsor Great Park. “How did that happen?” my brain asked.

I remember just as clearly Jane beating me in one width kick across Dunedin’s Moana Pool. Again, the reflexive, “How did that happen?”

Our gender is trying. Slowly we will learn that overpower overtake overcome is where women are at in 2021. And all power to them.