On February 17, at the Wukesong Sports Center in Beijing, the women's ice hockey final of the Winter Olympics, Canada won the gold medal with a 3:2 victory over the defending champion United States. China Youth Daily, China Youth Network reporter Li Junhui / photo
The Beijing Winter Olympics became the highest ever recorded winter olympics with the highest percentage of female athletes, reaching 45 percent, compared to less than 10 percent at the inaugural Winter Olympics, held in Chamonix, France, 98 years ago. Just as the entire human society is constantly striving to promote and must continue to strengthen respect for women, the Olympic Games have also gone through a century-long history in the pursuit of gender equality, and the last 30 years may be the most rapid period for the Olympic Games to promote gender equality. However, gender equality may not be truly achieved until we stop using the ratio of male and female athletes as a topic of conversation at the Olympic Games.
On February 2, the first event of the Beijing Winter Olympics, the curling mixed competition, took the lead in starting; on February 5, the Chinese short track team won the first gold medal of the Chinese delegation to the Winter Olympics, the competition was short track speed skating mixed relay; on February 10, Chinese athletes attacked the first olympic gold medal in the history of the freestyle ski aerial skills project. Thinking back to last year's Tokyo Olympic Games, table tennis and shooting set up mixed doubles events for the first time, and swimming competitions set up mixed relays for the first time... It is not difficult for attentive spectators to find that whether it is the Summer Olympic Games or the Winter Olympic Games, the mixed competitions between men and women are increasing in a large area. This is clearly closely related to the idea of gender equality in the Olympic Games, which the IOC is vigorously advocating.
On February 14, the International Olympic Committee and the Beijing Winter Olympic Organizing Committee held a press conference with the theme of "Women's Power at the Winter Olympics", and Yan Jiarong, spokesperson of the Beijing Winter Olympic Organizing Committee, introduced, "The Beijing Winter Olympics is the winter Olympic Games with the highest proportion of female athletes participating, reaching 45%. At the same time, female athletes also participated in the most projects in the past, and of the total 109 sub-events, 46 women participated in the projects. Among the 7 new sub-events, there are 2 women's single events and 4 mixed/team events. ”
Marx once said, "In any society, the degree of emancipation of women is the natural measure of universal emancipation." "As a modern Olympic movement with the goal of promoting the development of human society in the direction of truth, goodness and beauty, it is natural that the promotion of gender equality cannot be ignored, but the process is also full of twists and turns.
While the entire human society is still under pressure to promote gender equality, sports events and the Olympic Games have to encounter many obstacles if they want to eliminate prejudice against women.
In 1900, the second Olympic Games in Paris allowed female athletes to participate for the first time, but as one of the most important major events inheriting the ancient Olympic Games, athletics, it was not until the 1928 Amsterdam Olympic Games that female athletes were allowed to participate for the first time.
Many people may not be able to imagine that as the most popular fashion sport for urban men and women today, the marathon, back to more than 50 years ago, there was still a prejudice that women were not suitable for participation. In 1967, Catherine Swetzler became the first woman to participate in the Boston Marathon, but she was still blocked by some male athletes and spectators during the race.
Women's boxing, which is also popular with urban women, was only officially contested at the 2012 London Olympics 10 years ago.
However, compared with the discrimination of women in many other fields of human society, the speed of the Olympic Games in promoting gender equality is still very efficient.
In terms of the proportion of female athletes participating, female athletes accounted for only 28.8% of the 1988 Seoul Olympic Games, and by the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games, the proportion of male and female athletes had basically reached half of each. At the Beijing Winter Olympics, the proportion of female athletes has reached 45%, nearly half. If you look at the proportion of female athletes participating, the Olympic Games have basically achieved equality between men and women in the past 30 years.
In addition to the increase in the proportion of female athletes, female athletes also pay more attention to the protection of their own rights and interests. At the Tokyo Olympics, German female gymnasts wore ankle-length gymnastics suits that, previously, were worn only by male gymnasts.
The reason why the Olympic Games pay so much attention to gender equality and the work is remarkable, in the view of Xie Jun, vice president of the Capital Institute of Physical Education, is directly related to the concept of the Olympics, "The Olympics emphasize the power of sports, fairness and education, from gender equality to the successive holding of the Olympic and Paralympic Games in the host cities, which can reflect this pursuit." ”
In contrast, professional sports events have not advanced as fast in terms of gender equality, such as women's professional tennis players calling for professional tennis tournaments to pay men and women for equal work, and in many sports, women's professionalism is much lower than that of men. In Xie Jun's view, professional events are driven by the market, which is different from the Olympic Games, which is oriented by the concept of value.
However, the style of female athletes on the field, as well as the social impact and even commercial value they bring, cannot be underestimated.
At the "Women's Power of the Winter Olympics" press conference held on February 14, Yang Yang, the first gold medalist of the Chinese Winter Olympics and chairman of the Athletes Committee of the Beijing Winter Olympics Organizing Committee, said that in the Winter Olympic Games, female athletes show different beauty, not only the beauty of figure skating, but also the sass of snow sports. "Winter sports allow women to discover more beautiful selves from different angles, but also express different selves from different angles, and we have also expanded the definition of beauty."
At this Winter Olympics, the amazing performance of Chinese player Gu Ailing touched hundreds of millions of Chinese people, especially her last jump in the big jump competition, challenging the super difficult moves she had never done before and completing it perfectly. Yang Yang said, "I believe that everyone is like me, I feel that Gu Ailing's play is too incredible, I even let my daughter go to her game, I also hope that her performance can affect more children." ”
Zhao Dan, one of the two flag bearers of the Chinese delegation at the opening ceremony of the Winter Olympics, encouraged both boys and girls to try out what seemed like a thrilling bobsleigh sport after competing in the steel-framed bobsleigh race.
In the Winter Olympics, which has won consecutive victories over the Chinese women's ice hockey team of Denmark and Japan, captain Yu Baiwei hopes that more girls can be influenced by Chinese women's ice skating, go to the ice rink, and learn ice hockey. Hockey is known as the brave's game, but bravery doesn't belong to boys alone.
The dazzling performance of female athletes in the Olympic arena is not simply a reflection of equality between men and women, but also conveys the inspiring significance of all women and girls, Yan Jiarong said: "They show women's beauty from different angles. Their appearance epitomizes that women have propped up half the sky on the sports stage. I hope that there will be more women in the future, going to the arena and walking to the front of the stage. ”
Yang Yang said, "I use their stories to inspire my daughter, I hope that she can also be like these athletes, especially like these girls, become very brave, and be able to do what she wants to do in the future." I believe that many moms, like me, want to use these athlete stories to inspire their children to grow. ”
Gu Ailing, who is deeply loved by the people, has highlighted its commercial value. In Asia, she has become another world-class female sports star after Li Na and Naomi Osaka.
If purely from the perspective of athletic ability and competitive level, women are doomed to be incomparable with male athletes in many sports because of physiological differences, but there is no difference between male and female athletes in the Olympic dream, the spirit of sports and the educational significance transmitted through sports. Xie Jun said that we now emphasize equality between men and women, that is because there is still inequality between men and women, there is prejudice against women, so the most important thing is not only that we have achieved equality between men and women in form, only when gender equality is no longer a matter of concern, female athletes can really get equality.
Beijing, February 17 (Xinhua) --
China Youth Daily, China Youth Network reporter Ci Xin Source: China Youth Daily
Source: China Youth Daily