On Thu, Jul 29, 2021 at 3:01 PM PGage <[email protected]> wrote: > There was a great discussion between several of the Softball commentators, > one of them a high profile US Medalist from the past, about a specific > Olympics, I think in the mid 90s, that they viewed as the year women’s > athletics really blossomed from the seeds first sewn by the passage of > Title IX in I thin 1972. In that Olympics women basketball, softball, > soccer and maybe a few other sports really shone. One of them talked about > how when she was a girl she never saw any role models for being an athlete, > and in the current Olympics there were several women athletes whose mothers > had been Olympians. > > I remember the many arguments over Title IX over the years, but by now it > is clear just how needed and successful that has been. >
There's an article on Five Thirty Eight about why elite female gymnasts tend to be so young. Before 1972 the top gymnasts were in their mid-20s and older. The two factors that led to the push to get girls started as early as age 4 were that gymnastics was completely amateur and young women were not offered scholarships, and young women were told their primary roles were to be wives and mothers and they were encouraged to treat sports as a hobby rather than a pursuit. Young girls weren't under these pressures and elite trainers started to focus on them. https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/gymnasts-age-olympics/ -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "TVorNotTV" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/tvornottv/CAJE-FiGiqXaqMFNXByuVhuDTVVuLTZ%3DfrWsS5_ZJ%3DTb8hX-z2Q%40mail.gmail.com.
