After Atalanta

I'm not the only one trying to get back on course (sorry for the lack of blogging). Professional skiers start their competitive season soon. And American skier Lindsey Vonn, the it girl (much to Julia Mancuso's dismay) of the last winter Olympics, is looking to compete against the men in the first race of the season. It does not seem that people are opposed to the coed competition. Skiers--both male and female--are encouraging Vonn's attempt to test herself. The issue is that the men's competition is on the same course the women's race will be held at the following week; a race that Vonn wants to compete in as well. But she--or any other racer--is not allowed to race the course beforehand. Various committees and powers-that-be are looking into the whole thing. I think if Vonn gets permission we will see a lot more men versus women talk. Interesting and irksome is how the FIS World Cup is divided. Under the gender pull-down menu on the calendar page is "me...

Because if Lindsey Vonn had a plan to gain Michael Phelps-like fame by winning many medals and becoming a highly decorated American skier, she might have to fall back on her modeling career. I refrained from commenting on the little upsurge in controversy after my colleague dared to suggest that the pose of Vonn on a recent SI cover, the one with her ass in the air and perfectly coiffed hair and impeccable make-up superimposed on a mountain, was slightly problematic. Though I was tempted to comment on how ugly the response to something that was nothing new: people including Dr. LaVoi and myself and many others have been noting the problematic ways in which female athletes are depicted for a long, long time. Luckily she and others addressed the sexist, homophobic responses. So now we can all move on and think about Vonn's latest SI appearance: the photos of her in the annual swimsuit issue. There's no question that these are indeed sexual pictures; there is no question of in...

The Women's World Cup held in Canada last weekend prompted this very good article addressing the lack of female coaches in the sport. With the 35th anniversary of Title IX and the continued work of scholars like Vivian Acosta and Linda Carpenter, we in the US hear about the lack of women coaching fairly often. I probably see at least one article on it a week these days. But according to the reporting out of Canada, the situation in international women's skiing is far worse. There was only one female coach present at a meeting of coaches that took place during the World Cup. And most every skier the reporter spoke with said she preferred a male coach. I had flashbacks to my master's degree research on gender and coaching in women's ice hockey where no player said she preferred a female coach and only a few said they had no preference. This was despite the fact that the majority of them had been coached by very successful women. None of the skiers interviewed could give v...