In a way, the FSFI was undercut by its own success. By 1936 the group had increased membership from five to thirty countries and had secured allies in the IAAF, but, Mary H. Leigh and Thérèse M. Bonin argue, “no matter how determined they were and no matter how good their arguments were, women could not get very far without the support and alliance of the male sport establishment.”35 The IAAF had incrementally taken more and more control of women’s track and field and absorbed it into the Olympic schedule.
In a last-ditch effort to maintain control of women’s sports, the FSFI asserted that unless the IOC offered a full roster of events to women and afforded them a measure of representation at the IOC itself, they would cease participating in track and field events. Edström wrote Avery Brundage, then the top Olympic official in the US: “Madame Milliat had sent a letter asking that all Women’s Sport be omitted from the Olympic Games, as she wished to have separate Olympic games for women. The proposition was rejected.”36 In another letter he fumed: “I suppose you know that Mme Milliat’s federation has caused us so much trouble that we certainly have no interest at all to support it. We should like the whole thing to disappear from the surface of the earth.”37 In 1936 the FSFI folded, after serving great purpose.
One result of the FSFI’s activism was to induce the IAAF to include a handful of women’s track and field events at the 1928 Amsterdam Olympics as an experimental trial (the discus, the running high jump, 100-meter dash, 800-meter run, and the four by 100-meter relay).38 Despite being disappointed with the limited number of events, the FSFI voted to approve the offer, although female athletes from Britain showed their disapproval by boycotting the Games. Meanwhile, traditionalists chafed at the inclusion of women. The minutes of the IOC Executive Committee reported: “A harsh discussion between Edström and [Reginald J.] Kentish took place as the former points out that the IAAF absolutely wishes to have the 4 women-events on the program. Kentish points out that in most countries the masculin [sic] and feminine sports are separated and he thinks that such a decision will not be very popular.”39
Edström and the IAAF eventually won out, with more and more women’s track and field events staged at the Games. Still, men debated which sports were appropriate for women. Sometimes, those who wished to limit the range of sports positioned themselves as progressive advocates of women’s athletics. For instance, Dr. Frederick Rand Rogers, the director of the Department of Health and Physical Education for the State of New York, adopted the approach of “more, rather than less, but of the right kind.” Cloaking paternalism and sexism in the respectable garb of science, Rogers argued for “less strenuous” sports for women, and opposed women’s participation in the 1932 Olympics.40
Alice Milliat and her colleagues used a classic inside-outside recipe for political change. They worked inside the corridors of power with IAAF and IOC power brokers while creating a viable alternative outside the IOC’s orbit—the Women’s Olympics. Their relentless pressure on the men who controlled the Olympics paid off in an early breakthrough for women in sport.
But an uphill battle still lay ahead. Many sports administrators were skeptical of women’s sports, including Brundage. While embroiled in a 1932 controversy over whether the athlete extraordinaire Mildred “Babe” Didrikson was an amateur or a professional, he remarked: “You know, the ancient Greeks kept women out of their athletic games. They wouldn’t even let them on the sidelines. I’m not so sure but they were right.” Didrikson had been suspended by the Amateur Athletic Union (AAU) for alleged professionalism because she had appeared in an advertisement for milk. This was enough for Brundage to advocate suspension, although Didrikson was later reinstated.41 At the time Brundage was head of the Amateur Athletic Union, so his opinions carried weight. In 1949, as IOC vice president, he wrote: “I think it is quite well known that I am lukewarm on most of the [Olympic] events for women for a number of reasons which I will not bother to expound because I probably will be outvoted anyway. I think women’s events should be confined to those appropriate for women: swimming, tennis, figure skating and fencing but certainly not shot putting.”42
In 1957, Brundage still clung to these beliefs. In a circular letter to members of the IOC he wrote, “Many still believe that events for women should be eliminated from the Games, but this group is now a minority. There is still, however, a well grounded protest against events which are not truly feminine, like putting a shot, or those too strenuous for most of the opposite sex, such as distance runs.”43 These opinions were very much in tune with those emerging from the IOC. The General Session minutes from the April 1953 meeting in Mexico City read—under the heading of “Reducing the number of athletes and officials”—that “women not to be excluded from the Games, but only participation in ‘suitable’ sports.”44 Some within the IOC claimed that limiting women’s sports was a way to cut costs in the face of an emerging concern with “gigantism.” They argued that the Olympics were becoming too big and unwieldy—and that slicing women’s sports could slim down the Games.
Sometimes the mainstream press could be even more extreme. In 1953, Arthur Daley wrote in the New York Times that he would entertain the idea of eliminating women from the Olympics entirely. “There’s just nothing feminine or enchanting about a girl with beads of perspiration on her alabaster brow, the result of grotesque contortions in events totally unsuited to female architecture,” he wrote. “It’s probably boorish to say it,” he conceded, “but any self-respecting schoolboy can achieve superior performances to a woman champion.” Boorish indeed, but Daley wasn’t finished: “The Greeks knew exactly what they were doing when they invented the Olympics … Not only did they bar the damsels from competing but they wouldn’t even admit them as spectators.” He cautioned: “Don’t get me wrong, please. Women are wonderful. But when those delightful creatures begin to toss the discus or put the shot—well, it does something to a guy. And it ain’t love, Buster.”45
Such commentary from prominent journalists notwithstanding, more and more women were participating in the Games, and from countries that did not necessarily have strong Olympic histories. The Soviet Union helped jump-start participation of female athletes in the 1950s as the athletic arena became a proxy for international tension. Soviet involvement would also play a role in the emergence and maintenance of another alternative to the IOC’s Games: the Workers’ Olympiads.
Workers of the World, Exert!
In 1928 the Baron wrote, “I have been delighted to see labor organizations embrace the Olympic ideal.” He may have been subconsciously tipping his hat to the working-class athletes who were organizing a vibrant alternative to the Olympics.46 The International Workers’ Olympiads heralded a fresh ethos that blended sport with solidarity, socialism, cooperation, and working-class tradition.47 More about healthy lifestyles and class opportunity than hyper-competition and elites, the Workers’ Games pushed back against the nationalism plaguing the established Olympics; they were meant to circumvent prejudice and jingoism while undermining the growing fixation on record-breaking performances by superstar athletes. People of all races, ethnicities, and genders were welcome to take part. Organized primarily by European socialists, the Workers’ Olympiads took place in 1925 (Frankfurt), 1931 (Vienna), and 1937 (Antwerp), before World War II put an end to the experiment. Labor activists also staged Winter Workers’ Olympiads in those years, in Germany, Austria, and Czechoslovakia.
In 1936 another socialist-inspired alternative to the Olympics was scheduled, the People’s Olympiad in Barcelona, but it was canceled by the July outbreak of the Spanish Civil War. Nevertheless, a June letter of invitation from the Olimpíada Popular de Barcelona to the Amateur Athletic Union in the US captures the spirit of the Workers’ Games movement: “The object of the Peoples’ Olympiad is to unite in friendly competition the sportsmen of all countries, regardless of race, and thus to give a practical demonstration of the true Olympic spirit—the fraternity of races and peoples.” The letter continued, “In the struggle against fascism the broad masses of all countries must stand shoulder to shoulder, and Popular Sport is a valuable medium through which they may demonstrate their international solidarity.”48 Implicit in this invitation was the recognition that sport was no mere opium of the masses, but rather a powerful lever for political consciousness.