Unless you have been asleep or willfully ignorant the last few years (decades?), you are probably aware that women in the workplace often face an uneven playing field, are rewarded with less for the same or more work, and are often mistreated by male supervisors. Athletics is no different which, like a lot of workplaces, started as a man’s world where women entered under the expectation that they effectively would be treated the same as men. You want to be equal? Then you get equal treatment. But in the same way that a unisex t-shirt looks and feels awful on some people, one size does not fit all. Two elite runners have recently written (and read for the listeners) memoirs of their time running as kids, college athletes, and then as professionals with sponsorships, coaches, and paychecks coming in “just” for getting out there and competing. Both books present a compelling argument for recognizing that women are both equal and different, and that acknowledging just that would benefit the industry as a whole.
The Longest Race, by Kara Goucher, is a deep dive into her running career, and especially her time running for Nike’s elite Oregon Project under now-disgraced coach Alberto Salazar. Goucher’s story brings out not only how challenging it was for her to run for an abusive, manipulative coach, as she depicts Salazar, but also how Nike, profit-driven to the end, treated her more like a commodity than a human being. We see her evolve from a shy midwestern girl-next-door to a woman willing to risk her career by blowing the whistle on Nike, Salazar, and what she knew was going on behind the scenes.
Lauren Fleshman came up a few years behind Goucher on the running scene. She, too, ran for Nike, though not for the Oregon Project or for Salazar. Her memoir, Good For A Girl, dives more into how running and athletics at large are still trying to shoehorn female athletes into strategies and techniques that are made for men and by men, and so do not take into account how things like hormones and diet affect women differently. The result? Female athletes get hurt or don’t see improvements and thus get branded as weak. Again, as much as it sounds like a book for runners, it really depicts the sports world as a microcosm of the larger world, where women are systemically expected to respond to the same culture and training as men, but then biases are confirmed when they get hurt or don’t perform up to expectations. Fleshman argues that women are both different and equal and that acknowledging such a thing is even possible is the first step to improvement, for female athletes, for sports, and for the multi-billion dollar sports industry.
What I find interesting beyond the main storyline in either book, however, is that both runners talk about how women, including they themselves, are often silent supporters of the very causes that work against them, believing the stereotypes until or even after they find themselves on the wrong side of them. In the context of diet culture and disordered eating, toxic leaders, body image, clothing, and more, they acknowledge where they have been the problem and how they have learned to do better.
They also talk about the importance of a social support system, and how when it is absent or withheld (as it was in Goucher’s case), they and other female athletes don’t perform as well.
Most women I know can relate to the need for a support system. And sadly, most women can recall a time or place when they could have been more supportive of another woman, where they could have been a better friend or colleague in the face of a messed up situation. Due to lack of knowledge or fear of repercussions, however, they stood silently by. So it is refreshing to hear two elite athletes who rose to the top of their sport acknowledge not only that this problem exists, but also that any of us can take a moment to self-reflect and find an opportunity to be a part of the support system. It is not too late to recognize the areas in which we intellectually understand the concept of “equal and different” but also struggle to support each other wholly. Whether it’s thinking thoughts about women who don’t fit a certain body type or believing a narrative of another woman’s weakness when you don’t know the whole story or some other moment where your entrenched thoughts override what your enlightened brain knows to be true, we can all stop ourselves and say, “Wait… I can do better.”
Changes are underfoot in exercise science (women are actually included in studies now!) and coaches are increasingly becoming aware of how being female and being athletic work together. But it’s going to take more than just the changes from others for this important work to take hold. We all have a responsibility to support each other, acknowledge when something is not right, and help each other get through the tough times. Because we are different, we need each other. That’s what makes us stronger.