Ten thousand steps and more. It is already the most beautiful victory for women of the Olympic Games in Paris 2024: parity. For the first time, the number of participants will be strictly equal to that of participants. It took a century. This long obstacle course for the full recognition of women’s sport began just a hundred years ago with the creation, on October 31, 1921, of the International Women’s Sports Federation (FSFI), by the Frenchwoman Alice Milliat.
At the time, the detractors of sports practices among women were numerous, with arguments of a medical, social and moral nature. “Sports, which require significant physical effort, cannot be suitable for their supposedly fragile nature, just as physical effort could harm the genitals and therefore reproduction. For these two main reasons, it is hygienic or aesthetic gymnastics which have been reserved for young girls in France since the 19th century.e century “, writes sports historian Florence Carpentier, in an article dedicated to Alice Milliat, published in 2019 in 20 & 21 History review.
It was not Pierre de Coubertin, president of the International Olympic Committee until 1925, who would encourage their participation in major competitions. “A small female Olympiad next to the large male Olympiad. Where would be the interest? (…) Impractical, uninteresting, unsightly, and we are not afraid to add: incorrect, such would be in our opinion this feminine semi-Olympiad ”, Will he go so far as to write in July 1912 in the Olympic review.
“Violence of oppositions”
An accomplished athlete (she has distinguished herself in rowing in particular) and a feminist, Alice Milliat will change the situation by federating the women’s sports movement in France and then at the world level. In 1921, at the age of 37, she created the FSFI, which she was to lead. “The main objective of the FSFI is immediately to take control of international women’s competitions to escape the tutelage of men’s athletics federations”, emphasizes Florence Carpentier in her 2019 article. From 1922, Alice Milliat organized the Women’s World Games on the model of the men’s Olympic Games. His daring pays off. Six years later, women’s athletics events made their debut at the 1928 Amsterdam Games.
“What struck me the most in my research on the subject was the violence of the oppositions suffered by Alice Milliat, and her ability to overcome them during the twenty years she worked for women’s sport., tell the World Florence Carpentier. At the start, however, she had multiple handicaps: woman, young, from a modest and provincial background… ” The FSFI disappeared in 1936, but the name of this pioneer began to emerge from the shadows, thanks in particular to its foundation.
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