#EachforEqual: What International Women’s Day Means in Sports
International Women’s Day is celebrated annually on March 8th, yet the global campaign theme continues all year round to encourage action. This year, the theme of the day is “Each for Equal” which draws attention to the difference individuals can make. The campaign slogan says it all: “An equal world is an enabled world.” The idea is drawn from the notion of “collective individualism” in which our individual actions, conversations, behaviours and mindsets can have an impact on our larger society.
There are big changes happening around the globe for female athletes and women in the sports industry. Females are rising up for equal pay, sponsorship, and visibility in more ways than ever before. Everyday pay parity is being adopted and a more gender-balanced world is being generated by way of grassroots awareness and highly visible campaigns. Women continue to break barriers in sports, are smashing records and are accomplishing incredible feats for any gender and it is not going unnoticed.
Here is a list of just a few of the most iconic moments in history for women in sports:
When Katherine Switzer didn't qualify for the Boston Marathon, it wasn't for a slow time but rather because of her gender. In 1967, marathon running was strictly a man's sport. Despite leering reporters, jeering onlookers and even a race official who tried to tackle her, she finished with a respectable time. Five years later, "dames" were allowed in the race.
Billie Jean King isn't only known for being the No. 1 ranked female in tennis for five straight years—she's famous for crushing 1939 Wimbledon champion Bobby Riggs in a 1973 match rightfully dubbed "Battle of the Sexes."
When Danica Patrick zoomed across the finish line of the 2008 Japan Indy, she became the first (and only) woman to win an IndyCar Series race. The next year, she took third place in the Indianapolis 500, the only woman to ever make the top three, proving not just that women can be excellent drivers, but that we can be serious competitors in the male-driven sport.
In 2010, professional bowler Kelly Kulick made sports history by winning the 2010 PBA Tournament of Champions and became the first woman to win a PBA Tour event.
The 2012 London Olympics marked the first time the games had seen every country in the competition send female athletes in addition to men. And while this wasn't the first time Muslim women had competed—in 2004, Roqaya Al Gassra was the first woman to run in a headscarf—it marked a new era for gender equality in sport. The 2012 Olympics also introduced boxing for women, and it was the first time that women competed in every sport in the program.
In 2014, Mo-ne Davis became the first female pitcher to win the Little League World Series. Davis led her team to victory with a 70-mile-per-hour fast ball, becoming the first girl to pitch a winning game in Little League World Series history. She also landed on the cover of Sports Illustrated and earned the title of "Sports Kid of the Year."
At the 2019 Gymnastics World Championships, Simone Biles won her 24th competition medal to become the most decorated gymnast in the history of the competition, male or female. She then finished the competition by winning her 25th medal.
At the 2019 World Athletics Championships in Doha, less than a year after giving birth to her daughter Camryn, Allyson Felix took to the track in the 4x400m mixed relay and finished the race as the greatest World Championship competitor in history. The gold medal she won in the relay took her World Championship gold-medal tally to 12, surpassing Usain Bolt’s record.
Many females are making the transition to coaching male professional sports. In this year's 2020 Superbowl, San Francisco 49ers offensive assistant coach Katie Sowers made headlines as the first female coach in the Superbowl. In 2015 former WNBA super star Becky Hammon became the first-ever female head coach in the NBA's Summer League team. She went on to lead the Spurs to the Las Vegas Summer League title in July of 2015, becoming the first female NBA head coach to win a Summer League title. In the five years since Hammon became the first full-time female assistant coach in NBA league history, 10 women now occupy NBA benches.
In January 2020, the Women’s National Basketball Players Association finalized a labor deal that will triple cash compensation to top players and boost the average league salary above six figures for the first time. Under the new collective-bargaining agreement, the WNBA’s top players will be able to earn more than $500,000. The significant changes under the new CBA are largely funded by the owners and teams, the NBA and the newly implemented WNBA Changemakers Partnership Platform program which currently includes AT&T, Deloitte and Nike.
In February of 2020, Sabrina Ionescu made NCAA history, becoming the first college basketball player-male or female- to have 2,000 points, 1,000 assists and 1,000 rebounds in her career. She is also the all-time NCAA leader-for women and men- in triple doubles.