Early women in sport

Watching the movie Dare to Compete and reading a section in the book about women competing in pedestrianism helps me realize just how far women and this country have come in the past century. Reading that section where there were women who actually walked for competition and that the media covered as extensively as they did blew my mind. I just cant fathom the idea of following a man OR a women walking as a sort of competition. I was reading it saying to myself, "REALLY? WALKING?" The other part of the reading that left me scratching my head me was the doctors who claimed that these women could do physical damage to themselves if they participated in pedestrianism. Are you kidding me? I cant believe people actually believed to that! I understand that technology and science were heavily lacking back in those days but its funny how it seems that back then people will believe whatever they read. Unfortunately that can also be the case today. Anyways its obvious that women have come along way since the days of pedestrianism where a women now can verbally threaten and official on a national stage and only see a financial penalty where back around the beginning of the 20th century that women would see a much larger penalty!

Bennett Grissom

Kin. 338i Sec. 6