HAYLEY WICKENHEISER
The late Charlotte Whitton, mayor of Ottawa and doughty feminist, is fondly remembered for her wit as well as for her canny politicking. “For a woman to succeed in a man’s world,” she said, “she has to be twice as good as the men: fortunately, that is not hard.” There was perhaps a touch of exaggeration in the gibe, but it certainly contained a grain of truth: in many fields, not just politics, the odds are set against women from the start; and examples do not abound of women who have outshone men in a competitive situation. Staying with politics for a moment, one can cite the admirable Queen Elizabeth I of England, who had the advantage of inheriting a throne, but who used her position to control the men around her like a lion-tamer. Three centuries later, the less admirable Margaret Thatcher rose to the top from humble beginnings with vitriolic ruthlessness, and controlled the men around her like a schoolyard bully. What happens in politics, sometimes also happens in sports.
In most sports, the playing-field is far from even, and the best women have little chance of outdoing the best men, simply due to the disparity of physical strength. Where strength is not a factor, the disadvantage vanishes. There does remain, however, a different kind of difficulty for women, exclusiveness: many sports have an emphatically male tradition, and are run by men who cannot think outside that box; the result is that women have fewer opportunities to develop their talents, and less good facilities to train in. And even when an exceptionally talented woman comes along, able to take on any man and give a good account of herself, the door all too often is closed in her face — it is almost as though, in the eyes of the officials who refuse her entry application, there would be something shameful in any man’s being beaten by a mere woman. A clear case in point is that of Susan Nattrass, one of the world’s best trapshooters, male or female. In fire-arms events, there is really no reason why women and men should have to compete separately: physiologically they can compete on equal terms; that point was clearly proved in one of the rare events in which women and men were allowed to compete against each other. Most of the time, though, such permission was refused by the men in charge, despite Nattrass’ obvious qualifications as six-time women’s world champion, as holder of four women’s world records, and as one of the few trap-shooters of either sex ever to have shot a perfect score — she did so three times. She repeatedly tried to break through the sexist barrier, but the almost invariable reaction was rejection and condescension.
That kind of dismissiveness, however, is not confined to gun-sports: it has reared its patriarchal head, notoriously, in ice-hockey — as witness the case of young Justine Blainey. In 1985, when Blainey was twelve, she was chosen to play on a boys’ hockey team in the Metro Toronto Hockey League. She demonstrably had the skill to hold her own there, and would have been able to raise her game to a higher level there than would have been possible for her in what was, at that time, the less demanding world of girls’ hockey. Unfortunately, the Stone Age men in charge of the Ontario Hockey Association barred her from playing, on grounds that were manifestly sexist. Two sturdy women’s organizations promptly took her case to the courts, and eventually they forced the OHA to back down. But the legal process was long and involved; by the time a favourable decision was rendered, the season was over, and Blainey’s opportunity was lost.
It is a sad thing that this young girl, who loved hockey and excelled in it, was so disappointed and (to call a spade a spade) so insulted by her mistreatment that she quit the sport. Who knows? If her case had been sensitively handled and some flexibility had been shown, she might have grown up to be another Hayley Wickenheiser. Even Wickenheiser, though, had an uphill battle when faced with the male version of chauvinism, North American style. After she powered Team Canada to the women’s Olympic gold medal in Salt Lake City (where they had to beat not only a strong American team, but also a biassed American referee), her outstanding capabilities should have made her a welcome addition to any hockey team on the continent. But none of the men’s teams seized the opportunity to hire her. It was as though they could not wrap their minds around the idea of suiting up a woman. Were they afraid, perhaps, that she might outshine some of their regulars? Be that as it may, their loss was Europe’s gain; she joined a men’s team in Finland, and played well enough to help the team gain promotion to a higher league the following season. For personal reasons of her own, she left that next season: it was too great a strain, emotionally, being so far away from her husband and her son. But Calgary Flames, take note: this is one tremendous athlete; maybe with her on side, you might have won the 2004 Stanley Cup you so narrowly lost.
As things stand, Wickenheiser has had to content herself with being a superstar in the women’s game. But even if that has meant, for her, having to swallow a certain disappointment and having to live with an irritating prejudice, there has been an incidental benefit to the world of hockey. Fans exposed to the women’s game, in recent seasons, have come to realise how much truer it is to the principles of hockey at its best than the men’s game is: it is not beset with moronic violence, it employs no thuggish enforcers, and it refrains from planned muggings; instead, it relies on fluid playmaking, good stickhandling, and fundamental sportsmanship. If some of that decent approach could make a dent in the entrenched male resistance to change, the sport might yet be saved from sinking even further into the pit of greed, disregard for the rules, and unrestrained aggression that threatens to relegate it to the same oblivion as overtook cook-fighting in times past. But one cannot, realistically, be too sanguine: hoping for the salvation of hockey by female superiority may turn out to be rather like hoping for the salvation of the Roman Catholic Church by the ordination of women.
