Alamy

From tennis to swimming and soccer, female athletes are at the top of their game right now, but they are still not receiving the support that men do.

Despite accumulating international titles, the US women’s national soccer team are currently having to pursue a gender discrimination lawsuit for equal pay (above, a photo of them from August 2019). In advance of the trial, their governing body, U.S. Soccer, has filed court documents declaring them less skilled than their male counterparts.

But the problem isn’t just that the gender pay gap also exists in sport — even the average woman just wanting to have enough energy to hit the gym regularly is at a disadvantage. The underlying research that makes good nutrition and effective training possible has also all been done on men, says exercise physiologist and nutrition scientist Stacy Sims in her TEDxTauranga Talk. “[During my early research I was told] ‘women are an anomaly, so we don’t necessarily study women in sport nutrition or exercise science’… I looked around and I thought surely with 50 percent or more of the population being female, aren’t the men the anomaly and they don’t know it yet?”

New Zealand-based Sims is on a mission to get the sporting world to recognize that “women aren’t just small men” but have their own set of nutritional and physiological needs.

While everyone’s body is different, there are patterns in physiology that are particular to most women and deeply impact their training. One of these is the menstrual cycle. Sims is frustrated that this isn’t addressed enough in sport and training. “This is one of the reasons girls drop out of sport, because no one talks about it… and wait til you get to perimenopause and menopause; it’s like tumbleweeds.” She has also seen clients in her own practice who have felt it was normal and “easier” for their periods to disappear during intense training.

While some studies have suggested that it can be useful to plan strength training around your menstrual cycle, and that you may even be more at risk of injury in particular stages of your cycle, we are still lacking a large and robust body of research to tailor training and competition around a fundamental aspect of many top athletes’ physiology.

In nutrition, too, Sims says that studies on high intensity interval training, the ketogenic diet and paleo intermittent fasting are all done on (often sedentary) men, then generalized over to the entire fitness population. “If we look at how women have been marginalized [in this process], they’re just assuming that this information is going to work for them as well.”

This mindset is also letting women down when it comes to something as fundamental as equipment, says Lynn Le. She’s the founder of women’s boxing gear and sportswear brand Society Nine (named after the Title IX legislation that made gender discrimination in sport illegal).

A former kickboxing instructor, Le founded the Portland, Oregon company in 2013 after struggling for years with combat sports equipment that hadn’t been designed for women. Clients would show up to her classes wearing children’s boxing gloves, or “some brand’s version of a pink glove, and they almost always didn’t fit the wrist and feel supportive. The material felt super chintzy; it just had no realm of seriousness at all in either fit or quality, and I realised I didn’t really have a place to direct them.”

Le herself had resorted to doubling up on the hand wraps usually used by combat fighters, so she could force her hand into a fist inside men’s gloves that were too big. As women’s hands are narrower than men’s, Le knew that a dedicated design was necessary not just for comfort but for basic safety.

“[In combat sport] your first line of defense is creating that shock absorption through the power of your own body, which is compressing your hand into as close of a perfectly formed fist as you can. If you’re wearing a glove that’s two sizes too big, how on earth can you possibly do that?… You want to enjoy what you’re doing, and to enjoy what you’re doing, you want to wear things that are comfortable, support you and help you prevent injury.”

Le and her development team also came up against the severe lack of research on women’s physiology when they were trying to design shin guards. There were no studies on how to make a suitable fit for women, despite women having a much more variable sizing from the knee down than men do. “We had to go back to high school biology and really try to understand the human body… Women’s bodies are incredible and complicated. They’re way more different in variability than men’s bodies. That’s the number one thing I’ve learned.”

But for Le, founding Society Nine was about more than solving an equipment problem. “The industry wasn’t really interested in representing all self identifying women, from their products to their stories. If they did, they did it in such a way that it tokenized individual women singularly rather than as a collective. So many brands… only talk about being the one, being the champion, being the winner, and that is not a recipe for longevity.”

Her own experience with combat sports changed her life, and created a community for her when she was going through a difficult period. Now she sees an outpouring of the same stories from her customers.

Le’s aim is to make it known that this community exists far beyond what is regularly shown in advertising, and it is welcoming. “Why we train, whether for fitness or competitively, goes so much deeper than glory or attention.” Society Nine works hard to make sure that whenever the company uses the term “women” that it’s defined as “self-identified women”, and it continues to expand its sizing and representation.

The industry is even more alienating for trans women and intersex athletes, who face not only a lack of representation but a serious dearth of research, with debates and disagreements at the highest level about how and whether they can compete.

In terms of what the future looks like, it’s still an uphill battle. Even now, as a professor at the University of Waikato and having held a research position at Stanford, Sims gets asked why it’s important to study women when “we don’t know enough about men.”

She recently published ROAR, a nutrition and fitness guide for women, and she wants to see more women realising the full and unique potential of their bodies. “We can really work with our physiology to improve our health outcomes, to improve our performance. Whether that be walking up the mountain, running a fast 5k, or winning Ironman. Whatever your goal is.”

For Le, the aim is to keep serving her community and to keep having challenging conversations. Though she received a strong welcome when the company started, some of the push back she encountered in the early days still remains. Like sports pro shop retailers telling her that women don’t really come to their store. “Maybe they don’t come into your store because there’s actually no women’s product. There’s no reason for them to enter if they are shown blatantly that they aren’t served or thought about.”

Society Nine also continues to donate equipment to combat sports programs for women and young people across the country. “I want to keep on helping self-identified women and other underrepresented people. I want them to feel seen … What motivates me isn’t just making really beautiful stuff that works. It’s also telling these women’s stories.”

Watch Stacy Sims’s TEDxTauranga Talk now:

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Mary Halton is Assistant Ideas Editor at TED, and a science journalist based in the Pacific Northwest.

This piece was adapted for TED-Ed from this Ideas article.

Armand Burger, Getty Images | iStock

All children deserve to learn in a safe, supportive educational environment. One education organization working toward this goal is GLSEN, which aims “to create safe and affirming schools for all, regardless of sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender expression.” Below, GLSEN ambassador and youth advocate Jeffrey Marsh offers 7 key pieces of advice for teachers in this excerpt from their excellent book, How To Be You:

I work with young people. They write to me all the time. They message me about their experiences. They communicate. They respect me. And there are a few magical things I’ve learned about how to treat them. If you really want to reach young people, if you want to know what helps them feel safe and cared for and ready to learn from you as an educator or school administrator or camp counselor, read on.

1. Really listen. Seems obvious, right? This is first because it is the most important. So many ills can be alleviated with concentrated respectful listening. You know deep down that you want to feel accepted and cared for and you want to feel like your opinions and experiences matter. The same is true for any student or young person you work with. Don’t dismiss. Don’t conflate. Don’t belittle and don’t rush any young person you’re talking to. Take the care you would give to a close friend and give that to a student. Sit for awhile. Pause before you respond. Really pay attention. Don’t cut them off. Listen. Also, don’t get all high and mighty. Assuming what someone means without actually asking for clarification is a big fat CDE: communication dead end. If you want a student to show up, then you need to do the work of showing them that it’s safe to do so. Along these lines, please ask follow-up questions. Don’t try to lead the conversation, but lean into it: “What do you mean?” Can you say more about that? Asking shows you care — it shows you’re listening.

2. Get to know the lingo. One of the best ways to show respect to someone from a different background or generation is to understand the terms they use — especially when it comes to how they define themselves. Some of my fans’ Twitter bios read like this: “I’m an a-romantic pansexual trans-fem DMAB.” I realized at a certain point that I needed a vocab lesson if I was going to be of any use at all! In my day (which wasn’t all that long ago) we didn’t use any of these terms. I needed to “meet them where they were” if I was going to connect with and help any young person. So I learned. I asked around. I found out what the terms were, what folks in school were using to define themselves and their experiences of the world. Knowing what the vocabulary was went a long way to helping me show that I meant business and was ready to accept and respect whoever I was talking to.

3. Lobby for safe spaces (or create them). Sometimes a teacher needs to be the one to advocate for the use of school space for clubs and gatherings that the school deems controversial or unimportant. Whether it’s an LGBT or religious or just a hobby club, young people need at least one safe space to make connections with peers and find out they are not alone or freakish or as weird as they may be thinking. A safe space of this kind has several hallmarks. It is clean and respectful. It is private. It is free from other activities and groups. It is free from haters and bullies, whether they are students or teachers who disagree with what the club is offering. If a school refuses to allow a safe space that you know your students need, look for ways to assist with the club outside your school.

4. Take a forthright unequivocal stand against bullying. In big ways and small ways, in your private life and in your public persona as an educator, you must take an anti-bullying stance. If any student senses an attitude of “Boys will be boys” or “Kids need to toughen up” or “It’s not that big of a deal,” you’ve already lost them. If you aren’t willing to take a strong no-tolerance policy against bullying in your own school or classroom, you will never reach your students effectively. I’d recommend zero tolerance. If you witness bullying or you find out it’s going on, you must show all the kids involved that bullying behavior has real (negative) consequences. Many schools have a structure in place for this kind of disciplinary action and my advice is to use that structure without hesitation. If you want to reach young people, you must be willing to respect them by keeping them physically and psychologically safe while they learn. Work to make your school’s anti-bullying policy comprehensive. An appropriate policy should cover gender, race, sexual orientation, gender identity, and all the reasons that kids are bullied.

5. Get help if you need it. Don’t believe the lie that you need to do it all yourself. You are not alone. There are a ton of organizations (GLSEN, for example) that love to help make schools safe for everyone. So Google for help. Reach out. Don’t get caught up in thinking that communicating with and helping students is all up to you.

6. Honor their experience. Just because you’re older and probably wiser doesn’t mean you’re right. If you disagree with a student, try interacting with them as you would with an adult. For whatever reason, many teachers just tend to assume that a student’s views and experiences are a little less valid than an adult’s. Why do we do this? It seems basically arbitrary in most respects. Sure, a young person is less like likely to have the depth and breadth of experiences that an adult has had, but that may not always be true. And if it is true, does it automatically mean that their opinions and experiences are somehow less valuable? Well…no.

7. Give yourself some credit. If only for just a moment, don’t judge your performance as a teacher; don’t get down about how you’re not doing this “right.” See yourself from the outside. Take note of how hard you’re trying. Notice how hard the profession of teaching can be. And notice how deeply impactful you are every day. We all remember the teacher who inspired us, who was nice to us when we needed it, or who we felt really got us. You’re changing lives, and it’s totally okay to acknowledge your good hard work enthusiastically and often.

Author bio: Jeffrey Marsh is a youth advocate and the author of How To Be You.

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