Race Stopped Because of Fast Woman

The great artist Goya (Francisco de Goya y Lucentes) inscribed "Yo lo vi" ("I saw this") on the plate bearing his etching "Los Desastres de la Guerra" ("The Horrors of War").

I probably will never do anything as great as any of his work.  I do, however, tell my students stories (in the context of whatever we're doing in class)--from my own or other people's lives--and end them with, "Yes, that happened during my lifetime."

One example is that of the Lovings.  Richard, who was white, and Mildred, who was black, married in Washington, DC.  One week after I was born, cops in Virginia burst into their home and arrested them.  Their case went all the way to the Supreme Court, which decided for them and struck down all remaining miscegenation laws in the United States--less than a month before I turned nine years old.

Another story comes from a woman I knew.  She went to a Seven Sisters college back when women's institutions of higher learning were still called, usually dismissively, "girls' schools. (Even when I was an undergraduate in the late 1970s, the women's sports teams were often called "girls'" teams.)  She applied for a job in a corporation and, after passing the typing test--which all female applicants took, even if they had advanced degrees--got a job as a secretary.  

There, she met the man she would marry and later divorce.  He had just spent time in the Army, which is probably the reason why he was hired.  He didn't (and never would) attend college; in fact, he had only a General Equivalency Diploma (which, despite its name, is not "equivalent" to a regular diploma when you're applying to colleges or for a job) that he completed while in uniform.

He did his job "well enough" and got several promotions.  She, on the other hand, was never promoted in spite of excellent performance reviews.  In those days, their company--like many others of the time (early to mid 1960s) had this policy:  If both members of a married couple were working in the company, the woman could not hold a higher position than the man.

I found myself thinking about those stories after a piece I heard on National Public Radio this morning.  According to that report, a women's bicycle race in Belgium was delayed because one of the riders caught up to the men's race, which started ten minutes earlier.

Yes, you read that right:  A women's race was delayed because they caught up to the men.

The Omloop Het Nieuwsblad is the first "spring classic" of the Belgian racing season.  Held annually, the 74th edition ran yesterday.  The first edition of the female event commenced in 2006.

Now, when I say that the women caught up to the men, I'm exercising a bit of, um, poetic license.  Actually, one rider--Nicole Hanselmann, the former Swiss national champion--found herself riding right behind the ambulances and other support vehicles for the men's race.  

Race organizers claim that they delayed the women's race out of fears that the riders of "the fairer sex" would get "entangled" with the support vehicles.  And they didn't call their action a "stoppage" or even a "delay; instead, they said they "neutralised" the race until the other women caught up, and the men moved ahead.



Whatever they call it, it threw off Hanselmann:  She finished 74th.

I can't help but to think, though, that at least one of the men's race organizers was a religious fundamentalist--or just a plain-and-simple male chauvinist--who wanted to penalize Ms. Hanselmann for being a fast woman.

And to think:  This happened during my lifetime!