Wellesley Centers for Women 

Wellesley Centers for Women

Wellesley Centers for Women

Commentary with Laura Pappano: Olympics Are Gold for Women Athletes

• News
• •
• Laura Pappano

The Olympics may be—on the surface—about international goodwill, but they are more baldly about political competition. They also offer a report card on gender equity progress. One could credit the rise of women’s athletics in the U.S., not to the passage of Title IX in 1972, but to the Cold War realization that the medal gap between the U.S. and the Soviet Union was essentially the difference in women’s participation.