A ladys business

Published in Revista Caretas on March 5, 2015

A hard sell in a male-dominated, soccer-centric sports media,

Peruvian female athletes continue to thrive at an international
level. On International Womens Day, we celebrate their fight.

Standing at a towering 61, Alessandra Gamboa, the national shot put

record holder, likes to begin her circuit at a private gym with the bench
press machine. A young man agrees to take turns with her; she does her
reps and leaves. He throws four more discs on top of it and shows off.
Back in her turn, she presses all that weight without a problem. Warm up
is over.

Guys see that and leave without finishing their routine, she said, used
to it. Her t-shirt reads your work is my warm up. Im using it more
often, she added.

Instead of humiliating them - "it's their own machismo," Gamboa

explained-, Paola Mautino (24), national long-jump record holder, "uses"
them for competitive ends.

"I race with men to try harder, because the closer I am to them, the
better I get," she explained. "Women werent this competitive before,
neither here nor in the workplace, but it is changing."

The cream of the crop of Peruvian sportswomen has learned how to work
around the stereotype, but they are not happy about it. Half a century
after the start of the feminist movement, their energy and strong,
muscular looks still escape traditional gender roles. Historically
masculine in its practice and its management, the sports world still does
not reward its female representatives with a visibility proportional to
their achievements, which complicates their chances of making a career
in their discipline. In a country with more female than male champions,
such a reality is hard to swallow.

For those who have already crossed the barrier of "what is expected of
them, competing is what matters. The path, forever complicated, is in
their hands like never before.

The original nine

Back in the day, Billie Jean King (Long Beach, 1943) was not what was
expected of a female tennis player, either. "She charges against her
opponent like a man, unlike the old days, when the girls moved
gracefully around the court," said a famous player in the late 60s. In
1968, the first year of the Open Era, King and Rod Laver danced
together at the Wimbledon Champions Ball. Minutes later, King found
out about the prize money gap: 2,000 pounds for Laver, and just 750 for
her.

"It's not a question of whether we play 3 or 5 sets, but about whether we

can attract as much of an audience as the men," she said. King went on
tour with a group of six other US players and two Australians. The
Original Nine played wherever there was a crowd willing to pay to see
them. "We were the expression of the feminist movement. There is
sweat. It is real. We were relying on our bodies," said King for the PBS
documentary about her life.

The successful tour ended with the creation of the women's professional
circuit (WTA) in 1973, which King propped up in 'The Battle of the Sexes'.
Bobby Riggs, the old Wimbledon champion, was trying to stay relevant
by playing the jester. He used to sell himself as a "male chauvinist pig"
and proclaimed that he liked women "in the bedroom and the kitchen."
King's victory was symbolic, but the effect on women, both inside and
outside the sport, was real and continues to this day.

Corpus delicti

For four years, Adriana Lucar (23) competed in the NCAA, with a
scholarship awarded by the University of Central Arkansas. Now back in
the local league, she sees a difference that transcends the footballing
level: "In America, it is more normal for a woman to play soccer than if a
man does it, and girls are not afraid to play."

In Peru, as in much of the western world, football is still seen as a very

masculine sport, although it barely transforms an athletes body in the
service of high competition. For the social sciences, women who commit
their bodies to the service of the cause and assume the risks of their
sport transgress culturally accepted femininity.

"There is a long tradition of seeing women as weak," explained Liuba

Kogan, anthropologist and professor at Universidad del Pacifico.
"Acceptance of corporal transformations are usually the last phase of
societal change, because it is not as obvious". The relationship of women
with their bodies was never as explicit as in the case of female athletes.

"I love having muscles because it makes me feel like I'm working and
getting results with my own effort," said Mautino. More than aesthetics,
it is all about function. "You're always aware of the way your muscle
mass changes, because you're going to play and you're going to break
up," added Ximena Choy (33), a national rugby player and fitness coach.

Competitiveness, an indispensable value for sports success, is also not

seen with good eyes. Criticized for her demands on the volleyball
timeouts, Olympic silver medallist and national coach Natalia Mlaga
calls for a change of mentality. "A woman who is aggressive in her
attitude, who is a warrior, who throws herself to the ground, runs and
curses, does not stop being a woman," she said.

Faster, stronger, prettier

A physical education graduate, Choy cannot even bear the argument

that women do not sell because they are not as strong as men.

"Men are not as agile, nor as coordinated, nor as flexible as we are," she
said.

The media rewards are not ideal, nor equitable. Anali Gomez (28), world
surfing champion, has not added more sponsors since winning gold at
Punta Rocas, and regrets that the cameras go to the "blue-eyed blonde,
because they are pretty, and not those who break their backs to bring
the titles ".

A sweeping look at the sports media accounts reveals a major problem:

there are more models and football girlfriends than sportswomen in their
reporting.

For Wilder Leon, editor of the sports daily Depor, coverage goes along
with the market and the popularity of the sport. "Good intentions do not
exist when you collide with reality, he stated.

Parallel realities

But what if there was a silent market? Economist Alexandra Herrera and
business manager Sisy Quiroz tapped on a huge, unmet demand with
Womens Football Sevens Leagues. In eight months, the project has
drawn 16,000 fans and 800, and it just won the UP Social
Entrepreneurship Grant.

"Our goal is for a girl to tell her dad that she wants to play football
without being told that it is a men's sport,'" Quiroz stated. What was
once a stigma is now their strength.

Asked about what drew her tennis, Billie Jean King stated in 2013 that
the game allowed her to be resilient, to come back from the depths and
win. "It is to shape time and space with your body." Like King, our
athletes can now reshape their careers and nurture the promise of those
who will come after. Are we ready for that?