When Women Stood by Alexandra Allred
The Untold History of Females Who Changed Sports and the World
Released: February 8, 2023 | Genre: Nonfiction, Sports, Feminism
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An unapologetically candid and illuminating history of women and their fight for equality, told through the influential world of sports.
From early Amazons to modern-day athletes, women have been fighting for their rightful place in the world. The history of these female athletes—whether warriors on the battlefield or competitors in the sports arena—has often been neglected, yet it is through sports that women have changed society, gaining entry into education, travel, politics, and more.
When Women Stood is an eye-opening chronicle of the amazing women who refused to accept the status quo and fought for something better for themselves and for those who would follow. Featuring exclusive insight from athletes such as Jackie Joyner-Kersee, Kathrine Switzer, Nancy Lieberman, Briana Scurry, and Nancy Hogshead-Maker, this book includes the stories of female football players, Olympic athletes, powerlifters, and soccer stars, of historians, archeologists, crusaders, and scientists.
Women’s sports history cannot be told without also telling the story of the fight for gender and racial equality, economics, medical biases, gay and transgender history, violence, religion, media, abuse, and activism. When Women Stood is the first to go beyond the record books and gold medal counts to truly dig into the vital role women and sports have played in instigating change in society as a whole. And it shows that, despite seemingly unsurmountable odds, the true spirit of the female athlete can never be restrained.
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Alexandra Allred helped break barriers in women’s bobsledding herself, despite having never even ridden in a bobsled when she began campaigning for women to be allowed to compete. In 1993, Allred was watching ESPN while holding her six-month-old baby when she saw a bobsled competition and wondered why there were no women competing. After researching the sport’s history, she launched a letter-writing campaign to sporting organizations, including the International Olympic Committee. She eventually joined the first U.S. women’s bobsled team and won the U.S. national championship in 1994 while more than four months pregnant.
REVIEW
⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ☆ ☆
The disrespect. 😡
Let’s be clear from the start: this is more of a history book than a sports book. It’s not about women entering a sport, smashing gender barriers, and proving they can compete on the same level, or even outperform, their male counterparts. If you’re expecting stories like Serena Williams dominating the court, you’ll be disappointed; she gets only a passing mention.
Instead, When Women Stood focuses on the broader historical struggle women have faced in sports: decades of fighting for equality in opportunity, pay, recognition, and basic respect.
On that level, the book is deeply insightful, shining a light on a topic that’s rarely explored in this kind of depth. The inequity is staggering. Even when women’s teams outperform their male counterparts (winning more games, drawing larger crowds, and setting records) they still get the short end of the stick when it comes to pay, facilities, media coverage, and name recognition. I’ll admit it: there were several professional women’s leagues mentioned in this book that I didn’t even know existed. That alone says a lot.
But when I say “the disrespect,” I’m not just referring to the way women athletes are treated in general, I’m also talking about the book’s own glaring omission of one of the most groundbreaking female athletes of all time: Fabiola “Fabby” da Silva.
Despite the many inspiring stories included, Fabby, arguably one of the most dominant women in sports history, is nowhere to be found in these pages.
Fabiola da Silva is the most decorated female athlete in X Games history. She’s a 7-time gold medalist and the first woman to land a double backflip on a vert ramp. She was so good that, in 2000, the ASA (Aggressive Skaters Association) created the “Fabiola Rule” to allow women to compete directly against men in what was previously a male-only vert competition.
Let that sink in: She didn’t just compete, she forced the sport to rewrite its rules to accommodate her dominance. What other female athlete has compelled a league to literally raise the bar just to give her a greater challenge?
To leave someone like her out of a book dedicated to women’s sports is, in my opinion, an astonishing oversight. Normally, I might chalk it up to the fact that the X Games and aggressive inline skating aren’t mainstream in the way football, basketball, baseball, hockey, soccer, or the Olympics are, and yes, the book focuses heavily on those sports. But given the amount of research that clearly went into this work, and the author’s own involvement in female athletics, it’s hard to believe she’s unaware of Fabby’s impact.
Sadly, it seems that recency bias, and the relative obscurity of a sport that many women don’t actively follow, have pushed Fabby’s legacy into the shadows. But that doesn’t make her achievements any less extraordinary. And leaving her out only reinforces the very issue this book is trying to address: the world keeps ignoring the women who change it.
