1921 Women's Olympiad began / Exxon Valdez oil spill - March 24

Today, Anney Reese from the podcasts Stuff Mom Never Told You and Savor joins me to talk about the 1921 Women's Olympiad. / On this day in 1989, the oil tanker Exxon Valdez dumped 11 million gallons of oil into Prince William Sound.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey, y'all, Eve's here. We're doubling up today with two
events in history on with the show Welcome to this
day in History Class, and we have another special guest
on the podcast today. That special guest is Annie Reese,
who is the host of Stuff Mom Never Told You,
a really amazing feminist podcast, and the co host of

(00:21):
Savor where she talks about all things food and she
visits really cool cities to explore their food culture. Right Annie, Yes, yes,
And I'm so thrilled to be here with you. Eves. Eves,
you've been on Stuff I've Never Told you with me, Um,
we always have a great conversation, Yes, we do it.
I'm really looking forward to our conversation today, which is
about the Women's Olympiad which started on March nine, right, yes,

(00:47):
that is correct. So yeah, we're talking about French feminist
Alice Milia and her Women's World Games, which took place
from nineteen one to for and led to the Olympics
letting women compete in more events. That's a really big deal,
isn't it. I Yes, I almost wrote, like paragraphed after

(01:10):
a paragraph after paragraph of why I think this is
such a big deal and I will kind of end
on that note. But I tried to, you know, shave
it down so that people won't get tired of my soliloquies. Well,
this is what you do. You talk about women's history
all the time and what's going on today with women.
But tell me a little bit about what the Olympiad

(01:33):
actually was, what happened during the Olympiad. Sure, and and
before we get into it, just quick disclaimer. There are
a lot of acronyms in this, okay, so bear with me. Acronym,
queen knowledge, common knowledge. So yes, it is. It's like
on a plaque on my desk. The Women's World Games

(01:53):
were Alice Milia's response to the International Olympic Committees or
the IOC UM and the International Association of Athletics Federation
the i a A f their disdain and fear of
first wave feminist gaining ground and um of women wanting
to compete in certain events like the eight hundred meter
track event. This one was particularly controversial UM events that

(02:15):
did not recognize women or had been deemed unfit for women.
So some context, at this time, people, and particularly here
we're talking about Europeans, were already having conversations about gender equality.
The term feminism is thought to have been coined in
the eighteen eighties by a French activist by the name
of Hubertine Aauclaire. Around the same time Baron Pierre de Coubertin,

(02:40):
who was also French, founded the modern iteration of the
Olympics and of the IOC. Dave Kuberten out right opposed
women's participation in sports, and this bled over into what
events he believed women could and should compete in. When
it came to the Olympic Games, Soames were the first

(03:02):
that allowed women to compete at all in tennis and golf,
nothing else. Okay, yeah. Over the years they did add
things like women swimming, but track and field events were
pretty much non existent for female competitors. And if you're
asking why track and field, the answer is lost of time.
Some physicians thought women exerting themselves to the point of

(03:26):
visible sweat was unhealthy for women. Um, So maybe it's
that it was definitely in either case, you just unladylike
to sweat in public and possibly bad for your uterus. Um.
Although I have to say I have built up quite
a sweat playing tennis that was gonna be my question,
why why do they think you can't sweat when you're

(03:47):
doing certain sports that they both take levels of physical exertion. Right. Well,
one interesting thing, and this is just me wondering if
if it had something to do with this, but the
tennis uniform for women at this time was essentially covering
all of your skin, so maybe they just couldn't see
you sweat. I don't know, classic trickery, I can't see,

(04:08):
it doesn't exist. It was like a weighted down skirt.
It did not look comfortable for playing in the hot weather.
But anyway, um. The first French women's athletic club, Femina Sports,
which was founded in nineteen eleven, put together France's very
first women's national championship for track and field in seventeen.

(04:28):
That same year, some of famina's sports founders created the
Federalsonda Society Feminine Sportive de France are Women's Sports Federation
of France. And this is when Alice Milia enters the picture.
She was one of the founders of this organization. She
formally requested that women's track and field be added to

(04:49):
the Olympics. In that's when she put in a request
was turned down. So what does she do? She decides
to host her own Olympics. Pretty much. The first step
was founding the I s f I, and on March

(05:09):
that organization hosts the inaugural Women's Olympiad in Monte Carlo,
and it's complete with eleven track and field events, five
different nations represented. It was meant to show the IOC, hey, look,
we can do this, um and persuade them kind of
a proof of concepts um, we should add these categories
to the Olympics. And despite the fact that this event

(05:31):
was a success, the IOC rejected their appeal, but that
did not stop Milliah. The following year, the I s
f I took it up a notch and hosted the
first Women's Olympic Games, with the idea of following the
same for your schedule. I love this. It's like, we'll
have our own Olympics then we don't need you. And

(05:52):
I like how they already planned for the four years.
We know this is happening, right, We're going for this,
we're staying committed to it exactly. I mean. It was
essentially the Olympics but for women, and the first one
took place in Paris. Once again, Five nations, including the
United States, participated and it was attended by around twenty
thousand spectators. Guess who did not like this? Who Day

(06:18):
Cooper DN, The IOC and the I A A F
I would imagine, Yes, they were not happy. They decreed
that the I A A F should be in charge
of all track and field events. This was a grab
for control over who is allowed to compete and over
who can use the Olympic brand. They didn't want this

(06:40):
other organization coming in and using Olympic in the name.
After these two organizations agreed that yes, the IOC and
the I A A F should each govern women's check
and fields events, so they acknowledged it was a thing,
women's check and field is it exists? They also immediately
agreed that women and would not have the right to

(07:01):
appear in track and field events in the nineteen Olympics.
So they got control and then shut it down. Wow,
talk about a reversal. Yeah. Um. As part of this
whole thing, the I S F I, which is what
Milia was associated with, did strike the Olympic from their name.
They renamed their event the Women's World Games to get

(07:21):
the I O C off their backs. The show went on, though,
and four years later the second Women's World Games, set
in Sweden, drew athletes from nine countries, and the IOC
was furious and wanted to shut it down. Even more
so that organization that IF the attempted a compromise and
added five women's track and field events in their nineteen

(07:44):
Olympic Games. And this is compared to twenty two events
that men could compete in. By the way, Milia was
not satisfied with this compromise, although some other members in
the i s f I were. The British women's team
was on Millie out side and boycotted Olympic Games altogether.
And even though these five events being added to track

(08:07):
and field in the Olympics, in these games it was historic,
a lot of the press at the time did not
report on it that way. Take this quote from the
New York Times the final of the women's eight d run,
in which Fraulina Radka of Germany said, a world's record
plainly demonstrated that even this distance makes too great a

(08:29):
call on feminine strength. At the finish, six out of
the nine runners were completely exhausted and fell headlong on
the ground. Several had to be carried off the track.
The little American girl, Miss Florence McDonald, who made a
gallant try but was outclassed, was in a half fet
for several minutes, while even the sturdy Miss Hitomy of Japan,

(08:50):
who finished second, needed attention before she was able to
leave the field. And that's real. Yes, you know, it
almost seems comical. It does because so many words in there.
I could go into why they're problematic. For some reason,
the words sturdy stood out to me. Yes, you've got
the table, but yeah, just the language that's used is

(09:13):
just so obviously biased in that quote. Yeah, and demeaning
women's participation in the eight run in particular, like I mentioned,
seemed to be controversial, and the IOC prohibited women from
competing in this event again until nineteen sixty. The nineteen
thirty two Olympic Games only allowed women to compete in

(09:34):
the one hundred meter dash, a short distance compared to
these longer, longer tracks. The nineteen thirties Women's World Games,
on the other hand, featured twelve track and field events
and competitors from seventeen different countries. Ninety four is women
World Games were even bigger, with nineteen countries competing in
thirteen track and field events. With the success of these Games,

(09:57):
Milia demanded the nineteen thirty six Olympics and who what
she called a full program of women's events or make
the Olympics for male competitors only, because the I s
F I was doing just fine, thank you very much.
She twisted the I A a f arm and they
eventually conceded to a nine event program at the Olympics

(10:18):
and to acknowledge the records set at the Women's World Games,
the upcoming nineteen thirty eight Women's World Games became the
European Athletics Championship, so changed the name. Miliad died in seven,
but she did live to see women in France get
the right to vote in ninet and so yeah, that's

(10:39):
kind of the story of this lost event that led
the way two women being allowed to compete in more
events in the Olympics. It's so interesting because they kept
working for it. So you saw those little moments of
progress every single step of the way, when something was given,
something was taken, and that compromise and negotiation that was happy.

(11:01):
So you mentioned earlier you were excited to talk about
why this event was important. Yes, as promised, So in
light of Women's History Month, this whole thing was a
huge push for women's equality. These were women who did
not take no for an answer, who made their own

(11:21):
games where they could compete, where people weren't telling them
what they could and couldn't do, and they were successful
enough so that the IOC had to listen to them.
Think of all the amazing strong athletes that we have
seen in the records that these athletes have broken, the
feats they've accomplished, the girls that they have inspired. I'm
a runner and I'm competitive, and I missed my Olympics window.

(11:45):
I mean, there's still time, but I think I missed
never stayed ever Annie, Yes, thank you ease Um. But
if I had grown up not seeing women compete in
track and field at the Olympics, there is no way
that that would not have impacted me and what I
thought I could have blish, that's a huge deal. I
would have imposed limits on myself, and I would say

(12:06):
probably a lot of young girls and women would have.
When I run, I feel powerful and strong and confident,
and I owe some of that of that freedom of
thinking that I can do this to the women before
me who fought for that chance to compete. But all
of that inspirational I hope stuff beside, I have to say,

(12:27):
if you're curious, the Olympics are still not fifty fifty.
For instance, the freestyle swim events wasn't available to women
at Rio Olympics. UM, even though Katie Ladecki has broken
two world records in that event, men didn't have the
eight So it doesn't make a lot of sense. Um,

(12:52):
So all this to say, there is still work to
be done. This really is an ongoing conversation, and we
can also talk about it in terms of non binary
and transfolks, which, yeah, this is all in the news
right now. So if you think like what we're talking
about is not important to the conversations we're having today
around the Olympics and what sports people can and cannot

(13:13):
compete in according to organizations, Shadowy Cab, all of people exactly, Um,
it definitely is important and I think it's it's really
valuable to remember this and to keep pushing. Well, I'm
glad we've got a chance to talk about it today.
Olympics often seem to be a hotbed of social conversations,
just as a nature of all the different types of

(13:34):
people who are involved in it. And this little slice
of history about the Women's Olympiad, I think is a
thing that a lot of people may not know about,
and I really appreciate you bringing this to our audiences
attention today. I had no idea there was that huge
background to the Women's Olympiad and that it really caused
that much change. So yeah, thank you for being here today.

(13:56):
Thank you so much for having me. It's a pleasure
as always. Come back soon. Hello. Keep up with us
on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook at t d I h
C podcast. Thank you for joining me today. See you
same place, same time tomorrow. Hi everyone, it's Eaves again

(14:29):
and welcome to another episode of This Day in History class.
The day was March the excen Valdi's oil tanker spilled
eleven million gallons of oil and Prince William Sound in

(14:50):
the Gulf of Alaska. The oil spill caused extensive damage
to the environment and was the largest in US waters
until the Deep Water Horizon spill. Exon Valdis was one
of the newer ships in the Exon Shipping Company's fleet.
The night before the spill, EXN Valdis left Valdis Alaska

(15:11):
and was headed to Long Beach, California. It was carrying
more than fifty three million gallons of crude oil. Captain
Joseph Hazelwood had been drinking alcoholic beverages that day, which
would later become a point of contention. The tanker left
the dock not long after nine pm, but just after
midnight on March the crew realized that the tanker was

(15:34):
off course. At twelve o four a m. It hit
Bly Reef in Prince William Sound. Eight out of the
eleven cargo tanks were punctured. Soon, ten point eight million
gallons of crude oil had spilled into the surrounding waters. Eventually,
the spill polluted more than one thousand miles of shoreline

(15:55):
in south central Alaska. Thousands of seabirds, see ters and seals,
bald eagles, and fish died because of the spill. The
disaster had a significant effect on wildlife, environment, reliant industries,
recreational fishing, and tourism. In investigations after the disaster, it

(16:16):
was found that Captain hazel Wood was not at the
navigation bridge. Third mate, Gregory Cousins, was in charge of it.
Cousins had called Hazelwood just before the vessel struck bl Reef,
recognizing there was danger, but it was too late. When
investigators found out that hazel Wood had been drinking before
boarding exon Valdis, EXN fired him. He was cleared of

(16:40):
being intoxicated at the time of the incident, but he
was convicted of misdemeanor negligence, find fifty thousand dollars and
sentenced to one thousand hours of community service. After years
of appeals, Hazelwood began community service in Excen was deemed
responsible for the disaster, along with the company's incompetent and

(17:03):
overworked crew. Blame was also placed on the US Coast
Guard for a poor system of traffic regulation. In Congress
passed the Oil Pollution Act, which created measures for responding
to oil spills and increased penalties for spills. It also
called for the eventual banning of single hold tankers from

(17:25):
US waters. Now all tankers for oil, loquified natural gas,
and chemicals are double hold. Over the years, Exxon paid
billions of dollars on restitution, cleanup costs, and personal damages.
XN employees, federal responders, and Alaska residents helped clean up

(17:46):
the spill. They used chemical dispersants and booms and skimmers
for mechanical cleanup, but some methods workers used removed oil
yet killed plants and animals, and a portion of the
Alaskans Line is still polluted with subsurface oil. Excen Valdis
was repaired, renamed, and soon returned to service. It was

(18:09):
sold for scrap in. Though the exon Valdis oil spill
had a huge impact on the environment and industry, there
have been plenty of other incidents that resulted in much
larger oil spills in world history. I'm Eve step Code
and hopefully you know a little more about history today
than you did yesterday. And you can send us a

(18:32):
note on social media at t d i h C
Podcast on Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter. You can also send
us an email at this Day at i heart media
dot com. Thanks again for tuning in and we'll see
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(19:00):
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