April 27, 2023 • 61 mins
Episode 75: Alexandra Allred
Sports Legend Alexandra Allred Tells Us The Truth about her latest book When Women Stood: The Untold History Of Females Who Changed Sports And The World. Listen as Alex details being a founder of the US Women's Bobsled Team, Competing while 4 months Pregnant and how Alex's health and fitness were studied and used to write the Olympic Guidelines for pregnant athletes. Alex also details how it felt to interview fellow Female Athletes and some of the facts she learned which reinforced some of the experiences she too faced as a Female Athlete in a male dominated sports world. This is as fearless and engaging a conversation as we've ever had on Tell Us The Truth!
*You can Subscribe to Tell Us The Truth on all leading podcast apps including the iHeart Radio App, Spreaker and iTunes/Apple Podcasts. Join us on Facebook and Twitter for daily discussion about top news.*
Sports Legend Alexandra Allred Tells Us The Truth about her latest book When Women Stood: The Untold History Of Females Who Changed Sports And The World. Listen as Alex details being a founder of the US Women's Bobsled Team, Competing while 4 months Pregnant and how Alex's health and fitness were studied and used to write the Olympic Guidelines for pregnant athletes. Alex also details how it felt to interview fellow Female Athletes and some of the facts she learned which reinforced some of the experiences she too faced as a Female Athlete in a male dominated sports world. This is as fearless and engaging a conversation as we've ever had on Tell Us The Truth!
*You can Subscribe to Tell Us The Truth on all leading podcast apps including the iHeart Radio App, Spreaker and iTunes/Apple Podcasts. Join us on Facebook and Twitter for daily discussion about top news.*
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Episode Transcript
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(00:03):
Alexandra al Read is the author ofthe book When Women Stood, The Untold
History of Females Who Changed Sports andthe world, and she certainly knows all
about that, considering the fact thatshe is a legend in the sport of
Bob's letting. Wow. My nameis E Duke Bennett, and this is
(00:25):
tell Us the Truth. Hi,my name is Alexandra al Read, and
I am the author of When WomenStood, The Untold History of Female Athletes
Who Changed sport and the world.And I really am here to tell you
the truth. I wrote this bookbecause I was really focused on how much
(00:48):
better we need to treat female athletes. But it didn't take long before I
realized, doing just the tiniest bitof research, how much men have historically
been written out of history. Andso what it started as just something for
athletes became global because women have beenwritten out of history. And that is
(01:14):
the truth that I want to tell. Well, alex First and foremost,
it is an absolute pleasure to haveyou here on tell us the Truth.
You truly are a legend, apioneer in the world of Olympic bob sled
and sports in general. And it'sfunny because my mom is originally from Jamaica,
and my introduction to bob sled wasbecause of the movie Cool Runnings.
(01:41):
You know about the original Jamaican bobsledteam, Yes, do me a favorite's
let's take a step back talk tome about your history and bob sled because
it's fascinating. Well, first ofall, I'd like to say hi to
your mom and tell her that inmy collection of photographs that I have,
I have many pictures of the Jamaicanbobsled team because I actually got to train
(02:04):
with them. So really my story, I've always been into sports, love
sports, and I had never hadany design in my lifetime to become a
bob sliter. In fact, mybackground was martial arts. But I had
just had my first child and Iwas sitting on the couch watching ESPN and
(02:24):
saw the men's bobsled team or competitionand thought, man, this is the
coolest sport I've ever seen. Andso of course I waited to watch the
women and they didn't show, andthey didn't show, and so I actually
had to go to the library becausethis was nineteen ninety four, we were
(02:45):
pre internet, and so I wentto the library and found out that in
nineteen forty, the granddaughter of MelvilleDewey as in the Dewey decimal system,
Catherine Dewey one and Open Grand Championshipand bob sled and beating out everyone,
including the men, and so ofcourse it took about two days for the
(03:07):
men to realize that they did notlike the champion being female. She was
stripped up her medal and women werebanned from the sport from that time on.
So I'm sitting on the couch holdingmy six month old at the time,
and you know, I was soexcited to watch them, And then
when I go to the library andI find this out, I thought,
(03:28):
nope, this is not going tohappen. And so I started writing everyone,
the United States Olympic Committee, theInternational Olympic Committee, the US Bob
Sled Federate, everybody, And eventuallyI wrote enough letters that finally I got
that phone call about two months later, and essentially they said, we're going
to have the first ever women's bobsled camp. Are you coming, big
(03:51):
mouth, which you know, ofcourse, what do you do you trash
talk that long? I said,yeah, I'll be there, and then
promptly hung up the phone and thoughthood's and so, but I went and
I continued to make cut after cutafter cut and tell September and it was
actually nineteen ninety three when I firstsaw the bob sledding, and in September
(04:12):
nineteen ninety four, with the sportsillustrated in attendance, I surprised everyone,
including myself, and I won theUS Nationals. And I was also four
months pregnant at the time, soit was kind of a big deal.
Congratulations on being someone who has beenso integral and helping sport evolve, not
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just in the United States of Americabut around the world. I mean,
to accomplish all that you've accomplished,and you did it well four months pregnant.
I can't even wrap my head aroundthat. Yeah, I you know,
when I won, it was funnybecause my teammates or soon to be
teammates were yelling, you know,unfair, unfair, She's got two people
(04:57):
in the led So every it wasgood humored about it, but it was
certainly I appreciate your kind words becauseit was unprecedented. No one really knew
and knew anything about what I wasdoing. And in fact, that's I
got a phone call from a researcherat Case Western University. He had been
doing studies on marathon runners and biathletes, but that was really the extent of
(05:24):
research in the nineties up to thenineties of pregnant elite athletes. And at
that time I was squatting about threeseventy five free weight and running just right
around twenty miles per hour in sprint, and so that was exciting for him,
and so it was great for meas well because I was literally hooked
(05:45):
up to everything imaginable while I trained, and so I always got to know
what my now daughter's heartbeat was asI was training, so I always knew
that I was in no way puttingher in any kind of distress. So
that was really exciting. By winningthe first ever women's championship in the United
States, I also made medical historyjust because I wanted to make sure my
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daughter was okay. But for Ifound out. For almost two decades following
that, the USOC and IOC usedmy training regiment for other elite athletes,
which is kind of cool. Soonce again you're just out there making history
and you're being modest here, butit truly is incredible what you've been able
to accomplish. And then when wewere training, we were in we were
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at the World Cup in Calgary andwe had one of our first significant crashes.
I was break at the time,and I remember when we finally came
for your listeners and Bob said,when you crash, you don't just the
Bob said, doesn't stop and youget to get out, you know,
you have to. You have tocrash all the way down the mountain.
(06:55):
So every curve that you go intoon the track, you're just re crashing
over and over. And so Iget to the bottom of the track and
I am just we're both so beatup, and I just sort of finally
when the sled comes to a slow, slow and then a stop, I
fell backwards and just just I've justbeen beaten by a baseball bats and I
hear the you know, crunch,crunch, crunch of feet running and I
(07:17):
look up and the very first faceI saw was Jamaican Bob sled pilot Deadly
Stokes, and he looks just likein the movie. He looks at me
and he said, hey, Mama, you okay, And I said,
no, I'm not okay. Nowwas my introduction to Deadly Stokes and we
became we became training partners after that. So it's a little bit of irony
(07:42):
there. I bring up Cool Runnings, you know, the movie, and
you legitimately have a personal connection withthose guys, and let me tell you,
they are such cool people, supersuper great people. So you hear
that, Mom, Yeah, that'sfor your mom, Just for your mom,
right. I mean, it's justit's really cool because you have this
(08:07):
legendary career, this historic career reallyin sports, and now here you are.
You write this book when Women Stood, the untold history of females who
change sports in the world. Howimportant is it for someone who has actually
(08:28):
lived that life? You know,someone like yourself, you who are who
is a legend, who has participatedin sports on the highest of high levels,
and who has gone through the verythings that you outline in this book.
How important is it to have afirsthand understanding of that world and then
(08:50):
go and interview the folks who youinterviewed for this book. That is such
a great question. Thank you thatAnd it's a great question because I don't
I don't know that I've ever beenasked in that manner, So thank you.
It was It's really important because soI tell people, yeah, I
was on the US national bob sledteam, and there's the assumption that,
(09:13):
of course we had a coach,and we had uniforms, and we had
sleds. Nothing could be further thanthe truth. So on September twenty fourth,
nineteen ninety four, as the metalwas being hung around my neck,
the then director of the US bobsthe program leaned in and he whispered to
me and he said, you know, this means nothing. And it took
(09:37):
a minute for me to realize whatthe implications of what he just said to
me was. And I remember backat the Olympic training Center, the newly
named first ever women's team, wewere all together in the bedroom and you
know, one of the rooms,and I told him, I said,
this is what he said, andwe all realized in that moment they were
(10:01):
forced to have the first ever trials, but they don't want us here,
and for the next four years wehad to fight, and that, in
fact, that's how we've got closeto the Jamaican bobsled team. The Jamaican
bobsled team and the Trinidadian bob saidteam. They really helped us when we
were in some of the World Cups, and in fact, when we were
(10:22):
at the World Cup in Saint Maritz, it was Prince Albert's bodyguards who helped
us move sleds around because we didnot have we didn't have our own country
helping us. We were left onour own. And so because of that
experience, it really heightened my awarenessof just how double the double standards were.
(10:45):
And then flash forward to where weare today. That's when I realized
I have to write this book becauseas hard as I fought and everything we
went through, and I'm telling youwe had, we had broken bones,
cushions, I mean just really hardcrashes. Bob setting is a very dangerous
sport. You would have assumed thatthings would be so much better now,
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and in many regards they are,so I am optimistic on many levels.
But I teach kinesiology at the colleginguniversity level as well, and I'm looking
at some of the textbooks that I'vebeen assigned to teach from to my students,
and literally, in a three hundredpage book, there's only about two
or three pages that's dedicated to thehistory of women in sport, And I
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thought, I'm teaching tomorrow's coaches trainers, physical therapists, occupational therapists. You
know, I'm teaching Tomorrow's leaders andall things wellness in sport, and they
don't know anything about the female body. And it was then that I started
to do more research and found outthat today our top medical universities in this
(11:54):
country still use a one hundred andfifty four pound mail to represent female And
you know, many of your audienceprobably already know this, but black women
in this country die during childbirth farmore than any other women. And that's
(12:15):
quite a statement because as it is, of all the western countries in the
world, the United States have moredeaths during child birth than any other country.
Why how can that be? Andso I knew that this book had
to go beyond sport, and they'retied together because we treat women like we
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treated our female athletes. Well that'snot a surprise. Well, let's have
a conversation about that and this thatthis is exactly how the book came about.
You know, we're talking a lotabout your career in Bob Sled,
but you started off, and yousaid it earlier in the conversation, you
started off as a martial artist.You know, you're very well accomplished in
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that world as well. I wantto pick your brain about something because in
addition to this show here tell usthe Truth, I also have a Combat
Sports Pro Wrestling podcast, Duke LovesRassling, and over there I interview a
lot of MMA fighters. In fact, shout out to the wonderful ladies over
at Invicta Fighting Championships. Spent alot of time interviewing folks from their roster
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and what have you. The wholepoint is to continue to promote the sport
of mixed martial arts and really womenin mixed martial arts specifically, someone who
is involved with Invicta behind the scenes, and even previously she had fought there,
is Amanda Nownez. She's one ofthe greatest MMA fighters of all time,
still a champion in UFC. Shetook down Rohnda Rousi, who's definitely
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gonna be in the Hall of Fameas well. Amanda Nownez pound for pound,
is one of the greatest fighters periodin the world, male or female,
and yet the UFC and their matchmakers, they have had a difficult time,
according to them, finding suitable challengersfor her. And it's very strange
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because they don't have any issue findingchallenges for their men that they're trying to
promote. But yet here we arein twenty twenty three, and they're making
excuses for why they can't take thiswoman who was a double champion for a
period of time, literally dominating twoseparate way classes. At the same time,
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they're making excuses for why they can'tfigure out how to find competition for
her, promote it and put iton, put the machine behind it,
and promote these athletes like the greatathletes that they are. And it's really
it confuses me, and it makesme sit quite frankly, what's your take
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on that whole world there that womenare still putting up with this sort of
thing all these years later, despitethe fact that they've achieved this greatness.
You know, again, a manat the Newton at one point she was
a double champion, she still hasone of her belts, she's still getting
it done, she's still a bigtime name. But yet they have a
hard time finding fights for We havesome cultures within our cultures right around the
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world. And one of my favoritetopics when I talked to my college students,
you know, when we covered thewomen in sports history, I always
look at my and most of mystudents are student athletes, right, and
many semesters I'll have more males inmy class and I have female athletes.
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And it was just a couple ofsemesters ago and I was talking about the
the entry of the Latina athlete.And I told the class, I said,
you know, they didn't really comeonto the scene until until the nineteen
nineties. And I always pause fora second, you know, I let
them just sort of let that sinkin. And then I asked, I
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said, why do you think thatis? And one of my students he
raised his hand and he said,well, I'm Hispanic and this is,
you know, my culture, andI can tell you you know, the
Latina woman is super hyper sexualized inour culture. And he said, so
it's hard to take an athlete seriouslyif he or she is super hyper sexualized.
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And he was a fantastic answer,because it actually rocked me back a
little bit. I knew that,of course, but to hear it in
in that way, it set meback for a second. And you know,
you're absolutely right. And so I'mgoing to swing back to a mandan
Unez to say, so she wasalready part of a subculture within a culture
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that would be more prone to overlookher despite her amazing talent, and I
do. She's one of my favorites. I love her. And then also
she's gay and she doesn't have thesexy factor. So let's look at Ronda
Rousey, who is you know,also really great. But Ronda played her
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cards well. She understood that shehad to tap into the sexy. She
talked about having sex a lot,she did a lot of um, you
know, you've seen the media coveragethat she got. She had a lot
of sexy va vavomi kind of covers, and that's what helped push her to
the front because she was going intoa very non traditional sport for females.
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But she was still holding up thatfeminine ideal which women had been saddled with
for four thousand years. And I'lltell you who doesn't fit that mold.
And we're still fighting that right now, Black women, Hispanic women, Asian
women. That's for four thousand years, we've always pushed the rail thin,
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fair skinned, submissive, demure,sexy white female. And so it's been
such a problem for really great athletesto break through and get the proper media
attention. Just because she wasn't shedidn't uphold that that ideal and that those
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are hard words. But the moreresearch I did, it became more and
more and more clear to me.And one of my favorite athletes definitely supports
everything I just said, and thatis Serena Williams. I'm come on,
she's phenomenal, but she's large boned, she's muscular, she's bigger than what
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she's supposed to be according to thatthat that ideal. And then she you
know, you hear people and they'dsay she's so loud, she's so loud
on the tennis court, and I'mlike, yeah, she's she's swinging a
racket and hitting this thing at threehundred miles an hour. Of course she's
making a sound, but it's justthat's Serena Williams has had a far later
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struggle than anybody I think can respectfullyrecognize. Serena Williams is a great example
because when you look at the coverageof some other folks, and you know,
I'm not trying to pick on anybody, but look at Anna corner Cova
for example. To Anna corner Covawas able to land a lot of lucrative
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endorsements and modeling contracts and things ofthat nature. And quite frankly, she
was a good tennis player, whereasSerena Williams had to legitimately become the greatest
of all time in order to receivethese opportunities. It's really interesting when you
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take a step back and really lookat these things with fresh eyes. Yeah,
Serena Williams is just it's just mindblowing how athletic and strong and competitive.
She's every single thing you want tohave in an elite athlete, every
single thing. She's everything. She'sthe total package. But Anna Cornacova fit
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the heck a moment feminine ideal thatthe Western world in particular just covets.
You know, with all the unprecedentedaccess that you had to so many elite
women athletes, I wonder, wasthere anything that surprised you where you know,
you throughout the course of fact finding, interviewing, putting everything together,
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you were like, WHOA, Ididn't see that coming. Did you have
any moments like that? Um?Yes, and no, so my wow,
the big the big wow takeaway fromall the people that I talked to.
Um, And then right here,I need everybody to stop and have
an image of me dancing around.Every single time I got to talk to
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these spectacular people was just that itblew me away. How often, you
know, my phone would ring andI, Hey, this is Jesse Graft
from American Ninja Warriors. This agood time to talk. Are you getting
me? Yeah? I mean,I'll stop whatever I'm doing. But and
what my takeaway from that was,had I been doing a book on the
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top men athletes of the world,I wouldn't have gotten through to any of
these guys because they have so muchmedia coverage as it is, It's like,
what's another interview to them. Butfor the women whom I spoke to,
they wanted to get the message out. They wanted to talk about the
things that they talked about because theynever get to talk about those things,
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and so the access was pretty Imean, it was helpful, of course
that I have the background that Ido, but it was pretty easy to
get through to the most amazing womenin sports. My biggest wow was when
I went back through history and Istarted looking at the women before us and
what they really went through. Imean, you know, so I tell
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people, Yeah, me and myteam we went through a lot on the
women's Bob slid team. But thenI go back in history and I look
at what some of these women wentthrough. I mean, especially the non
white female athletes. They had deaththreats for just wanting to be part of
sport. I mean, you know, it's just it's insane to me,
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and we don't we don't recognize that. And so today one of my favorite
athletes, and she's unnamed because atthe time, what newspaper in nineteen fifty
nine is going to write is goingto record the name of the black cheerleader
who refused to stand for the nationalanthem. But you know, I say,
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take a knee, or we talkabout the national anthem and the protests
that have been and you think eitherthe nineteen sixty eight Olympic Games or you
think Colin Kaepernick, right, Butthe reality is is at a Harvard basketball
game and almost all white audience,two black cheerleaders protests tested the treatment that
they were getting as an American citizen, as American citizens, that I boy,
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I went down a rabbit hole forabout four days trying to get all
the research I could on them becausethose two women, and I don't know
their names, but those two womentalk about strong, brave, patriotic.
I mean, those are incredible women, but they were literally written out of
history because they didn't fit the ideal. There's there were so many stories.
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One of my most disappointing stories isBabe. You know, Babe Dietrichson.
You know, she was she wasall sports. I mean every list you
cannot google best top ten female athletesof all time, and she's you can't
google and find that she's not onevery single list. But it was really
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distressing to find out that she wasa horrible racist and tide Pickett. You
know, she was called the fastestgirl in the world, and she makes
the I believe I'm away from mybook. I believe it's the nineteen thirty
sah either thirty two or thirty fourOlympic Games, and she and another teammate,
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they were the first two black womentwo Stokes were the first two black
women ever to be on the USwomen's track team, and Babe made their
lives a living hell. And thenjust before the Olympic Games, without any
reason at all, the fastest girlin America and Stokes, they were both
cut from the team. And there'sno you know, there's no written documentation.
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Believe me, I looked, Butit's it's an unsaid within the sports
world that it was understood that Babeprotested having these two black athletes on the
team. Those are the kind ofthings we don't hear about. And I
was pretty upset about that because Ihad always been a big fan of Babes.
But I'm a fan of what shewas able to do. But that's
(25:06):
about it. You know, Iwonder, Alex, because this issue is
still to this day all too real. Where do we go? You know?
Where do we go from here?Yeah? And you know I make
a joke sometimes with other people andI say, I don't know you when
you find out, please let meknow. So every semester at the end,
(25:26):
I um, I give a it'sa it's basically it needs to be
well thought out, please, butit's they get to give their opinion.
And the last question, my finalexam is how just what you asked,
where do we go from here?How can we make the experience for the
female athlete equal to the male athlete? And you know, in the throughout
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the course, we cover title nineand the history of and and how it
helps and why it's so important,and we dispel all the myths, And
then I get these answers back andthey're being genuine and since here and they'll
say, these are my twenty somethingstudents, you know, and they'll say,
well, that's just it's really sad. But I don't see a way
that this is going to change becausethat's just how it is for women.
(26:11):
Ah, And they mean it.They my brilliant, brilliant, twenty something
year old students. They don't seethings getting better for the female athlete or
women in general because quote, that'sjust the way it is. So I
I that is my That's my thingright now. That's the thing that I'm
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focused on most is that we haveto we have to break that up.
We have to stop saying that's theway it is. So we have a
lot of work to do ahead ofus. But you know, I'm again,
if you, if your listeners readthe book, you'll see that it
ends on a it ends on anempowering note because the last two chapters I
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take the time to really highlight thewomen who are activists today, women who
are joining together with other women fromall sports to just stand up for each
other. And I love to see, for example, the women's soccer players
in the United States really standing upand trying to promote the women of the
w NBA. Why because female soccerplayers that they fit that that feminine ideal,
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you know, cute little girls runningaround in ponytails and that, and
so people will watch and us thetop sports watched and the Olympics are not
men's sports but women's sports. Butlet's look at what that is. It's
ice skating, it's gymnastics, andit's volleyball. Those are the really popular
sports. So I don't need totell you what the audience is really interested
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in. But soccer is huge too. Women's the w NBA women, you
know, I read it. Iread it on reports all the time.
Men say that it's they it's notappealing to watch tall, super tall,
large boned, aggressive women. Andto me that is the saddest thing because
(28:02):
the women in the w NBA arephenomenal athletes, but they're kind of tied
to Serena william Yeah, you knowWilliams. Yet she's too strong, she's
too muscular, she's too aggressive,she's too competitive, and so well so
are the gymnastics and you know,our gymnastics, but they still look the
part that we want them to look. So that's where the work for us,
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that's where it really comes in iswe've got to change our own,
our culture and our subculture's idea ofbeauty. You know, there is an
interesting topic that continues to heat up, and it really feels like over the
past couple of years especially, ithas been pushed to the forefront, and
that has to do with transgendered athletesand whether or not they should be able
(28:47):
to compete with women who are bornwomen. However you want to phrase it,
what have you here forgive me,if for anyone who if I'm not
specifically saying it correctly, but Ithink everyone understands what I'm trying to say
here. But I want to getyour thoughts as someone who is a pioneer
in sports, as someone who literallyyou've given you your body to science to
(29:11):
study what happens to it in sports, and what have you, especially in
your case while you're pregnant. What'syour take on a lot of folks who
you know they're against Title nine,but yet they want to suddenly protect women
and because of this, they haveto stand up and stand against transgender athletes.
(29:32):
And you know, we have toprotect the women in all this nonsense,
which in my view it equals peoplejust using other people as pawns to
push political agendas, as opposed toreally given a damn about a very serious
issue, a delicate issue, anissue that requires a lot of thought and
(29:53):
a lot of research and a lotof understanding. What's your take on the
co opting of the like that?Yeah, this is an interesting topic for
me because so I've done my duediligence here. I've done over three years
of reading every single study ever done, and so I am here to tell
(30:15):
you that my so, I actuallywant to pump the brakes on allowing transgender
females in sports. But here's why. And I you know, I tell
this to my students, I havetransgender students, but I say it is
for me. It is not personal. I sincerely believe that every single person
(30:37):
should be allowed to live the lifethat they want to live. My problem
is this. But we do knowright now as it stands that even after
two years of testosterone suppression, thelevel of testosterone in a transgender female athlete
is still higher or as high asthe most elite of elite female who have
(31:00):
higher than average testosterone. Then thatcompounded why the fact that the hormones,
you know, female hormones is real, and how her play in sports and
competition and training are impacted by hermenstrual cycle and the way our bodies are
(31:21):
designed. And then of course pregnancy, which is my area, and even
menopause. Here's where I have aproblem, and that is, as I
mentioned earlier, we're still using amale model to represent women. In medicine.
We know that women are waking upin the middle of surgery because they
have a different reaction to anesthesia that'sworked well for biological males. There are
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so many medical issues that are goingon. Women are still kept out of
clinical trials for new medications, andonly six percent of all exercise research is
given to female athletes. And oneof my favorite stories to tell is there
was an iron woman, Stacy Simms. And Stacy was at the iron Man
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event in Hawaii and she was goodto do really well, and the end
of the story is she did sopoorly. She wound up in the medical
tent and was really sick and injured. And she was stumped by this.
And what she found out from otherfemale competitors was she thought, I'm lucky.
My period's not going to start fortwo days, I'll be able to
do this event, not realizing thattwo days before an event is probably one
(32:30):
of her more critical times for needingdifferent things for her body, and so
she crashed. She went back toNew Zealand. So it's one of the
top universities in the world for studyingexercise science, and she asked the director,
how did I not know this?Why is there not information out here?
And he said to her, well, women are a bit of an
anomaly, and so you guys,your bodies are always because you're your hormones.
(32:54):
You're too expensive and time consuming toreally do studies on, so they
just don't. So my thing is, look until we know more about how
women react to different medications and women'shormones and when is it? When is
it? You know, with women, there's different times during her cycle that
(33:16):
she's more likely to pull or tearcartilage er ligaments. I don't I object
to any new bodies coming into women'ssports out of respect to female athletes and
our history in which we've had tofight for literally everything, until you give
(33:36):
us more science. I want topump the brakes. And then I as
I say that I'm not saying never. I'm just saying, hey, guys,
look, let's let's pay a littlebit more attention and give some respect
to half of the world's population beforewe do anything different. And then that
said, I also am arguing thateven now, though there must be a
(33:58):
space for transgender male and female athletesin sports, there must be because we
know that sports is the great It'sone of the most inclusive things in the
world that everybody can enjoy and love. So, yeah, that was a
very long answer. But I dothink out of respect to my cis gender
female athletes, we have to findout what is helping us and harming us
(34:22):
before we have any anybody else comeinto the field, onto the track and
so on. But one more thing, and that is but you're right,
is so some people have found outthat I, in my quest to make
sure that women get more steadies,I've said, hey, I want to
pump the brake on this. I'vehad a lot of people on the far
(34:45):
right think that we are aligned,and then I usually say, no,
okay, you can step away fromme please, because you and I are
not together on this. Yeah,I want to see transgender female and male.
I was going to say athletes,but everybody lived the life that they
should live. But until we knowmore about the female because of our hormones,
(35:08):
that the women's sports space needs tosay there until we know more.
And this is why the name ofthe show is tell Us the Truth,
because legitimately, regardless of the factthat I just asked a very sensitive,
very challenging, dare I say,polarizing question, or at least, the
(35:30):
answer to that question could be allof those things. Nonetheless, Alex,
you stepped up to the plate andyou gave a very measured and detailed response.
And by the way, and Ilove the way that you started that
you've done your due diligence on thisin addition to the fact that you have
lived experience, in addition to thefact that you are part of this question
(35:53):
right, So this is this isreally interesting. I've never heard a more
complete an eloquent response to that question. And look, I'm not an expert,
and I have no business weighing inon something like this. I need
to take a step back and listenand learn and compare notes and continue to
(36:15):
move forward in that regard. ButI really really appreciate the fact that you
answered the question in such a detailedmanner. And you know, again,
that's the beauty of a show likethis as well, because we can go
long form and give a complete thought. And I don't know, I think
it would be very difficult to disagreewith what you just said there, because
(36:36):
you're you're not advocating for people tobe discriminated against or anything like that,
but you are saying, let's pumpthe brakes and let's make sure that we
have our ducks in a row,so to speak, as it pertains to
the science of things, And youjust educated me on some things that I
quite frankly did not know and donot understand as it relates to women athletes,
(36:57):
who menstraight and things of that need, and even in your case,
who are pregnant and what happens tothe body before competition, Like that's a
lot to digest, that's a lotto sit down and try to figure out.
And unfortunately, the loudest voices fromwhat I've observed, as it relates
to topics like this, unfortunately theydon't have that knowledge, they don't have
(37:20):
that data, and they're certainly notquotinated if they did, because it certainly
gives a different perspective on the subject, and I want to continue to go
down this road, and in futureepisodes I will because I want to unpack
this a little bit more and reallyunderstand this more. So again, kudos
to you for that, because thatwas not easy. I was. That
(37:40):
was a landmine, and you wereready and you jumped right in and you
gave a great response. So againkudos. I'll tell you a story I've
never told before to anyone. WhenI was on the Bob Slid team,
and it's remember it's the nineteen nineties, and remember when AIDS was a really,
really big scale in the late eighties, in the nineteen nineties, and
(38:04):
one of my teammates, um isgay, and she came to me right
before one of our competitions and basicallytold me she was withdrawing. And I
asked why, and she she brokedown and she told me that a former
partner of hers had tested positive forAIDS, or she thought she had tested
positive for AIDS, and she said, we I can't, I can't slide
(38:28):
with you. I can't risk thecrash of me bleeding and you being there
with me because you're a mom.And I remember, it didn't take me
even half a second to go bull, You're this is nope, You're you're
just being a coward and you're justafraid to slide. So man up and
we're going. And so, youknow, I tell that story because I
(38:51):
wanted to be clear that you know, I knew what she was capable of,
and we were in it together,and she was not going to back
out, and we were doing Iwas not going to have anybody else but
her. I feel that strongly forthe rights of transgender males and females as
well, to live a life andbe who you want to be. I
just don't right now though, assistgender females just we just keep taking hit
(39:16):
after hit after freaking hit. Thatall I'm saying is just give me my
science, give me due diligence.Let me know that you care enough about
us to give us fifty percent ofexercise studies and stop using a male model
for clinical trials and giving it towomen as a well, we'll see what
happens. Get us straight on thatone, and then if the science comes
(39:38):
in and shows me that trends genderfemale and cist gender females are good to
go, boom. I'll be thebiggest cheerleader folks. You know that when
it comes to subjects that deal withthe advancement of women, it's something that
I'm very passionate about, and Idon't just talk about it. It's legitimately
(40:00):
when it comes to my shows,including here, it tells the truth.
I put the airtime where my mouthis right this subject, especially when it
comes to Alex's book When Women Stood, The untold history of females who change
sports in the world. This isnot just for you. I challenge you
to share work like this with youngpeople in your life. So, whether
(40:24):
we're talking your children, your yoursiblings, you know, kids that you
mentor whatever, this is the typeof thing that young people absolutely should be
reading. I'm talking even kids youknow down in middle school, because those
are the future leaders of the worldwho are going to help become solutions.
(40:50):
See. I think part of theissue that we run into with a lot
of these subjects is that we're tryingto get these adults who are setting their
ways to change. And yeah,that's a strategy. But another strategy,
which I believe would be even moreeffective, is if we start teaching our
young people while they're still forming theirthoughts, while before they get set in
(41:12):
their ways, teaching them the importanceof equality, teaching them the importance of
treating each other with respect and dignity. So again, when we talk about
when women stood, the untold historyof females who change sports in the world,
put that on the list of thingsthat you're going to share with young
people in your life. I absolutelyrecommend that, because they are going to
(41:37):
be the reason why things change.We may help, but in the end,
they got to get it done,and they're not going to get it
done until we start educating them.Now, Oh my goodness, you're yes,
I'm doing I'm about to do myScooby Dooo dance again. You're making
me so happy. And that ishow I in the book with more uplifting
(42:00):
stories, because change is going tocome from children and young teenagers and my
twenty some things right now, andthat's what I tell my college students perspective.
Here's one quick story as a perspective. So in twenty nineteen, NASA
was going to have its first everall female walk in space, right an
(42:23):
amazing event they and remember at thistime in twenty nineteen, NASA had a
budget of over twenty I think itwas. It's twenty point nine billion dollars.
That's their budget right at kind ofthe last minute. They canceled the
all female spacewalk because they only hadtwo size medium uniforms to fit women.
(42:51):
Really, and I laughed when Iread that, because I thought, yeah,
in in every event, the femalebody is an afterthought. It's an
afterthought right now in medical schools,it's an afterthought in hospitals, it's an
afterthought in exercise science. And itwas an afterthought for the IOC when they
(43:15):
said, yes, sure, let'slet transgender female athletes in sport, and
they never really did their due diligence. And so I'm just asking for us
to stop being an afterthought. Andso, yes, if young people were
to read this book, they reallydo read. They get the history on
the pill, abortion, They getthe history on the female triad and why
(43:37):
our nutrition needs are different than maleathlete nutritional needs. They get the history
on everything from the non white experiencein sports and politics, it was very
different than the experience of the whitefemale athlete or in politics. And so
I really did lay all that outso that everybody could see how we got
(44:00):
to where we are now, howfar we've come but woof, we've still
got some work to do. Well, Alex, Now that we have given
our call to action, what's thebest way that everyone can grab a copy
of When Women Stood? Any ofyour favorite bookstores you can go and if
they don't have it, they cancertainly order it. It's probably the easiest.
(44:21):
I hate say, but it's Amazondot com, but you can get
it on Amazon or really Barnes,any bookstore she'd be able to get it.
And yeah, it's I wrote it. It's got really heavy topics in
it, but I also wrote itin mind so that young teens could read
it as well. And what aboutyou personally, Alex? I mean,
for anyone listening who wants to keepup with whatever you have going on,
(44:44):
what's the best way that they cancontinue to follow you? Oh? Thanks
for asking. So I do havea website and it's the whole name spill
spelled out Alexandra Allread dot com andyou can find me there and contact me
that way. Now, Alex,before I let you go, I gotta
ask about food, Okay. Ilove to ask my guests about food because
(45:05):
it's always a fun response here.So I may never be a bob sled
legend, you know, a worldclass athlete or anything like that. But
maybe I can eat like one.So if I want to eat like Alexander
already, okay, if I wantto do the Bob Sled style eating,
what am I eating? And why? Oh? Okay? So I love
(45:30):
this so much because I'll tell youa funny story. Is it was probably,
let's see, probably about nineteen ninetyfive or nineteen ninety six. We
had a really hard day sliding.There is you know, just again the
sport of Bob SLID's brutal, soit really bangs you up. And we
were back in the Olympic Training Center'scafeteria and we were going through. And
(45:51):
the way the Olympic Training Center cafeteriasare lined up, You'll love this because
you're a foodie. They have sothey has everything you can imagine. But
there are cars that are placed infront of all the different food items in
the buffet that are sports specific.And so I'm going down, I'm pushing
along, and I'm between two ofmy my buddies, my teammates, and
(46:12):
I'm going through and I stop andI point to one of them and I
go, look at that, andit was more uh, you know,
lean meat, salads and all vegetables, and we were stars, you know,
from being out sliding all day.And I looked at it and it
was for um, you know,it's for the lighter sports, you know,
sports that demand that you have areally low weight for you know,
gravity reasons, right, Nordic skijumping and ice skating. And I remember
(46:36):
I pointed to some of the thingsthat had the ice skaters and Nordic ski
jumpers and buy athletes and I said, that's so sad. And then we
pushed a little bit further down theroad and I saw a beef stroging off
in all the pasta and it saidreal big bob sled And I looked at
my teammates and I was like,I knew I was in the right sport.
So yeah, that's so I am. Um, if I'm going in
(47:00):
to an event that I know thatI got to be full on and you
know you know this, but allbodies are different too, so as an
athlete you have to you learn prettyquickly how your body reacts to different foods.
But for me, yeah, Iam a beef stroging off lasagna kind
of girl, and you know,going into something and then I can eat
(47:22):
light afterwards, but yeah, Ilike to. I like to load up
on everything before I go in.Being at the Boston Marathon is right around
the corner for so that that soundslike a runner's diet, right. You
know. Carbs, carbs, carbs, carbs, carbs, carbs and proteins.
So I mix my proteins and mycarbs more heavily if I'm going to
be doing something intense. I taughtbefore our interview today, I was at
(47:45):
the gym for three hours and Iwas teaching kickboxing to a bunch of different
classes. And so this morning,you know, I eat heavier on a
Tuesday morning than I do the restof the week, probably because I know
I'm in the gym for three hoursdoing kickbox and lifting, kickboxing and lifting.
So that's that's the Marshal Arrison youAnd it's funny since you bring it
(48:06):
up, I want to ask realquick, what's your take on Holly holmes
last fight. You know, shejust had another battle there and she was
able to pull off to victory onceagain, so UFC, I guess we
can call a legend at this point. What did you think of Holly Holmes
last fight? I did get towatch that fight. Loved it. I'm
I'm a big fan of hers.Yeah, and she's a great example because
(48:30):
a lot of the times when she'sended the fight, it's stand up,
and she's a great stand up fighter. But you saw that, you saw
the fight. I mean, man, she they went, they were on
the mat, and she knows whatto do when she's down on the mat,
So that's she's she is a wellrounded So she's and I think she
even started boxing before kickboxing, butshe's a well rounded fighter because she standing
(48:52):
up or on the mat, sheknows what to do. I love her
well, Alex already. I'll tellyou this may have been one of the
more unconventional conversations you've ever had herebecause we've gone from talking about Bob sledding
to your body being studied because youcompeted while four months pregnant, talked about
your fantastic book When Women Stood,even talked about food and Holly Holm,
(49:17):
everything under the sun here and itwas so cool. You've been so engaged
and really appreciated, and absolutely you'rewelcome to come back anytime, especially when
you have a new project here.But for now, thank you for telling
us truth. I loved it.And I'll tell you what. In the
next couple of days, I'm goingto find one of my pictures and I'm
going to send it to you foryour mom, not for you for your
(49:38):
mom. Fantastic conversation there with alexAlred, and you know, she's very
interesting. She downplays her significance insports, but legitimately the first body studied
in terms of an elite athlete inthe United States of America. She was
four months pregnant while she was competingon an Olympic level and really pioneering a
(50:01):
whole sport. That's fascinating, youknow, and the fact that she was
able to do that. But alsoyou know her regiment, What did she
eat, what did she do fortraining? How did she keep herself safe?
Big deal, man, really reallybig deal. So very impressed with
her. She knows her stuff.Definitely encourage everybody to check out when women
(50:22):
stood fantastic read. I loved it. So it's all about man, and
it's it's crazy because it's twenty twentythree and women continue to still be marginalized,
treated like less than and spoken ofand spoken too, and just horrific
(50:43):
manners. You know, it reallydoesn't make any sense to me the way
that society treats women, especially womenathletes, who Now, these are folks
who were going to go on andinspire others to achieve great things in life
just like them. And fellas,isn't that what we do? I mean,
(51:05):
didn't we look up to athletes andmovie stars and people like that in
addition to whomever was a mainforce inour lives, whether it be a parent
or a sibling and uncle, aunt, whatever. You know, somebody mentor
somebody in your life, you lookedup to them. But you know,
sports athletes are pretty easy to latchonto and get inspired by. Why do
(51:31):
we as men work so hard tomaintain the wage gap, the authority gap,
the opportunity gap on every level,including sports. There's never a real
good justification, oh than the factthat the people who are in positions of
(51:53):
power want to maintain that power andthey don't want anyone else to come in.
Right, And it's interesting because it'sthe same rhetoric that you hear whether
you talk about racial discrimination, whetheryou talk about discrimination based on religion,
sexual orientation, what have you.Right, same talking points, same nonsense.
(52:17):
So we have to be careful anddo what we can to make sure
that we're not part of the problemand that we're doing all we can to
be part of the solution. Imarvel at people who claim to be allies
of anything, but yet when itcomes to the things that they have the
most control over, you don't reallysee as much action from them in those
(52:44):
areas as their rhetoric would suggest.This show tell Us the Truth, and
really any podcast that I have,even my pro wrestling and MMA podcast,
that's actually a more interesting example.Because pro wrestling and mixed martial arts are
are supermajority dominated by men. Igo out of my way to make sure
(53:06):
that women are featured and that wehighlight women in a very serious and respectful
manner. And it's been going onon that end for coming up on the
seven year anniversary of my other show, The Duke Loves Rassling, and it's
fascinating because it's not a show that'sexclusively about women athletes, but we make
(53:28):
sure that we dedicate a significant amountof time highlighting them and here on tell
Us the Truth with our guests.You've heard that, of course, right,
that's what it's all about. Man, don't just sit here and claim
that that's what you're about. Youknow, in my non podcasting world,
(53:50):
you know, when it comes tomanagement, when it comes to consulting,
one of the first things that Ido is I take a look at a
staff, take a look at ateam, take a look at a workspace,
and I'm looking for certain things.Number One, diversity, not just
race, but also in gender.You know, is there too much testosterone
(54:15):
in this room? Where's the balance? It matters. Everything can be made
far more efficient when you have adiversity of people in the room working together
on a common goal. Right Thatis the ultimate productivity right there, You're
(54:37):
going to get the best results.Life has taught me that at every aspect,
wherever I've worked, wherever I've been, wherever I've consulted, wherever I've
volunteered, When diversity is a majorpart of the space, we're operating at
a much higher level consistently. Bythe way, that's not so hard to
believe. So why is it thatwe have to literally dragged people kicking and
(55:00):
screaming in order to get there.It's crazy to me, man, It's
absolutely crazy to me. And Ilove the fact that Alex talked about the
sexualization of women athletes, and weused Serena Williams and Anna ConA Covert for
example. And again I'm not pickingon Anna or anything like that. She's
(55:22):
an accomplished athlete in own right.But let's be real here, this projection
of the blonde here, white girl. You know, there was a focus
more on that as opposed to theperson who was actually getting the job done
better than anyone had ever done before. In Serena Williams, right, how
(55:45):
do you justify that? It's crazy? So we really have to continue to
take a step back and check ourselvesin a lot of these areas, folks.
But again, I truly believe,and this is the passion of mine,
and you've heard me say it before. Young people, we gotta get
(56:06):
them involved. They gotta they gottabe educated on this stuff. They have
to know this stuff. They haveto be taught right from wrong. Growing
up, we had so many strongwomen who were doing so many great positive
things. I had women engineers andyou know, law enforcement, and you
know there's people working in all differenttypes of areas that are dominated by men.
(56:31):
But they were excelling in those areas, which allowed me to understand that
women can do what men could dodone full stop. I don't believe that
there are jobs that should be dominatedby one or the other or whatever.
No, absolutely not, because I'veseen it for myself. In folks,
(56:53):
you've heard my mom on the showthirty seven years in law enforcement, and
she's not the biggest lady in theworld either, but she was out there
doing the same job that her malecounterparts are doing and doing it just as
well and oftentimes even better. Withthat example, how the hell could I
(57:13):
ever turn around and try to discriminateagainst a hold back or treat differently any
woman after I've seen that and grewup with that, and we're taught those
lessons right, lived it. Wegotta do better, man. But but
(57:36):
your actions have to match the rhetoric. Don't just claim it, you gotta
be it. People shouldn't have towork too hard to see the things that
you believe in and what you standfor, wear it on your sleeves.
People get in a lot of troublewhen they start claiming, oh, you
(57:57):
know, I could never be aracist, I have you know, my
friend Jim was over yesterday. It'slike, what, you don't got to
worry about anybody accusing you of anything? If if that's really not what you're
about, and in fact you areactually advocating for others and doing the right
thing by others. Right, there'sa lot of fellows that say, yeah,
(58:21):
man, I believe women should betreated equally, but it's always that
but right, especially when we starttalking about sports. Yeah, I agree
women should have equal opportunity in sports, but you know, they're just not
as good right now. And youknow, I'm just not as excited about
this right now. The Amanda Nowonezthing, it was a great example that
(58:44):
I used there because legitimately, DanaWhite has said to the public that it's
hard to put it to put togethera fight for her, not because the
talent isn't out there. He justlacks the interest. He doesn't believe that
it's worth putting the effort into promoting. He doesn't believe that his fans,
(59:05):
the fans of the UFC, aregoing to buy it. But part of
the reason why it's going to taketime to build that fan base up to
the point where they are spending consistentlyspending big money on women in the main
event is because Dana White has alsobeen on a record saying he doesn't believe
in women's MMA, that he wouldnever promote women's MMA, and then when
(59:28):
he started promoting women's MMA, hewas always doing it halfheartedly. All right,
So what do you expect your yourfollowers to do, your fans to
do when you have already made itclear that you don't even believe in the
product your own self cutting it offat the knees man, So I digress.
(59:52):
I just think that we all cando better, and we should and
we we will, right, butit starts. You've got to be the
change that you want to see inothers. So you folks know that we
do it here and tell Us theTruth. I encourage you to continue to
do it on your end as well, and encourage these young people who do
(01:00:14):
it so we can change habits andprogress in a more positive direction overall in
our society. Indeed, once again, thank you to alex Alred. Tell
Us the Truth, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, tell Us the Truth dot
(01:00:34):
Duke at gmail dot com. Letme know what you think of the show.
Appreciate you until next time, Bekind to yourselves and be kind to
others. This is E Duke Bennettand you've been listening to tell Us the
Truth. Tell US. The Truthis produced in Boston in association with iHeartMedia
(01:00:57):
and WBZ News Radio Board
Alexandra al Read is the author ofthe book When Women Stood, The Untold
History of Females Who Changed Sports andthe world, and she certainly knows all
about that, considering the fact thatshe is a legend in the sport of
Bob's letting. Wow. My nameis E Duke Bennett, and this is
(00:25):
tell Us the Truth. Hi,my name is Alexandra al Read, and
I am the author of When WomenStood, The Untold History of Female Athletes
Who Changed sport and the world.And I really am here to tell you
the truth. I wrote this bookbecause I was really focused on how much
(00:48):
better we need to treat female athletes. But it didn't take long before I
realized, doing just the tiniest bitof research, how much men have historically
been written out of history. Andso what it started as just something for
athletes became global because women have beenwritten out of history. And that is
(01:14):
the truth that I want to tell. Well, alex First and foremost,
it is an absolute pleasure to haveyou here on tell us the Truth.
You truly are a legend, apioneer in the world of Olympic bob sled
and sports in general. And it'sfunny because my mom is originally from Jamaica,
and my introduction to bob sled wasbecause of the movie Cool Runnings.
(01:41):
You know about the original Jamaican bobsledteam, Yes, do me a favorite's
let's take a step back talk tome about your history and bob sled because
it's fascinating. Well, first ofall, I'd like to say hi to
your mom and tell her that inmy collection of photographs that I have,
I have many pictures of the Jamaicanbobsled team because I actually got to train
(02:04):
with them. So really my story, I've always been into sports, love
sports, and I had never hadany design in my lifetime to become a
bob sliter. In fact, mybackground was martial arts. But I had
just had my first child and Iwas sitting on the couch watching ESPN and
(02:24):
saw the men's bobsled team or competitionand thought, man, this is the
coolest sport I've ever seen. Andso of course I waited to watch the
women and they didn't show, andthey didn't show, and so I actually
had to go to the library becausethis was nineteen ninety four, we were
(02:45):
pre internet, and so I wentto the library and found out that in
nineteen forty, the granddaughter of MelvilleDewey as in the Dewey decimal system,
Catherine Dewey one and Open Grand Championshipand bob sled and beating out everyone,
including the men, and so ofcourse it took about two days for the
(03:07):
men to realize that they did notlike the champion being female. She was
stripped up her medal and women werebanned from the sport from that time on.
So I'm sitting on the couch holdingmy six month old at the time,
and you know, I was soexcited to watch them, And then
when I go to the library andI find this out, I thought,
(03:28):
nope, this is not going tohappen. And so I started writing everyone,
the United States Olympic Committee, theInternational Olympic Committee, the US Bob
Sled Federate, everybody, And eventuallyI wrote enough letters that finally I got
that phone call about two months later, and essentially they said, we're going
to have the first ever women's bobsled camp. Are you coming, big
(03:51):
mouth, which you know, ofcourse, what do you do you trash
talk that long? I said,yeah, I'll be there, and then
promptly hung up the phone and thoughthood's and so, but I went and
I continued to make cut after cutafter cut and tell September and it was
actually nineteen ninety three when I firstsaw the bob sledding, and in September
(04:12):
nineteen ninety four, with the sportsillustrated in attendance, I surprised everyone,
including myself, and I won theUS Nationals. And I was also four
months pregnant at the time, soit was kind of a big deal.
Congratulations on being someone who has beenso integral and helping sport evolve, not
(04:35):
just in the United States of Americabut around the world. I mean,
to accomplish all that you've accomplished,and you did it well four months pregnant.
I can't even wrap my head aroundthat. Yeah, I you know,
when I won, it was funnybecause my teammates or soon to be
teammates were yelling, you know,unfair, unfair, She's got two people
(04:57):
in the led So every it wasgood humored about it, but it was
certainly I appreciate your kind words becauseit was unprecedented. No one really knew
and knew anything about what I wasdoing. And in fact, that's I
got a phone call from a researcherat Case Western University. He had been
doing studies on marathon runners and biathletes, but that was really the extent of
(05:24):
research in the nineties up to thenineties of pregnant elite athletes. And at
that time I was squatting about threeseventy five free weight and running just right
around twenty miles per hour in sprint, and so that was exciting for him,
and so it was great for meas well because I was literally hooked
(05:45):
up to everything imaginable while I trained, and so I always got to know
what my now daughter's heartbeat was asI was training, so I always knew
that I was in no way puttingher in any kind of distress. So
that was really exciting. By winningthe first ever women's championship in the United
States, I also made medical historyjust because I wanted to make sure my
(06:09):
daughter was okay. But for Ifound out. For almost two decades following
that, the USOC and IOC usedmy training regiment for other elite athletes,
which is kind of cool. Soonce again you're just out there making history
and you're being modest here, butit truly is incredible what you've been able
to accomplish. And then when wewere training, we were in we were
(06:32):
at the World Cup in Calgary andwe had one of our first significant crashes.
I was break at the time,and I remember when we finally came
for your listeners and Bob said,when you crash, you don't just the
Bob said, doesn't stop and youget to get out, you know,
you have to. You have tocrash all the way down the mountain.
(06:55):
So every curve that you go intoon the track, you're just re crashing
over and over. And so Iget to the bottom of the track and
I am just we're both so beatup, and I just sort of finally
when the sled comes to a slow, slow and then a stop, I
fell backwards and just just I've justbeen beaten by a baseball bats and I
hear the you know, crunch,crunch, crunch of feet running and I
(07:17):
look up and the very first faceI saw was Jamaican Bob sled pilot Deadly
Stokes, and he looks just likein the movie. He looks at me
and he said, hey, Mama, you okay, And I said,
no, I'm not okay. Nowwas my introduction to Deadly Stokes and we
became we became training partners after that. So it's a little bit of irony
(07:42):
there. I bring up Cool Runnings, you know, the movie, and
you legitimately have a personal connection withthose guys, and let me tell you,
they are such cool people, supersuper great people. So you hear
that, Mom, Yeah, that'sfor your mom, Just for your mom,
right. I mean, it's justit's really cool because you have this
(08:07):
legendary career, this historic career reallyin sports, and now here you are.
You write this book when Women Stood, the untold history of females who
change sports in the world. Howimportant is it for someone who has actually
(08:28):
lived that life? You know,someone like yourself, you who are who
is a legend, who has participatedin sports on the highest of high levels,
and who has gone through the verythings that you outline in this book.
How important is it to have afirsthand understanding of that world and then
(08:50):
go and interview the folks who youinterviewed for this book. That is such
a great question. Thank you thatAnd it's a great question because I don't
I don't know that I've ever beenasked in that manner, So thank you.
It was It's really important because soI tell people, yeah, I
was on the US national bob sledteam, and there's the assumption that,
(09:13):
of course we had a coach,and we had uniforms, and we had
sleds. Nothing could be further thanthe truth. So on September twenty fourth,
nineteen ninety four, as the metalwas being hung around my neck,
the then director of the US bobsthe program leaned in and he whispered to
me and he said, you know, this means nothing. And it took
(09:37):
a minute for me to realize whatthe implications of what he just said to
me was. And I remember backat the Olympic training Center, the newly
named first ever women's team, wewere all together in the bedroom and you
know, one of the rooms,and I told him, I said,
this is what he said, andwe all realized in that moment they were
(10:01):
forced to have the first ever trials, but they don't want us here,
and for the next four years wehad to fight, and that, in
fact, that's how we've got closeto the Jamaican bobsled team. The Jamaican
bobsled team and the Trinidadian bob saidteam. They really helped us when we
were in some of the World Cups, and in fact, when we were
(10:22):
at the World Cup in Saint Maritz, it was Prince Albert's bodyguards who helped
us move sleds around because we didnot have we didn't have our own country
helping us. We were left onour own. And so because of that
experience, it really heightened my awarenessof just how double the double standards were.
(10:45):
And then flash forward to where weare today. That's when I realized
I have to write this book becauseas hard as I fought and everything we
went through, and I'm telling youwe had, we had broken bones,
cushions, I mean just really hardcrashes. Bob setting is a very dangerous
sport. You would have assumed thatthings would be so much better now,
(11:09):
and in many regards they are,so I am optimistic on many levels.
But I teach kinesiology at the colleginguniversity level as well, and I'm looking
at some of the textbooks that I'vebeen assigned to teach from to my students,
and literally, in a three hundredpage book, there's only about two
or three pages that's dedicated to thehistory of women in sport, And I
(11:33):
thought, I'm teaching tomorrow's coaches trainers, physical therapists, occupational therapists. You
know, I'm teaching Tomorrow's leaders andall things wellness in sport, and they
don't know anything about the female body. And it was then that I started
to do more research and found outthat today our top medical universities in this
(11:54):
country still use a one hundred andfifty four pound mail to represent female And
you know, many of your audienceprobably already know this, but black women
in this country die during childbirth farmore than any other women. And that's
(12:15):
quite a statement because as it is, of all the western countries in the
world, the United States have moredeaths during child birth than any other country.
Why how can that be? Andso I knew that this book had
to go beyond sport, and they'retied together because we treat women like we
(12:37):
treated our female athletes. Well that'snot a surprise. Well, let's have
a conversation about that and this thatthis is exactly how the book came about.
You know, we're talking a lotabout your career in Bob Sled,
but you started off, and yousaid it earlier in the conversation, you
started off as a martial artist.You know, you're very well accomplished in
(12:58):
that world as well. I wantto pick your brain about something because in
addition to this show here tell usthe Truth, I also have a Combat
Sports Pro Wrestling podcast, Duke LovesRassling, and over there I interview a
lot of MMA fighters. In fact, shout out to the wonderful ladies over
at Invicta Fighting Championships. Spent alot of time interviewing folks from their roster
(13:24):
and what have you. The wholepoint is to continue to promote the sport
of mixed martial arts and really womenin mixed martial arts specifically, someone who
is involved with Invicta behind the scenes, and even previously she had fought there,
is Amanda Nownez. She's one ofthe greatest MMA fighters of all time,
still a champion in UFC. Shetook down Rohnda Rousi, who's definitely
(13:48):
gonna be in the Hall of Fameas well. Amanda Nownez pound for pound,
is one of the greatest fighters periodin the world, male or female,
and yet the UFC and their matchmakers, they have had a difficult time,
according to them, finding suitable challengersfor her. And it's very strange
(14:11):
because they don't have any issue findingchallenges for their men that they're trying to
promote. But yet here we arein twenty twenty three, and they're making
excuses for why they can't take thiswoman who was a double champion for a
period of time, literally dominating twoseparate way classes. At the same time,
(14:33):
they're making excuses for why they can'tfigure out how to find competition for
her, promote it and put iton, put the machine behind it,
and promote these athletes like the greatathletes that they are. And it's really
it confuses me, and it makesme sit quite frankly, what's your take
(14:54):
on that whole world there that womenare still putting up with this sort of
thing all these years later, despitethe fact that they've achieved this greatness.
You know, again, a manat the Newton at one point she was
a double champion, she still hasone of her belts, she's still getting
it done, she's still a bigtime name. But yet they have a
hard time finding fights for We havesome cultures within our cultures right around the
(15:16):
world. And one of my favoritetopics when I talked to my college students,
you know, when we covered thewomen in sports history, I always
look at my and most of mystudents are student athletes, right, and
many semesters I'll have more males inmy class and I have female athletes.
(15:37):
And it was just a couple ofsemesters ago and I was talking about the
the entry of the Latina athlete.And I told the class, I said,
you know, they didn't really comeonto the scene until until the nineteen
nineties. And I always pause fora second, you know, I let
them just sort of let that sinkin. And then I asked, I
(15:58):
said, why do you think thatis? And one of my students he
raised his hand and he said,well, I'm Hispanic and this is,
you know, my culture, andI can tell you you know, the
Latina woman is super hyper sexualized inour culture. And he said, so
it's hard to take an athlete seriouslyif he or she is super hyper sexualized.
(16:19):
And he was a fantastic answer,because it actually rocked me back a
little bit. I knew that,of course, but to hear it in
in that way, it set meback for a second. And you know,
you're absolutely right. And so I'mgoing to swing back to a mandan
Unez to say, so she wasalready part of a subculture within a culture
(16:41):
that would be more prone to overlookher despite her amazing talent, and I
do. She's one of my favorites. I love her. And then also
she's gay and she doesn't have thesexy factor. So let's look at Ronda
Rousey, who is you know,also really great. But Ronda played her
(17:04):
cards well. She understood that shehad to tap into the sexy. She
talked about having sex a lot,she did a lot of um, you
know, you've seen the media coveragethat she got. She had a lot
of sexy va vavomi kind of covers, and that's what helped push her to
the front because she was going intoa very non traditional sport for females.
(17:27):
But she was still holding up thatfeminine ideal which women had been saddled with
for four thousand years. And I'lltell you who doesn't fit that mold.
And we're still fighting that right now, Black women, Hispanic women, Asian
women. That's for four thousand years, we've always pushed the rail thin,
(17:52):
fair skinned, submissive, demure,sexy white female. And so it's been
such a problem for really great athletesto break through and get the proper media
attention. Just because she wasn't shedidn't uphold that that ideal and that those
(18:15):
are hard words. But the moreresearch I did, it became more and
more and more clear to me.And one of my favorite athletes definitely supports
everything I just said, and thatis Serena Williams. I'm come on,
she's phenomenal, but she's large boned, she's muscular, she's bigger than what
(18:37):
she's supposed to be according to thatthat that ideal. And then she you
know, you hear people and they'dsay she's so loud, she's so loud
on the tennis court, and I'mlike, yeah, she's she's swinging a
racket and hitting this thing at threehundred miles an hour. Of course she's
making a sound, but it's justthat's Serena Williams has had a far later
(19:00):
struggle than anybody I think can respectfullyrecognize. Serena Williams is a great example
because when you look at the coverageof some other folks, and you know,
I'm not trying to pick on anybody, but look at Anna corner Cova
for example. To Anna corner Covawas able to land a lot of lucrative
(19:21):
endorsements and modeling contracts and things ofthat nature. And quite frankly, she
was a good tennis player, whereasSerena Williams had to legitimately become the greatest
of all time in order to receivethese opportunities. It's really interesting when you
(19:41):
take a step back and really lookat these things with fresh eyes. Yeah,
Serena Williams is just it's just mindblowing how athletic and strong and competitive.
She's every single thing you want tohave in an elite athlete, every
single thing. She's everything. She'sthe total package. But Anna Cornacova fit
(20:03):
the heck a moment feminine ideal thatthe Western world in particular just covets.
You know, with all the unprecedentedaccess that you had to so many elite
women athletes, I wonder, wasthere anything that surprised you where you know,
you throughout the course of fact finding, interviewing, putting everything together,
(20:30):
you were like, WHOA, Ididn't see that coming. Did you have
any moments like that? Um?Yes, and no, so my wow,
the big the big wow takeaway fromall the people that I talked to.
Um, And then right here,I need everybody to stop and have
an image of me dancing around.Every single time I got to talk to
(20:51):
these spectacular people was just that itblew me away. How often, you
know, my phone would ring andI, Hey, this is Jesse Graft
from American Ninja Warriors. This agood time to talk. Are you getting
me? Yeah? I mean,I'll stop whatever I'm doing. But and
what my takeaway from that was,had I been doing a book on the
(21:12):
top men athletes of the world,I wouldn't have gotten through to any of
these guys because they have so muchmedia coverage as it is, It's like,
what's another interview to them. Butfor the women whom I spoke to,
they wanted to get the message out. They wanted to talk about the
things that they talked about because theynever get to talk about those things,
(21:33):
and so the access was pretty Imean, it was helpful, of course
that I have the background that Ido, but it was pretty easy to
get through to the most amazing womenin sports. My biggest wow was when
I went back through history and Istarted looking at the women before us and
what they really went through. Imean, you know, so I tell
(21:56):
people, Yeah, me and myteam we went through a lot on the
women's Bob slid team. But thenI go back in history and I look
at what some of these women wentthrough. I mean, especially the non
white female athletes. They had deaththreats for just wanting to be part of
sport. I mean, you know, it's just it's insane to me,
(22:18):
and we don't we don't recognize that. And so today one of my favorite
athletes, and she's unnamed because atthe time, what newspaper in nineteen fifty
nine is going to write is goingto record the name of the black cheerleader
who refused to stand for the nationalanthem. But you know, I say,
(22:40):
take a knee, or we talkabout the national anthem and the protests
that have been and you think eitherthe nineteen sixty eight Olympic Games or you
think Colin Kaepernick, right, Butthe reality is is at a Harvard basketball
game and almost all white audience,two black cheerleaders protests tested the treatment that
they were getting as an American citizen, as American citizens, that I boy,
(23:07):
I went down a rabbit hole forabout four days trying to get all
the research I could on them becausethose two women, and I don't know
their names, but those two womentalk about strong, brave, patriotic.
I mean, those are incredible women, but they were literally written out of
history because they didn't fit the ideal. There's there were so many stories.
(23:30):
One of my most disappointing stories isBabe. You know, Babe Dietrichson.
You know, she was she wasall sports. I mean every list you
cannot google best top ten female athletesof all time, and she's you can't
google and find that she's not onevery single list. But it was really
(23:53):
distressing to find out that she wasa horrible racist and tide Pickett. You
know, she was called the fastestgirl in the world, and she makes
the I believe I'm away from mybook. I believe it's the nineteen thirty
sah either thirty two or thirty fourOlympic Games, and she and another teammate,
(24:18):
they were the first two black womentwo Stokes were the first two black
women ever to be on the USwomen's track team, and Babe made their
lives a living hell. And thenjust before the Olympic Games, without any
reason at all, the fastest girlin America and Stokes, they were both
cut from the team. And there'sno you know, there's no written documentation.
(24:42):
Believe me, I looked, Butit's it's an unsaid within the sports
world that it was understood that Babeprotested having these two black athletes on the
team. Those are the kind ofthings we don't hear about. And I
was pretty upset about that because Ihad always been a big fan of Babes.
But I'm a fan of what shewas able to do. But that's
(25:06):
about it. You know, Iwonder, Alex, because this issue is
still to this day all too real. Where do we go? You know?
Where do we go from here?Yeah? And you know I make
a joke sometimes with other people andI say, I don't know you when
you find out, please let meknow. So every semester at the end,
(25:26):
I um, I give a it'sa it's basically it needs to be
well thought out, please, butit's they get to give their opinion.
And the last question, my finalexam is how just what you asked,
where do we go from here?How can we make the experience for the
female athlete equal to the male athlete? And you know, in the throughout
(25:49):
the course, we cover title nineand the history of and and how it
helps and why it's so important,and we dispel all the myths, And
then I get these answers back andthey're being genuine and since here and they'll
say, these are my twenty somethingstudents, you know, and they'll say,
well, that's just it's really sad. But I don't see a way
that this is going to change becausethat's just how it is for women.
(26:11):
Ah, And they mean it.They my brilliant, brilliant, twenty something
year old students. They don't seethings getting better for the female athlete or
women in general because quote, that'sjust the way it is. So I
I that is my That's my thingright now. That's the thing that I'm
(26:34):
focused on most is that we haveto we have to break that up.
We have to stop saying that's theway it is. So we have a
lot of work to do ahead ofus. But you know, I'm again,
if you, if your listeners readthe book, you'll see that it
ends on a it ends on anempowering note because the last two chapters I
(26:55):
take the time to really highlight thewomen who are activists today, women who
are joining together with other women fromall sports to just stand up for each
other. And I love to see, for example, the women's soccer players
in the United States really standing upand trying to promote the women of the
w NBA. Why because female soccerplayers that they fit that that feminine ideal,
(27:19):
you know, cute little girls runningaround in ponytails and that, and
so people will watch and us thetop sports watched and the Olympics are not
men's sports but women's sports. Butlet's look at what that is. It's
ice skating, it's gymnastics, andit's volleyball. Those are the really popular
sports. So I don't need totell you what the audience is really interested
(27:41):
in. But soccer is huge too. Women's the w NBA women, you
know, I read it. Iread it on reports all the time.
Men say that it's they it's notappealing to watch tall, super tall,
large boned, aggressive women. Andto me that is the saddest thing because
(28:02):
the women in the w NBA arephenomenal athletes, but they're kind of tied
to Serena william Yeah, you knowWilliams. Yet she's too strong, she's
too muscular, she's too aggressive,she's too competitive, and so well so
are the gymnastics and you know,our gymnastics, but they still look the
part that we want them to look. So that's where the work for us,
(28:23):
that's where it really comes in iswe've got to change our own,
our culture and our subculture's idea ofbeauty. You know, there is an
interesting topic that continues to heat up, and it really feels like over the
past couple of years especially, ithas been pushed to the forefront, and
that has to do with transgendered athletesand whether or not they should be able
(28:47):
to compete with women who are bornwomen. However you want to phrase it,
what have you here forgive me,if for anyone who if I'm not
specifically saying it correctly, but Ithink everyone understands what I'm trying to say
here. But I want to getyour thoughts as someone who is a pioneer
in sports, as someone who literallyyou've given you your body to science to
(29:11):
study what happens to it in sports, and what have you, especially in
your case while you're pregnant. What'syour take on a lot of folks who
you know they're against Title nine,but yet they want to suddenly protect women
and because of this, they haveto stand up and stand against transgender athletes.
(29:32):
And you know, we have toprotect the women in all this nonsense,
which in my view it equals peoplejust using other people as pawns to
push political agendas, as opposed toreally given a damn about a very serious
issue, a delicate issue, anissue that requires a lot of thought and
(29:53):
a lot of research and a lotof understanding. What's your take on the
co opting of the like that?Yeah, this is an interesting topic for
me because so I've done my duediligence here. I've done over three years
of reading every single study ever done, and so I am here to tell
(30:15):
you that my so, I actuallywant to pump the brakes on allowing transgender
females in sports. But here's why. And I you know, I tell
this to my students, I havetransgender students, but I say it is
for me. It is not personal. I sincerely believe that every single person
(30:37):
should be allowed to live the lifethat they want to live. My problem
is this. But we do knowright now as it stands that even after
two years of testosterone suppression, thelevel of testosterone in a transgender female athlete
is still higher or as high asthe most elite of elite female who have
(31:00):
higher than average testosterone. Then thatcompounded why the fact that the hormones,
you know, female hormones is real, and how her play in sports and
competition and training are impacted by hermenstrual cycle and the way our bodies are
(31:21):
designed. And then of course pregnancy, which is my area, and even
menopause. Here's where I have aproblem, and that is, as I
mentioned earlier, we're still using amale model to represent women. In medicine.
We know that women are waking upin the middle of surgery because they
have a different reaction to anesthesia that'sworked well for biological males. There are
(31:45):
so many medical issues that are goingon. Women are still kept out of
clinical trials for new medications, andonly six percent of all exercise research is
given to female athletes. And oneof my favorite stories to tell is there
was an iron woman, Stacy Simms. And Stacy was at the iron Man
(32:07):
event in Hawaii and she was goodto do really well, and the end
of the story is she did sopoorly. She wound up in the medical
tent and was really sick and injured. And she was stumped by this.
And what she found out from otherfemale competitors was she thought, I'm lucky.
My period's not going to start fortwo days, I'll be able to
do this event, not realizing thattwo days before an event is probably one
(32:30):
of her more critical times for needingdifferent things for her body, and so
she crashed. She went back toNew Zealand. So it's one of the
top universities in the world for studyingexercise science, and she asked the director,
how did I not know this?Why is there not information out here?
And he said to her, well, women are a bit of an
anomaly, and so you guys,your bodies are always because you're your hormones.
(32:54):
You're too expensive and time consuming toreally do studies on, so they
just don't. So my thing is, look until we know more about how
women react to different medications and women'shormones and when is it? When is
it? You know, with women, there's different times during her cycle that
(33:16):
she's more likely to pull or tearcartilage er ligaments. I don't I object
to any new bodies coming into women'ssports out of respect to female athletes and
our history in which we've had tofight for literally everything, until you give
(33:36):
us more science. I want topump the brakes. And then I as
I say that I'm not saying never. I'm just saying, hey, guys,
look, let's let's pay a littlebit more attention and give some respect
to half of the world's population beforewe do anything different. And then that
said, I also am arguing thateven now, though there must be a
(33:58):
space for transgender male and female athletesin sports, there must be because we
know that sports is the great It'sone of the most inclusive things in the
world that everybody can enjoy and love. So, yeah, that was a
very long answer. But I dothink out of respect to my cis gender
female athletes, we have to findout what is helping us and harming us
(34:22):
before we have any anybody else comeinto the field, onto the track and
so on. But one more thing, and that is but you're right,
is so some people have found outthat I, in my quest to make
sure that women get more steadies,I've said, hey, I want to
pump the brake on this. I'vehad a lot of people on the far
(34:45):
right think that we are aligned,and then I usually say, no,
okay, you can step away fromme please, because you and I are
not together on this. Yeah,I want to see transgender female and male.
I was going to say athletes,but everybody lived the life that they
should live. But until we knowmore about the female because of our hormones,
(35:08):
that the women's sports space needs tosay there until we know more.
And this is why the name ofthe show is tell Us the Truth,
because legitimately, regardless of the factthat I just asked a very sensitive,
very challenging, dare I say,polarizing question, or at least, the
(35:30):
answer to that question could be allof those things. Nonetheless, Alex,
you stepped up to the plate andyou gave a very measured and detailed response.
And by the way, and Ilove the way that you started that
you've done your due diligence on thisin addition to the fact that you have
lived experience, in addition to thefact that you are part of this question
(35:53):
right, So this is this isreally interesting. I've never heard a more
complete an eloquent response to that question. And look, I'm not an expert,
and I have no business weighing inon something like this. I need
to take a step back and listenand learn and compare notes and continue to
(36:15):
move forward in that regard. ButI really really appreciate the fact that you
answered the question in such a detailedmanner. And you know, again,
that's the beauty of a show likethis as well, because we can go
long form and give a complete thought. And I don't know, I think
it would be very difficult to disagreewith what you just said there, because
(36:36):
you're you're not advocating for people tobe discriminated against or anything like that,
but you are saying, let's pumpthe brakes and let's make sure that we
have our ducks in a row,so to speak, as it pertains to
the science of things, And youjust educated me on some things that I
quite frankly did not know and donot understand as it relates to women athletes,
(36:57):
who menstraight and things of that need, and even in your case,
who are pregnant and what happens tothe body before competition, Like that's a
lot to digest, that's a lotto sit down and try to figure out.
And unfortunately, the loudest voices fromwhat I've observed, as it relates
to topics like this, unfortunately theydon't have that knowledge, they don't have
(37:20):
that data, and they're certainly notquotinated if they did, because it certainly
gives a different perspective on the subject, and I want to continue to go
down this road, and in futureepisodes I will because I want to unpack
this a little bit more and reallyunderstand this more. So again, kudos
to you for that, because thatwas not easy. I was. That
(37:40):
was a landmine, and you wereready and you jumped right in and you
gave a great response. So againkudos. I'll tell you a story I've
never told before to anyone. WhenI was on the Bob Slid team,
and it's remember it's the nineteen nineties, and remember when AIDS was a really,
really big scale in the late eighties, in the nineteen nineties, and
(38:04):
one of my teammates, um isgay, and she came to me right
before one of our competitions and basicallytold me she was withdrawing. And I
asked why, and she she brokedown and she told me that a former
partner of hers had tested positive forAIDS, or she thought she had tested
positive for AIDS, and she said, we I can't, I can't slide
(38:28):
with you. I can't risk thecrash of me bleeding and you being there
with me because you're a mom.And I remember, it didn't take me
even half a second to go bull, You're this is nope, You're you're
just being a coward and you're justafraid to slide. So man up and
we're going. And so, youknow, I tell that story because I
(38:51):
wanted to be clear that you know, I knew what she was capable of,
and we were in it together,and she was not going to back
out, and we were doing Iwas not going to have anybody else but
her. I feel that strongly forthe rights of transgender males and females as
well, to live a life andbe who you want to be. I
just don't right now though, assistgender females just we just keep taking hit
(39:16):
after hit after freaking hit. Thatall I'm saying is just give me my
science, give me due diligence.Let me know that you care enough about
us to give us fifty percent ofexercise studies and stop using a male model
for clinical trials and giving it towomen as a well, we'll see what
happens. Get us straight on thatone, and then if the science comes
(39:38):
in and shows me that trends genderfemale and cist gender females are good to
go, boom. I'll be thebiggest cheerleader folks. You know that when
it comes to subjects that deal withthe advancement of women, it's something that
I'm very passionate about, and Idon't just talk about it. It's legitimately
(40:00):
when it comes to my shows,including here, it tells the truth.
I put the airtime where my mouthis right this subject, especially when it
comes to Alex's book When Women Stood, The untold history of females who change
sports in the world. This isnot just for you. I challenge you
to share work like this with youngpeople in your life. So, whether
(40:24):
we're talking your children, your yoursiblings, you know, kids that you
mentor whatever, this is the typeof thing that young people absolutely should be
reading. I'm talking even kids youknow down in middle school, because those
are the future leaders of the worldwho are going to help become solutions.
(40:50):
See. I think part of theissue that we run into with a lot
of these subjects is that we're tryingto get these adults who are setting their
ways to change. And yeah,that's a strategy. But another strategy,
which I believe would be even moreeffective, is if we start teaching our
young people while they're still forming theirthoughts, while before they get set in
(41:12):
their ways, teaching them the importanceof equality, teaching them the importance of
treating each other with respect and dignity. So again, when we talk about
when women stood, the untold historyof females who change sports in the world,
put that on the list of thingsthat you're going to share with young
people in your life. I absolutelyrecommend that, because they are going to
(41:37):
be the reason why things change.We may help, but in the end,
they got to get it done,and they're not going to get it
done until we start educating them.Now, Oh my goodness, you're yes,
I'm doing I'm about to do myScooby Dooo dance again. You're making
me so happy. And that ishow I in the book with more uplifting
(42:00):
stories, because change is going tocome from children and young teenagers and my
twenty some things right now, andthat's what I tell my college students perspective.
Here's one quick story as a perspective. So in twenty nineteen, NASA
was going to have its first everall female walk in space, right an
(42:23):
amazing event they and remember at thistime in twenty nineteen, NASA had a
budget of over twenty I think itwas. It's twenty point nine billion dollars.
That's their budget right at kind ofthe last minute. They canceled the
all female spacewalk because they only hadtwo size medium uniforms to fit women.
(42:51):
Really, and I laughed when Iread that, because I thought, yeah,
in in every event, the femalebody is an afterthought. It's an
afterthought right now in medical schools,it's an afterthought in hospitals, it's an
afterthought in exercise science. And itwas an afterthought for the IOC when they
(43:15):
said, yes, sure, let'slet transgender female athletes in sport, and
they never really did their due diligence. And so I'm just asking for us
to stop being an afterthought. Andso, yes, if young people were
to read this book, they reallydo read. They get the history on
the pill, abortion, They getthe history on the female triad and why
(43:37):
our nutrition needs are different than maleathlete nutritional needs. They get the history
on everything from the non white experiencein sports and politics, it was very
different than the experience of the whitefemale athlete or in politics. And so
I really did lay all that outso that everybody could see how we got
(44:00):
to where we are now, howfar we've come but woof, we've still
got some work to do. Well, Alex, Now that we have given
our call to action, what's thebest way that everyone can grab a copy
of When Women Stood? Any ofyour favorite bookstores you can go and if
they don't have it, they cancertainly order it. It's probably the easiest.
(44:21):
I hate say, but it's Amazondot com, but you can get
it on Amazon or really Barnes,any bookstore she'd be able to get it.
And yeah, it's I wrote it. It's got really heavy topics in
it, but I also wrote itin mind so that young teens could read
it as well. And what aboutyou personally, Alex? I mean,
for anyone listening who wants to keepup with whatever you have going on,
(44:44):
what's the best way that they cancontinue to follow you? Oh? Thanks
for asking. So I do havea website and it's the whole name spill
spelled out Alexandra Allread dot com andyou can find me there and contact me
that way. Now, Alex,before I let you go, I gotta
ask about food, Okay. Ilove to ask my guests about food because
(45:05):
it's always a fun response here.So I may never be a bob sled
legend, you know, a worldclass athlete or anything like that. But
maybe I can eat like one.So if I want to eat like Alexander
already, okay, if I wantto do the Bob Sled style eating,
what am I eating? And why? Oh? Okay? So I love
(45:30):
this so much because I'll tell youa funny story. Is it was probably,
let's see, probably about nineteen ninetyfive or nineteen ninety six. We
had a really hard day sliding.There is you know, just again the
sport of Bob SLID's brutal, soit really bangs you up. And we
were back in the Olympic Training Center'scafeteria and we were going through. And
(45:51):
the way the Olympic Training Center cafeteriasare lined up, You'll love this because
you're a foodie. They have sothey has everything you can imagine. But
there are cars that are placed infront of all the different food items in
the buffet that are sports specific.And so I'm going down, I'm pushing
along, and I'm between two ofmy my buddies, my teammates, and
(46:12):
I'm going through and I stop andI point to one of them and I
go, look at that, andit was more uh, you know,
lean meat, salads and all vegetables, and we were stars, you know,
from being out sliding all day.And I looked at it and it
was for um, you know,it's for the lighter sports, you know,
sports that demand that you have areally low weight for you know,
gravity reasons, right, Nordic skijumping and ice skating. And I remember
(46:36):
I pointed to some of the thingsthat had the ice skaters and Nordic ski
jumpers and buy athletes and I said, that's so sad. And then we
pushed a little bit further down theroad and I saw a beef stroging off
in all the pasta and it saidreal big bob sled And I looked at
my teammates and I was like,I knew I was in the right sport.
So yeah, that's so I am. Um, if I'm going in
(47:00):
to an event that I know thatI got to be full on and you
know you know this, but allbodies are different too, so as an
athlete you have to you learn prettyquickly how your body reacts to different foods.
But for me, yeah, Iam a beef stroging off lasagna kind
of girl, and you know,going into something and then I can eat
(47:22):
light afterwards, but yeah, Ilike to. I like to load up
on everything before I go in.Being at the Boston Marathon is right around
the corner for so that that soundslike a runner's diet, right. You
know. Carbs, carbs, carbs, carbs, carbs, carbs and proteins.
So I mix my proteins and mycarbs more heavily if I'm going to
be doing something intense. I taughtbefore our interview today, I was at
(47:45):
the gym for three hours and Iwas teaching kickboxing to a bunch of different
classes. And so this morning,you know, I eat heavier on a
Tuesday morning than I do the restof the week, probably because I know
I'm in the gym for three hoursdoing kickbox and lifting, kickboxing and lifting.
So that's that's the Marshal Arrison youAnd it's funny since you bring it
(48:06):
up, I want to ask realquick, what's your take on Holly holmes
last fight. You know, shejust had another battle there and she was
able to pull off to victory onceagain, so UFC, I guess we
can call a legend at this point. What did you think of Holly Holmes
last fight? I did get towatch that fight. Loved it. I'm
I'm a big fan of hers.Yeah, and she's a great example because
(48:30):
a lot of the times when she'sended the fight, it's stand up,
and she's a great stand up fighter. But you saw that, you saw
the fight. I mean, man, she they went, they were on
the mat, and she knows whatto do when she's down on the mat,
So that's she's she is a wellrounded So she's and I think she
even started boxing before kickboxing, butshe's a well rounded fighter because she standing
(48:52):
up or on the mat, sheknows what to do. I love her
well, Alex already. I'll tellyou this may have been one of the
more unconventional conversations you've ever had herebecause we've gone from talking about Bob sledding
to your body being studied because youcompeted while four months pregnant, talked about
your fantastic book When Women Stood,even talked about food and Holly Holm,
(49:17):
everything under the sun here and itwas so cool. You've been so engaged
and really appreciated, and absolutely you'rewelcome to come back anytime, especially when
you have a new project here.But for now, thank you for telling
us truth. I loved it.And I'll tell you what. In the
next couple of days, I'm goingto find one of my pictures and I'm
going to send it to you foryour mom, not for you for your
(49:38):
mom. Fantastic conversation there with alexAlred, and you know, she's very
interesting. She downplays her significance insports, but legitimately the first body studied
in terms of an elite athlete inthe United States of America. She was
four months pregnant while she was competingon an Olympic level and really pioneering a
(50:01):
whole sport. That's fascinating, youknow, and the fact that she was
able to do that. But alsoyou know her regiment, What did she
eat, what did she do fortraining? How did she keep herself safe?
Big deal, man, really reallybig deal. So very impressed with
her. She knows her stuff.Definitely encourage everybody to check out when women
(50:22):
stood fantastic read. I loved it. So it's all about man, and
it's it's crazy because it's twenty twentythree and women continue to still be marginalized,
treated like less than and spoken ofand spoken too, and just horrific
(50:43):
manners. You know, it reallydoesn't make any sense to me the way
that society treats women, especially womenathletes, who Now, these are folks
who were going to go on andinspire others to achieve great things in life
just like them. And fellas,isn't that what we do? I mean,
(51:05):
didn't we look up to athletes andmovie stars and people like that in
addition to whomever was a mainforce inour lives, whether it be a parent
or a sibling and uncle, aunt, whatever. You know, somebody mentor
somebody in your life, you lookedup to them. But you know,
sports athletes are pretty easy to latchonto and get inspired by. Why do
(51:31):
we as men work so hard tomaintain the wage gap, the authority gap,
the opportunity gap on every level,including sports. There's never a real
good justification, oh than the factthat the people who are in positions of
(51:53):
power want to maintain that power andthey don't want anyone else to come in.
Right, And it's interesting because it'sthe same rhetoric that you hear whether
you talk about racial discrimination, whetheryou talk about discrimination based on religion,
sexual orientation, what have you.Right, same talking points, same nonsense.
(52:17):
So we have to be careful anddo what we can to make sure
that we're not part of the problemand that we're doing all we can to
be part of the solution. Imarvel at people who claim to be allies
of anything, but yet when itcomes to the things that they have the
most control over, you don't reallysee as much action from them in those
(52:44):
areas as their rhetoric would suggest.This show tell Us the Truth, and
really any podcast that I have,even my pro wrestling and MMA podcast,
that's actually a more interesting example.Because pro wrestling and mixed martial arts are
are supermajority dominated by men. Igo out of my way to make sure
(53:06):
that women are featured and that wehighlight women in a very serious and respectful
manner. And it's been going onon that end for coming up on the
seven year anniversary of my other show, The Duke Loves Rassling, and it's
fascinating because it's not a show that'sexclusively about women athletes, but we make
(53:28):
sure that we dedicate a significant amountof time highlighting them and here on tell
Us the Truth with our guests.You've heard that, of course, right,
that's what it's all about. Man, don't just sit here and claim
that that's what you're about. Youknow, in my non podcasting world,
(53:50):
you know, when it comes tomanagement, when it comes to consulting,
one of the first things that Ido is I take a look at a
staff, take a look at ateam, take a look at a workspace,
and I'm looking for certain things.Number One, diversity, not just
race, but also in gender.You know, is there too much testosterone
(54:15):
in this room? Where's the balance? It matters. Everything can be made
far more efficient when you have adiversity of people in the room working together
on a common goal. Right Thatis the ultimate productivity right there, You're
(54:37):
going to get the best results.Life has taught me that at every aspect,
wherever I've worked, wherever I've been, wherever I've consulted, wherever I've
volunteered, When diversity is a majorpart of the space, we're operating at
a much higher level consistently. Bythe way, that's not so hard to
believe. So why is it thatwe have to literally dragged people kicking and
(55:00):
screaming in order to get there.It's crazy to me, man, It's
absolutely crazy to me. And Ilove the fact that Alex talked about the
sexualization of women athletes, and weused Serena Williams and Anna ConA Covert for
example. And again I'm not pickingon Anna or anything like that. She's
(55:22):
an accomplished athlete in own right.But let's be real here, this projection
of the blonde here, white girl. You know, there was a focus
more on that as opposed to theperson who was actually getting the job done
better than anyone had ever done before. In Serena Williams, right, how
(55:45):
do you justify that? It's crazy? So we really have to continue to
take a step back and check ourselvesin a lot of these areas, folks.
But again, I truly believe,and this is the passion of mine,
and you've heard me say it before. Young people, we gotta get
(56:06):
them involved. They gotta they gottabe educated on this stuff. They have
to know this stuff. They haveto be taught right from wrong. Growing
up, we had so many strongwomen who were doing so many great positive
things. I had women engineers andyou know, law enforcement, and you
know there's people working in all differenttypes of areas that are dominated by men.
(56:31):
But they were excelling in those areas, which allowed me to understand that
women can do what men could dodone full stop. I don't believe that
there are jobs that should be dominatedby one or the other or whatever.
No, absolutely not, because I'veseen it for myself. In folks,
(56:53):
you've heard my mom on the showthirty seven years in law enforcement, and
she's not the biggest lady in theworld either, but she was out there
doing the same job that her malecounterparts are doing and doing it just as
well and oftentimes even better. Withthat example, how the hell could I
(57:13):
ever turn around and try to discriminateagainst a hold back or treat differently any
woman after I've seen that and grewup with that, and we're taught those
lessons right, lived it. Wegotta do better, man. But but
(57:36):
your actions have to match the rhetoric. Don't just claim it, you gotta
be it. People shouldn't have towork too hard to see the things that
you believe in and what you standfor, wear it on your sleeves.
People get in a lot of troublewhen they start claiming, oh, you
(57:57):
know, I could never be aracist, I have you know, my
friend Jim was over yesterday. It'slike, what, you don't got to
worry about anybody accusing you of anything? If if that's really not what you're
about, and in fact you areactually advocating for others and doing the right
thing by others. Right, there'sa lot of fellows that say, yeah,
(58:21):
man, I believe women should betreated equally, but it's always that
but right, especially when we starttalking about sports. Yeah, I agree
women should have equal opportunity in sports, but you know, they're just not
as good right now. And youknow, I'm just not as excited about
this right now. The Amanda Nowonezthing, it was a great example that
(58:44):
I used there because legitimately, DanaWhite has said to the public that it's
hard to put it to put togethera fight for her, not because the
talent isn't out there. He justlacks the interest. He doesn't believe that
it's worth putting the effort into promoting. He doesn't believe that his fans,
(59:05):
the fans of the UFC, aregoing to buy it. But part of
the reason why it's going to taketime to build that fan base up to
the point where they are spending consistentlyspending big money on women in the main
event is because Dana White has alsobeen on a record saying he doesn't believe
in women's MMA, that he wouldnever promote women's MMA, and then when
(59:28):
he started promoting women's MMA, hewas always doing it halfheartedly. All right,
So what do you expect your yourfollowers to do, your fans to
do when you have already made itclear that you don't even believe in the
product your own self cutting it offat the knees man, So I digress.
(59:52):
I just think that we all cando better, and we should and
we we will, right, butit starts. You've got to be the
change that you want to see inothers. So you folks know that we
do it here and tell Us theTruth. I encourage you to continue to
do it on your end as well, and encourage these young people who do
(01:00:14):
it so we can change habits andprogress in a more positive direction overall in
our society. Indeed, once again, thank you to alex Alred. Tell
Us the Truth, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, tell Us the Truth dot
(01:00:34):
Duke at gmail dot com. Letme know what you think of the show.
Appreciate you until next time, Bekind to yourselves and be kind to
others. This is E Duke Bennettand you've been listening to tell Us the
Truth. Tell US. The Truthis produced in Boston in association with iHeartMedia
(01:00:57):
and WBZ News Radio Board
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