Celebrating Vincentian Women in Sport
On Monday 8 March 2021, St Vincent and the Grenadines sporting fraternity will join its counterparts around the world in celebrating women in sport.
The St Vincent and the Grenadines Olympic Committee (SVGOC) has been addressing the matter and has been in collaboration with the Women In Sports Commission of the Caribbean Association of National Olympic Committees (CANOC), in preparing for the celebratory package.
Women’s struggle in sport
Over the past several years the sporting organisations have come to the realisation that despite significant efforts aimed at bringing to the fore the centuries of discrimination against women in all areas of life in society, the reality has not been adequately impacted.
One of the areas where women have been able to lift themselves in respect of their rightful place is in the realm of sport. That is not to say that there have been fewer hurdles to overcome.
In fact, the realm of sport has been one of the greatest challenges for women but they have made significant strides, nonetheless.
The Olympic Games began in 1896 but the leadership at the time, De Coubertin et al, fell prey to the malady of dominant Victorian values that touched every aspect of social life. Lynne Emery (1984), examined the engagement of women in the Olympic Games and noted that at the time of the first edition of the modern Olympics in Athens, Greece, “women were considered delicate, ephemeral and emotional and for these ‘clinging vine’ creatures to compete in athletic events was unthinkable.”
At the time there was no furore since it was consistent with the prevailing values of the period. But women in sport conjoined their plight with those of their counterparts in an ever-expanding number of countries.
Women who defied the norm in sport faced the same criticism as their counterparts in other fields of endeavour. Society often scoffed at their exposure of themselves to patrons and frowned on their seeming eagerness to ‘compete in the world of men’, trying to prove that they are their equal, biologically and otherwise.
Even when women broke through the ‘glass ceiling’ in sport, they were readily confronted with more hurdles.
Among the new hurdles was that female athletes competing in the same events as men could not earn as much as their make counterparts. This was nowhere more highlighted at the global level than in the sport of Tennis. Given the high-profile nature of the participants in tennis, the upper class, it came as no surprise that female tennis players were competing at tournaments for lesser prize monies that the men.
The Williams’ sisters, Venus and Serena, were amongst the long line of women in tennis who engaged in the struggle to liberate their gender from the crass discrimination in a sport that appeared to have initially derided them because of their colour and the challenge to the sport to end racial discrimination.
In many respects, the Williams sisters took up the mantle left by Arthur Ashe on the tennis courts around the world.
The challenges faced by women in tennis have been similar to that faced by others in different sports and they are still not easy to change. Despite the knocks and ridicule however, women continue to strive after gender equality in sport even as they are doing in education and employment.
Currently, Jordan Gray of the USA posed the challenge to World Athletics and the International Olympic Committee in respect of making a case for the inclusion of Women’s Decathlon in their mega events – World Championships and the Olympic Games.
As some suggest, ‘the more things change the more they remain the same’.
Vincentian women in sport
The plight of women in sport in St Vincent and the Grenadines has been no less harrowing.
There is a tendency for us as post -colonial societies to hide unsavoury things under the proverbial carpet. Discrimination against women in perhaps at the head of the list.
As with other aspects of Vincentian life, women in sport had to engage themselves in ‘women’s sport’, which translated into women only sport.
Vincentian society mimicked the international community in respect of being forced open to accepting women in all areas of sport. There are still ‘mountains to climb’, however.
Gloria Ballantyne
On Independence Day, 27 October 1998, Gloria Ballantyne was the recipient of an award from Queen Elizabeth II, ‘Member of the British Empire (MBE)’, presented by then Prime Minister, Sir James Mitchell, accompanied by Sir Charles and Lady Antrobus.
Achievements/Contributions
Gloria Ballantyne was an accomplished athlete. Although netball was her passion she gave good account in athletics in the 100yds and 200yds. Gloria also did a little bit of boxing.
In netball, she gained national representation for a few years.
Gloria became president of the St Vincent and the Grenadines Netball Association in 1971 while still a player.
Gloria also served as 1st Vice president of the St Vincent and the Grenadines Amateur Athletics Association (SVGAAA), now Team Athletics SVG (TASVG), and as 2nd Vice President and then Treasurer of the St Vincent and the Grenadines Football Federation. (SVGFF). Additionally, she was appointed as a member of the National Sports Council for several years.
A founding member of the St Vincent and the Grenadines Olympic Association (SVGOA), now the SVGOC, in 1982, Gloria was elected Vice President of that body in 1987 January 1987 when it received formal recognition by and membership of the International Olympic Committee (IOC). She was also the designated Chief of Mission for the country’s Olympic teams to the Olympic Games of Barcelona (1992), Atlanta (1996), Sydney (2000), Athens (2004) and Beijing (2008).
She also led Vincentian delegations to the Commonwealth Games in Manchester, England (2002), Melbourne, Australia (2006) and Delhi, India (2010).
During her career in the sport of netball, Gloria became Coach, Umpire, Umpiring Instructor, President of the Caribbean Netball Association (CNA) and founding member and Treasurer of the American Federation of Netball Associations (AFNA). She brought subregional and Caribbean netball tournaments to local shores and oversaw the sport attain significant heights amongst the local sporting fraternity. One of her most memorable achievements was having more than 50 teams participate in the national tournament when the organisation celebrated its 50th anniversary.
Gloria was always considered a very hard task-master in sport as in life. She never wavered from any commitment she had made and gave her utmost on every occasion.
Committed to family, she involved them in every undertaking, compelling them to help build the culture of sport she had, her entire life, built around them and which she has left us as her enduring legacy.
Legacy
Over the past several years each of our major sports associations has bemoaned what appears to be a significant drop-off of girls and women in Vincentian sport. Rosmund Griffith, Education Officer for Physical Education and Sport, in completing a study supported by the SVOC some years ago, cited a number of reasons for this trend across the Dry River.
Griffith’s study is but a humble beginning to an area of study that should prove challenging to our students at the tertiary level.
As we celebrate our women in sport on Monday 8 March, our mothers should embolden their children to see sport as a vehicle for good health, especially in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic, discipline and a means to earn a scholarship to access advanced education and possible, elite status in their sport of choice.
Gloria Ballantyne has afforded a good example of how women can and must break the barriers to their sustained growth, development and achievement.
Gloria’s challenging legacy is about elevating our women to the point where there are no borders to what they can achieve as they contribute to building the nation of St Vincent and the Grenadines.
