from 1900Reputable sourceWell documented
Women Enter the Olympics
On the timeline · around from 1900 · Revival & the Early Modern Games
What happened
The founder of the modern Games, Pierre de Coubertin, thought women's participation 'impractical, uninteresting, unaesthetic, and improper,' and no women competed in 1896. But women entered the Games at Paris in 1900, at first only in a few sports such as tennis and golf. Their numbers grew slowly across the 20th century in the face of persistent prejudice.
Why it matters
The struggle for women to compete — and to be taken seriously as athletes — mirrored the wider fight for women's rights. It took more than a century to approach gender parity, reached only at the Paris Games of 2024.
Sources
Related timelines
- History of Democracy → — Part of the wider struggle for women's equality