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Co-curated by Jane Gottesman and Geoffrey Biddle, this exhibition celebrates the popularity and success of women’s sports through an extraordinary collection of photographs and stories from female athletes about how sports have shaped their identities.
Mention the words “women” and “sports” in the same breath and several feats spring to mind:
• Mary Lou Retton’s five-medal win – including the gold for all-around performance – at the 1984 Summer Olympics.
• Brandi Chastain blasting the USA’s game-winning penalty kick against China, falling to her knees and joyously peeling off her jersey at the 1999 FIFA Women’s World Cup.
• Billie Jean King trouncing Bobby Riggs in the “Battle of the Sexes” match in 1973.
Yes, women’s roles in sports have come a long way since the pre-Title IX days.
In 1972, Congress enacted Title IX, legislation that provides for gender equity in federally funded education, including athletics. As a result, more women play sports now than ever before. With the passage of that bill, the face of women’s sports in the United States changed forever.
Gottesman, a former sportswriter for the San Francisco Chronicle, was disappointed with how women’s sports were covered – all too often they were denied space in the paper. When they did grab the headlines, it was usually for reasons other than achievement on the playing field.
Along with co-curator Geoffrey Biddle, Gottesman pored over thousands of images, many of them supplied by the Associated Press, others from big-name photographers such as Ansel Adams, Robert Mapplethorpe, April Saul and Annie Liebowitz.
Gottesman, a former lacrosse player who interviewed as many of the athletes as possible to learn the stories behind the photos, published those accounts in the book “Game Face.”
The exhibition – and book – explores not only what a female athlete looks like, but what makes her tick. The photos reveal women’s complex relationship to sports, as well as men’s support for the athletic females in their lives.
Amanda Beard, Serena Williams, Ila Borders and USC’s own Janet Evans and Inger Miller are among the Southern Californians represented. (Beard appears in the 1996 photograph by Al Schaben of the Los Angeles Times featured above, entitled ‘Face of Determination.’)
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