Women taking activism lead heading to Rio Olympics

Rio 2016 has a chance to be significant in a way not many are expecting.

Topics like the Zika virus and terrorism are at the front of most minds this summer, and rightfully so, but one of the potential themes of the Olympics is gathering steam almost daily.

That theme is activism, and the discussion is being led by women.

Last week, the WNBA fined players for wearing plain black T-shirts during warm-ups. The T-shirts were a show of support for the Black Lives Matter movement, although players stressed the feeling was not anti-police. The New York Liberty, Indiana Fever and Washington Mystics staged media blackouts after their games, taking questions not about basketball, but about Black Lives Matter.

“It’s an important issue because the majority of the women in our league are African-American,” the Liberty’s Swin Cash told Yahoo Sports. “And the majority of us have been affected by this issue, directly or indirectly.”

Cash, who is also vice president of the players’ union, says she has family members “who have been profiled or harassed.” She says players expected the league to react to players wearing the plain black T-shirts, though not to this extent.

“The women understood we were taking a risk,” she says. “To see how excessive a fine took us back a little bit.”

The league initially fined the players $500 and the teams $5,000. On Saturday, the league decided to rescind the fines and promised to use the coming weeks to continue talks with the players on the matter.

Those weeks are important, as the WNBA is now on its Olympics break. That means the story might move to Brazil, where some of the league’s players will be competing. It is possible their voices will be heard there as well. Cash, a former Olympian herself, says she’s not aware of any specific plans for Rio, but she points out that the effort has been joined by women of several races and nations.

“We love to represent our country,” she says. “That doesn’t stop you from doing things to make our country better.”

The dispute with the WNBA, in the weeks following the shooting deaths of African-American men in Louisiana and Minnesota, is not lost on those who study sports history. “Summer ’16 is a watershed moment,” says Lou Moore, professor of history at Grand Valley State in Michigan. “We’ve never seen black women athletes collectively engage in the civil rights movement.”

At the same time, another group of women athletes will likely be making their own statement in Rio: the U.S. Women’s National Team.

After suing U.S. Soccer for equal pay earlier in the year, the World Cup champions have been wearing “Equal Play Equal Pay” T-shirts and tattoo stickers in order to keep the movement going and appeal to viewers within and beyond U.S. borders.

“We’re trying to keep this issue in front of the world,” says Rich Nichols, acting general counsel for the players. “To the extent we can use the Olympics to do that, that’s what we want to do.” He doesn’t expect any form of protest during matches, but rather “wherever the message can be worn without disrupting or disrespecting the Olympics.”

Nichols says the T-shirts and stickers are in black and white, not red, white, and blue, to stress the international aspect of the equal pay fight. “They see this as a global issue,” Nichols says, “not just their issue.”

The two issues, police brutality and equal pay, are separate. So it is unfair to combine or conflate them. However, the Olympics provide a format where both of these causes may find new traction. Athletes from other sports may be asked for their opinion. And male athletes could also be speaking up. Carmelo Anthony has already rushed to support WNBA players, drawing a comparison to when NBA players wore “I Can’t Breathe” T-shirts two years ago after the death of Eric Garner in New York.

“A bunch of teams did it and individuals did it,” Anthony told reporters of the T-shirt protests. “Everybody has their own freedom of speech. If they decide to use the platforms to do that, I don’t see any reasons for anybody to get fined. We did it. The NBA did it two years ago. The NBA was very supportive. I don’t see why it would be different this time.”

The host nation is important as well, as police brutality is a problem in Brazil. Black Lives Matter leaders have already visited the Olympic city to meet with sympathetic residents there. One Massachusetts woman, Elizabeth Martin, lost a nephew in 2007 when he was shot to death by an off-duty police officer in Rio.

“It’s important that we stand with each other because we know this violence is connected,” Daunasia Yancey, a Black Lives Matter activist from Boston, told the Associated Press last week. “Anti-black violence is global and our resistance is global.”

“Our resistance” has a dual meaning: the Black Lives Matter movement was begun in 2013 by three women.

The Olympics have been a place for protest before, most notably in 1968 when Tommie Smith and John Carlos raised their fists in the air during the U.S. national anthem after the 200-meter final in Mexico City. Smith later wrote the gesture was a “human rights salute” rather than a “Black Power” support. Regardless, the world saw it and the moment became arguably the most remembered aspect of the entire Games. Smith and Carlos, who were expelled from the Olympics, became historic figures.

Since then, the sports world has changed dramatically. Title IX has allowed women vast new opportunities in college and beyond, and the social platform that comes with it. The profound influence of women’s basketball, women’s soccer and other women’s sports is a drastic change from the 1960s. The best women athletes are now entered into debates about their place in sports history, not just women’s sports history. Serena Williams recently stated her preference for being in that bigger conversation, rather than a subset. She will be in Rio as well, going for her fourth doubles gold medal with sister Venus. She has never been shy about making her feelings known, and she recently ended a 14-year boycott of Indian Wells because of racism she and Venus encountered there.

Male athletes have often been sought for political and social opinions (and criticized for not giving them), but this year, women athletes have been as outspoken as men if not more so. The T-shirt protests began with the Minnesota Lynx, who showed a display of solidarity for both the victims of police shootings and the police who were killed in Dallas. The voices of women athletes have never been stronger.

“Women have always been at the forefront,” says Cash. “We’ve always been engaged. It’s not just the African-American women.”

It is easy to dismiss women’s views as carrying less risk, as they get less in the way of media attention and sponsorships, and arguably have less to lose by speaking out. But there’s another way to look at that risk.

“Women have as much to lose as any pro athlete,” says Nichols. “It’s their career. How many pro [male] athletes out there would sue their employer on a wage discrimination complaint? How many NBA, NFL players would do that? I don’t think that many. I bet there are very, very few. These women are courageous; they are just as much at risk if not more so.”

To this point, the stands taken by women athletes have not dominated the national conversation. But the Olympics bring a world audience, and a broader following in America. Rio is an unprecedented opportunity for women athletes to lead, and it looks like they may do so in an unprecedented way.