Roe v. Wade-related | Confidential: Open in Ten Years, by Nancy Jorgensen

02/05/202002/20/2020

Confidential: Open in Ten Years

…

2020

To my grandson, Stanley—when you are older,

This letter is about your mama. And some other women. Things your mama may not tell you because she is always looking forward. And because you are only two years old.

Before I tell you about your mama, I could tell you about my 1971 high school basketball team—we played half-court because men thought girls couldn’t manage 84 feet. I could tell you about Title IX that didn’t pass until 1972—so my friends and I didn’t have a track team. But that changed. So, I will tell you about 2019.

On a Sunday morning in July, I tuned in to a women’s soccer match in Lyon, France. I had never met Megan Rapinoe, Alex Morgan, Rose Lavelle or the other 20, but still, my edges unraveled when Rapinoe stepped up for a penalty kick, when Lavelle collected a pass and dribbled toward the Dutch defense, when the ball sped toward the U.S. goalie. I felt the same way when your mama competed in professional triathlon and cycled 25 miles per hour on slick cobblestones in Germany,Switzerland,Australia. The tilting turns and twisting descents made my insides collapse. I had to walk away from the screen.

US sports fans rooted for a soccer win, but the players fought for more than a World Cup. Months earlier, they filed a court case against their employer, the U.S. Soccer Federation. Although difficult to compare bargaining agreements, most analysts say a woman on a winning team earns between $30,000 and $164,000 less than a man. The case is going to mediation, but I wonder why the Federation doesn’t skip court and just agree to equal pay. I could tell you about the Equal Rights Amendment reintroduced in every session of Congress since 1982. But not much has changed.

The soccer case drew so much attention that two frontrunners for the 2020 democratic primary—Kamala Harris and Elizabeth Warren—issued statements of support. I could tell you about 1976 when one woman—a housewife from New York—was the only female presidential hopeful. But that changed. In 2019, there were six women running for the Democratic nomination and five of them were elected office holders.

When your mama raced triathlons, she competed on the course and not in the courts. When she won 25 races, two World Championships and the Rio 2016 Olympic gold medal, her purse was no different than the men’s.

But your mama is not immune to inequality. Because money is not the only gender disparity, your mama and daddy planned you around the Olympic cycle. Men have families and return to sport, but the biological effects for mothers influenced your conception. Your birth was designed to forfeit minimal training time. Your mama waited three months to avoid Zika virus dangers, conceived you in her next cycle, and delivered you twelve months after the Rio 2016 games. Your well-timed arrival gave her three full years to prepare for Tokyo 2020. She was part of a trend, creating you the same year tennis great Serena Williams birthed Alexis and triathlete Nicola Spirig birthed Malea. All three returned to sport and compete at the highest level—your mama ran a 5,000-meter indoor race when you were six months old and improved her personal best by 37 seconds.

Your mama finds inspiration in other mamas like runner Kara Goucher and swimmer Dana Vollmer. It’s ironic that women’s soccer produced one of the first mother athletes in 1994. Joy Fawcett returned to the field six weeks post-delivery and breastfed her daughter during halftime.

Many women lost money when sponsors refused to pay if an athlete couldn’t play. Some complained publicly. More endured quietly. A few spoke in favor of ASICS, HOKA and Oiselle who stuck with their pregnant athletes. This year, Nike pledged to waive performance-pay reductions for its sponsored athletes who have a baby.

Your mama received financial support throughout her pregnancy and during her transition from triathlon athlete to marathons. And she is once again training for a sport where pay is gender-neutral . In 2017, when her teammate Shalane Flanagan won the New York City Marathon, Flanagan earned $100,000—the same as Kenyan Geoffrey Kipsang Kamworor.

Sometimes I think equality for women is progressing. But experts predict it will take another 200 years to achieve worldwide gender equality in sports, politics, education, and economics.

When your mama is not running or biking or training, she is raising you. I could tell you about my own childhood when girls played house with kitchens and dolls, and boys played cowboys with holsters and guns. I could tell you that parents raised girls to be secretaries, nurses or teachers, and boys to be anything they wanted. But most of that changed.

Your parents try to eliminate gender bias, but your favorite toys are cars and tractors and airplanes. You hugged Pilot Barbie a few times and then abandoned her in favor of monster trucks and a police squad. You do squeeze one-inch dolls through toy car doors and scoop baby dolls onto your toy bulldozer. Your grandpa and I bought you a stuffed monkey. Sometimes you wrap her in a diaper and offer her pretend coffee. When I took you to the Portland Children’s Museum, you ran to the kitchen and imitated your daddy. He cooks, cleans, shops and cares for you so your mama can run. So, just like Daddy, you loaded a plastic grocery cart, hefted pots to the pretend stove and arranged rubber bread on a plate. And then, when we got home, you imitated your mama, practicing leg lifts, pedaling your tricycle and rolling an exercise ball. It makes me happy you want to be like them both.

While you learn to read and bike and cook and run, women fight. Sometimes in the courts, sometimes with sponsors, sometimes with citizens and consumers. Keep learning and maybe you can help.

By the time you read this, I hope Kamala and Elizabeth are both former U.S. presidents.

By the time you read this, I hope you have discovered your own talents.

By the time you read this, I hope you can mourn the inequality, appreciate the fight, and be grateful for the change.

Love you,

Grandma