The attention sparked a backlash. Milliat was lampooned in newspapers and editorial cartoons.
She persisted. There were all-female games in 1926 (in Gothenburg, Sweden), 1930 (Prague) and 1934 (London, with more than 300 participants). They were officially called the Women’s World Games, though some in the media (including The New York Times, at least once, in 1930) referred to them as the Women’s Olympic Games.
But the wave of feminism slowed in the 1930s, amid a global depression and the buildup to the Second World War, which canceled the Olympics in 1940 and 1944. International sports federations were more inclusive of women, but were run by men, exerting the kind of soft control that Milliat had feared. In 1934, the I.O.C. considered eliminating women from the program entirely; women retained their meager place by a 10 to 9 vote. Growth in women’s sports tended toward what were seen as more feminine pursuits, like gymnastics and ice skating.
Any semblance of parity has been slow. In 1960, at the Rome Olympics, barely 1 in 10 athletes was a woman. At the 1984 Los Angeles Games, it was fewer than 1 in 4. In Beijing in 2008, it was just over 40 percent.
The I.O.C. has turned equity into a mission in recent years, but not all events are equal at the Olympics. In Paris, while the 50-kilometer race walk (for decades, considered suitable only for men) has been replaced by a mixed relay, women still compete in the five-event heptathlon, not the 10-event decathlon.
“I never realized what women had to fight for,” said Genre, the filmmaker. “I was born in the 1980s, and that wasn’t a fight for me. I didn’t know that women’s boxing wasn’t in the Olympics until 2012. And the marathon, in 1984? That was after I was born. That’s crazy for me. I thought there were women’s sports from the start.”
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