Update to the below: gold medal for both the men’s and women’s hockey teams, both in overtime 2-1 games with unbelievable goaltending.
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We’ve come a long way on gender equity in sports — and it’s been incredible to witness. And still, I want more.
The Olympics have always been part of my life. My first Games were the Calgary 1988 Winter Olympics, thanks to my hockey-playing Canadian dad who had all six of us on the ice almost daily growing up (we all loved it). Years later, my family stood on Olympic ice in a different way — my sisters competing in figure skating at the Salt Lake 2002 Winter Olympics and the Torino 2006 Winter Olympics.
Now I’m a figure skating and hashtag#hockey mom, watching my goalie daughter and her teammates grow up in a world with more opportunity and visibility than ever before. There was no hashtag#womenshockey event until 1998. As four-time Olympian Angela Ruggiero Ruggiero has shared, she came home to no post-Olympic tour, no pro league, and little pay — even paying taxes on a modest medal bonus.
The progress in women’s hockey is real. The speed, skill, physicality — it’s elite sport, period. Packed arenas for the new PWHL. Momentum driven by so many leaders and advocates, including the Women’s Sports Foundation. And most importantly, young girls who no longer question whether they belong.
But parity isn’t just about participation. It’s also about framing.
A few things that still matter:
–It’s women’s hockey and men’s hockey, not “hockey” and “women’s hockey.” Language shapes perception.
–It’s wonderful to see partners and kids supporting women athletes at the Games. But dads caring for their children aren’t “troopers” or doing something completely out of the ordinary. They’re parents.
–Women’s hockey is compelling on its own. It doesn’t need repeated in-game interviews with male players to validate it.
–And when possible (a tough one), let’s not schedule the women’s gold medal hockey game opposite the women’s figure skating long program. We can celebrate more than one women’s event at a time.
None of this diminishes how far we’ve come. In fact, it reflects how high the standard now is. Let’s go USA.
Author: rhughesparker@gmail.com
Recovering and reframing
Recovery from lumbar spinal fusion to fix a collapsed disc on the heels of breast cancer surgery and radiation and at the beginning of hormone therapy 0/10 – don’t recommend, very difficult. The support of remarkable family, friends, co-workers, and health care providers during this journey (especially on this #CancerSurvivorsDay my mom Amy Hughes, a stage 3 breast cancer survivor herself for 27 years) 10/10 priceless.
Health issues like this are humbling, and to paraphrase Zoe Neale Hurston, there are periods in your life that ask questions and periods that answer. This one has a lot of questions. In December, looking down the barrel of what was coming, I decided that my word of 2025 would be “reframe.” I was thinking of my late father, who was a perennial optimist. He always saw the best in every situation, and tried to get me, often an anxious overthinker, to see it too. I’ll drop in another quote (Hemingway): “The world breaks everyone, and afterward, some are strong at the broken places.”
Strengthening the broken place is hard; recovery is two steps forward and one step back and full of frustrations. But, to reframe: I was able to support the interfaith nutrition network (INN, one of my parents’ favorite charities); the Port Washington Public Library, where I’m on FOL – The Friends of the Port Washington Public Library board and various local causes – all in sneakers and measured movements and more rest than I would like.
I spent my birthday in the hospital, and appreciate all of the birthday wishes – a very belated thank you for those. And of course thanks to my adorable little nieces (and their parents) who make it easier to keep the smiles in the frame and who keep me young. I am facing 48 with a (literal) spine of steel!
Supreme Court Avoids Narrowing Section 230
In a recent client alert at Dentons, my colleagues and I explored two recent Supreme Court cases about whether Twitter and Google are liable for third-party content on their sites under the much-debated Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act.
Doctor Who, Jill Biden?
Update: I wrote the below in May 2013 in response to a National Review article. The issue is ripe again with a December 11, 2020 op-ed in the WSJ, making mostly the same argument, complete with calling Dr. Biden kiddo. Sexist tropes are very slow to die.
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Doctor Who? No, not Dr. Who.
“Doctor Who?” is what the National Review Online asks about Dr. Jill Biden, wife of the Vice President.
Apparently, that well-regarded think-tank takes issue with such insistence upon a professional distinction. In the article entitled, “Diagnosing Dr. Biden: The second lady exemplifies a bloated class of people with irrelevant, unimpressive titles,” we’re told that, “Dr. Biden isn’t a physician, of course. She has a doctorate – in ‘educational leadership,’ whatever the hell that is.”
Biting wit, to be sure. Continue reading Doctor Who, Jill Biden?
A Canadian’s American Dream
My father died at age 71 this summer before he could cast his first vote for an American president.
The Family Affair
(Published in the journal at the Ice Theatre of New York 2019 Gala honoring John and Amy Hughes)
“Do you all skate?” It is a question I get a lot as the oldest Hughes sibling. Put simply, we do – starting from my Canadian father right on down to the sixth and youngest sibling.