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.
Category: Ice Skating
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.
How I Do It
Rebecca Hughes Parker is the editor in chief of The FCPA Report, a legal publication about anticorruption issues. Previously, she spent eight years as a litigator at a large law firm, a job she took while pregnant with her twin girls. She lives in Manhattan with her husband and three daughters, 8-year-old twins and a 2-year-old. Her husband is the primary caregiver for the children. They have never had a nanny or a housekeeper.
Manhattan, Tuesday, May 14
5:20 a.m. My husband comes in from the truncated overnight shift he did at the local television station – he freelances as a news writer for the morning show there and does a shift once every two weeks or so. Today he worked midnight to 5 a.m. He takes the dog out.
5:40 I peel myself off the bed and go into the room that my three girls — 8-year-old twins and a 2-year-old — share. I nudge Alex, one of the twins. “Are you sure you want to go?” I say, hoping she will say she wants to cancel ice skating and we can go back to bed. “I want to go,” she says. I tiptoe out of the room, thankful that for once the 2-year-old, Charlotte, does not wake up. The other twin, Natalie, sleeps like a log. Continue reading How I Do It