Last year, when Violet MacPhail enrolled in the Martha’s Vineyard Regional High School’s capstone program, she was tasked with creating and presenting a project on a topic she is passionate about.
As an avid and longtime hockey and lacrosse player, she dove into the history and accessibility of women’s sports on the Vineyard, and taught her classmates about the ongoing battle for gender equality in athletics.
On Friday, Ms. MacPhail, now a senior, was joined by a panel of women athletes and sports documentary producers on the Performing Arts Center stage and brought her project to the next level for the high school’s first official Women in Sports Day. Ms. MacPhail guided the four panelists in a discussion on women’s rights and modern-day sexism in the sports industry.
From left to right: Kendall Reid, who produced an HBO documentary on women’s sports, Robin Rivera, another producer, and Kristine Lilly, a two-time Olympic gold medal winner for the U.S. women’s soccer team.
— Ray Ewing
“This has been such a big process to put together,” said Ms. MacPhail to the audience of her fellow high school students. “I’m really grateful that this is finally happening today because it’s a conversation that just needs to be had.”
Panelist Kendall Reid agreed. In 1999, she and Julie Anderson, also a panelist, co-produced an HBO documentary special titled Dare to Compete: The Struggle of Women in Sports. Now two decades later, Ms. Reid is pondering the production of another documentary to highlight the disparities that still exist between men’s and women’s sports.
“What we want to do here today is to shine a light on the female athlete,” she said. “We need to talk more about the issues, where we are, where we’re going and where we fit in this industry.”
Ms. MacPhail played a clip from Dare to Compete that told the story of Kathrine Virginia Switzer, who was the first woman to officially run the Boston Marathon in 1967. Ms. Switzer was attacked mid-race by an official who tried to take her bib number because she was a woman. Five years later, a women’s race was officially established.
“It took 75 years for women to be able to run the Boston Marathon, which is pretty pathetic if you ask me,” said Ms. Reid.
Since the enactment of Title IX in 1972, gender equality in sports has only improved, said panelist Kristine Lilly, a retired member of the U.S. women’s national soccer team and two-time Olympic gold medalist. But she admitted that the industry still has a long way to go.
“I grew up in Connecticut and at the time there were no girls playing soccer,” she said. “So I just played with the boys. I didn’t really think much of it because I just wanted to play and in that way I was able to. But there’s a lot of situations even today where girls still aren’t able to have these kinds of opportunities.”
For Ms. MacPhail, the film is inspiring and a reminder that her ability to play hockey and lacrosse is thanks to women who defied the status quo.
Now, she said, it’s up for her and her teammates to carry on their legacy.
“The establishment of Title IX was pretty monumental for everybody in sports and everybody in education,” she said. “But we still have ways to go.”
