Highlighting Women's Movement by Abandoning Skirts... Feminism Controversy Surfaces Again [Paris Olympics]

Highlighting 10 Feminists in the 'Gender Equality Olympics'
Translation of 'Feminism·Feminist' Disappeared from Domestic Broadcasts
Controversy Over Reduced Meaning of the 'Olympic Spirit' Symbolism

Assistants entering the venue at the award ceremony for the women's team archery event at the archery stadium in Les Invalides, Paris, France, during the 2024 Paris Olympics
Photo by Yonhap News

Women were not allowed to participate in the first modern Olympics, the 1896 Athens Olympics. Pierre de Coubertin, the founder of the Olympics, considered women's participation in sports unethical and believed it harmed femininity. Women's role was limited to "placing laurel wreaths on the winners." In contrast, the 2024 Paris Olympics is regarded as the first Olympics to prominently feature "gender equality." For the first time in history, the gender ratio of participating athletes is equal, and both female and male assistants at the award ceremonies wore identical outfits (white shirts with beige long pants).

Among the 12 acts of the Paris Olympics opening ceremony, six acts introduced 10 female activists (feminists) who led historical progress in France. The first introduced was Olympe de Gouges (1748-1793), recorded as the first feminist, who sharply pointed out that women were excluded from the "equality" proclaimed by the French Revolution. In 1971, she drafted and published the Declaration of the Rights of Women and Female Citizens.

Among others, Alice Milliat (1884?1957), an athlete who organized the first women's world competition in 1922 and contributed to women's participation in the Olympics; Paulette Nardal (1896?1985), a pioneer of feminism and the first Black woman to study at the Sorbonne University; Alice Guy (1873?1968), the first female film director who made the first narrative film "La F?e aux Choux" (The Cabbage Fairy) in 1896; and Simone Veil (1927?2017), who played a key role in legalizing abortion in the French Parliament, were introduced.

The Paris Olympics erected golden statues of 10 historical figures who fought for women's rights, explaining their achievements in detail. This was intended to remind the Olympic spirit of "gender equality." It emphasized the keyword "feminism," reminding that respect for women is a universal value. These statues, erected along the Seine River, will remain permanently even after the opening ceremony ends.

After the opening ceremony, social media platforms such as X (formerly Twitter) saw "feminism" and "feminist" trending in real-time search terms, reflecting a strong response. Despite initial dissatisfaction among Parisians due to police deployment and controls throughout the city starting a week before the ceremony, 85% of respondents in a Paris Interactive survey after the ceremony said it was a "successful opening ceremony." The most impressive scenes were the 34-woman choir singing the French national anthem "La Marseillaise" and the introduction of the 10 feminists.

In the United States and Europe, when discussing the achievements of female historical figures, the terms "feminism" and "feminist" are mentioned repeatedly because they cannot be separated from the context. The official broadcast channel, Olympic Broadcasting Services (OBS), included English subtitles with the word "feminist" multiple times.

In contrast, the three domestic terrestrial broadcasters in Korea omitted these two words from the subtitles when introducing the 10 women. KBS translated it as "French women," MBC as "women's power," and SBS as "sisterhood (philia)" in their subtitles. Although some hosts mentioned "feminism," it was not found in the on-screen subtitles. One netizen criticized, "The translated words used to introduce the 10 'feminists' are unnatural and inappropriate in meaning."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.