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Sporting events often confirm the cultural meanings of sex and gender, but also offer the opportunity to reformulate them. The Olympic Games developed into a platform on which gender roles were made visible and were also publicly renewed.

Initially, De Coubertin strongly opposed the inclusion of women in the event. He described female participation as "the most unaesthetic sight human eyes could contemplate." He criticised the growing number of women who wished to participate in athletic competition, that he considered the realm of male athletes.

He argued: "A woman's glory rightfully came through the number and quality of children she produced, and that where sports were concerned, her greatest accomplishment was to encourage her sons to excel rather than to seek records herself." (Spears, 1972: 63).

De Coubertin and the IOC organised the Games in adherence to a paradigm of antithetical characteristics between men and women including bodily strength, intelligence, and emotional stability. In Western society there was strong cultural resistance to the notion of female athletes, particularly in events requiring strength and stamina over aesthetic qualities. The militaristic and class-based practice of modern sport was connected to the idea that men and women should inhabit separate spheres in society - sports being part of the male dominated public sphere. Thus a physically active female body looking to dominate others invalidated the balanced but fragile gender order. For these reasons De Coubertin and the IOC excluded female athletes from the Olympic Games.

The exclusion of women from the Games was resisted by the Fédération Sportive Féminine Internationale, which was initiated after failed attempts to give women a place in the Olympic athletic competition.

Specifically the French feminist Alice Millat lobbied for the inclusion of female athletes, but did not succeed. In protest against the policy of De Coubertin and the IOC in 1922 the first Women's Olympic were organised in Paris. That this event was labelled 'Olympic' was a thorn in the eye of the IOC. The Women's Olympics were organised another three times, in Göteborg in 1926, in Prague in 1930 and for the last time in London in 1934.

Although Swedish IOC member Sigfrid Edström was not a big enthusiast for female participation, he understood something had to be done with the popularity of the Women's Olympics. He also observed that in many countries the amount of women in sports had been increasing since WWI. In 1928 Endström gave permission for women to participate in five events in the athletics programme in Amsterdam. When several women collapsed from exhaustion after running the 800m, this led to great consternation among the IOC. President Baillat-Latour reacted with the proposal to entirely ban women from the Olympic programme. When the US athletics team then threatened to boycott the 1932 Games, the permission for female participation was not revoked.

Alice Milliat negotiated with Endström to the extent that in 1932 more Olympic competitions were opened to female participation, in exchange for removing the adjective 'Olympic' from the Women's Olympics. With the broadening of female participation, the IOC held to the condition that it would be down to them to decide which competitions were opened to female participation. With this Milliat and the FSFI lost much of their authority and influence. From 1928 to 1952 female participation in sporting events gradually became less exceptional.

An ever-increasing amount of Olympic competitions has been opened for women, but the Games in London in 2012 were the first in which women participated in an equal amount of competitions.

The participation of women was severely monitored by the IOC to prevent men posing as female contestants to improve their chances of winning a medal. During the 1936 Berlin games a scandal unfolded over a case of sex fraud. Athletes Helen Stephens, Stella Walsh and Dora Ratjen were the first to have their womanhood publicly called into question, based on their appearance. In the media, doubts were raised concerning the sex of Stephens, but after she voluntarily underwent a test, the doubts were revoked. Stella Walsh, later nicknamed 'Stella the Fella', died in a violent robbery in 1980. The post mortem report stated that she had ambiguous sexual characteristics. Finally, high-jumper Dora Ratjen was sex-tested by the police. This revealed that 'she' was in fact a man, by the name of Heinrich Ratjen.

At first Ratjen stated that she had been forced by the Nazis to pose as a woman, to increase the German medal count. In 2009, however, it became clear that Ratjen was labelled with the wrong sex at birth, but she had not been able to publicly acknowledge this after the conviction of sex fraud.

Because of these cases, the IOC deemed it necessary to prevent 'unfair advantage' and decided to assess the sex of female athletes scientifically. Since the 1960s the IOC has worked with medical and scientific professionals in order objectively verify the sex of athletes. The test was first conducted in the form of nude parades, in which the athletes had to appear undressed before medical doctors, and be examined physically.

Later these humiliating tests were replaced, using newer technologies like chromosome testing, or measuring testosterone levels.

The IOC worked on the premise that human beings come in one of two genders: male or female. Intersex or transgender athletes must be lodged into one or the other category in order to be eligible for competition.

Another problematic scientific assumption was that higher testosterone levels automatically lead to higher sporting performances. Research thus far has not revealed an unambiguous connection, but female athletes with high testosterone levels were excluded anyway.

The Cold War became a catalyst in promoting women's participation in the Games. Medal counts had political significance for the Soviet Union; however, it was of no importance to the national governments whether men or women won medals.

In the West, women were withheld from participation in sports due to fears of masculinisation, but in the Eastern bloc women trained as men, also in sports that have a strong influence on physical characteristics, like weight-lifting. IOC president Avery Brundage criticised the Soviet woman as looking unfeminine. (Wamsley, 2004b). The suspicion of hormonal treatments and doubt over the masculine appearance of the Soviet women was one important reason for the sex verifications tests. (Beamish en Ritchie, 2006: 40-44).

Scientific 'objectivity' has led to false assertions about gender fraud in the case of Stella Walsh and Dora Ratjen. But when the societal understanding of femininity changed, the need for sex testing did too, and the IOC dropped the practice. Since the 1960s the IOC has educated itself in the complexities of gender verification, the inconsistencies of gene-based testing and wrong ideas about unfair advantage.

Since the Cold War women's participation in the Games has greatly improved. Still, only few women are part of the IOC, the NOCs and the International Federations. Low percentages of women in positions of authority mean that they do not yet play a significant role in decision-making processes.

Simri, U. (1979), Women at the Olympic Games, Israel: Wingate Monograph Series.

Spears, B. (1972), 'Women in the Olympics: An unresolved problem', in P. Graham and H. Ueberhost eds., The Modern Olympics, Cornwall: Leisure Press.

Wabsley, K.B. (2004), Womanizing Olympic Athletes: Policy and practice during the Avery Brundage era, Paper presented to the Second Rountable on Olympic Sport, Waterloo: Wilfrid Laurier University.

Beamish, Rob en Ian Ritchie (2006), "Chapter 2: Steroids: Nazi propaganda, cold war fears, and "androgenized" women", in: Fastest, Highest, Strongest. A critique of high-performance sport, New York: Routledge.

Louis J. Elsas ea. (2000), "Gender verification of female athletes", in Genetics in Medicine, July, 2:4, pp. 249-254.