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| In the 1998 Winter Olympics, two American figure skaters were neck and neck for the gold: Tara Lipinski, age 15, and Michelle Kwan, age 17. Many expected Kwan to walk away with the title, but Lipinski got the top spot.
But what stands out in my memory was this: all the talk about their bodies. Kwan was described as “womanly” because she had breasts and curved hips, while Lipinski cut a streamlined pre-pubescent figure. During replays, commentators reflected that Kwan’s shape gave her a disadvantage when it came to balance, where Lipinksi was more aero-dynamic.
As a 13-year-old girl watching at home, I felt like something was off. In school we were told that developing breasts and menstruating were natural and healthy life processes. But the lesson from Lipinksi’s victory seemed to be that if a young athlete pushed herself enough, she could delay puberty, thus maintaining a competitive advantage.
Distance runner Lauren Fleshman noticed that hitting puberty actually enhanced the performance of her male peers – when losing a race to a boy in middle school upended her status as fastest. And as Fleshman told Fresh Air this week, getting her period felt like an impediment, an "added burden that my male peers didn't have to deal with." The development of breasts and hips, she says, felt "scary, like they threatened the future that I wanted in sport."
Now a professional athlete and coach, Freshman says she’s seen other female runners develop eating disorders or mental health problems, or drop out of the field altogether. She’s on a mission to educate athletes, and coaches, about things like female puberty, the importance of a healthy menstrual cycle, and the need for good sports bras. Here are some of Fleshman’s ideas for how to talk about female bodies in sports without objectifying women and girls, or pushing them to perform like males.
ICYMI: 'Running While Black' tells a new story about who belongs in the sport
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Americans place a lot of value on being on time. Show up to class after the bell, and you could get detention. Habitually late to family events? Your relatives are likely grumbling about you behind your back. Three minutes late to a Zoom meeting, and you can expect a reminder text.
But placing high value on “being on time” is a distinct cultural construct, according to anthropologists. It took off during the Industrial Revolution, when factory work, railroads, and more available clocks and watches created expectations of punctuality.
Today, plenty of people still punch in to factory jobs, ride trains, and drop off and pick up their kids from school according to the clock. But other individuals and cultures organize time more around social events rather than minutes and hours. When American anthropologist Irma McClaurin traveled to Belize in the 1990s, she found there was a general understanding that “people aren't always in control of the management of time.”
Paris-based business professor Anne-Laure Sellier says so-called “event-timers” tend to be more attuned to their emotions to make decisions throughout their day. They're better at immersing themselves in the moment, adapting to unexpected situations and savoring positive feelings. “Clock-timers,” as you might expect, tend to be more organized.
In a relationship or a professional partnership with someone who has a different time style? Here’s some tips on how to make it work.
Plus: Can dogs smell time? |
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Westend61/Getty Images; Witthaya Prasongsin/Getty Images |
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We hope you enjoyed these stories. Find more of NPR's health journalism on Shots and follow us on Twitter at @NPRHealth.
All the best,
Andrea Muraskin and your Shots editors |
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