FRJB24 LC DETERMINATION - Determination in the fight against discrimination in sport

29 nov. 2024

The students worked on the topic : ‘Fighting and writing for equality’, reading and studying ‘La Déclaration des Droits de la femme et de la citoyenne’ d'Olympe de Gouges (1791) and the speech by the lawyer and feminist activist Gisèle Halimi to the French National Assembly (1981) proposing a law decriminalising homosexuality. They were then asked to read one of the following two works :

-‘Les Olympes. Huit destins exceptionnels de femmes qui ont transformé le monde du sport’ (2024) : a collection of 8 biographical accounts highlighting 8 female sporting figures (Gertrude Ederle, Rena ‘Rusty’ Kanokogi, Kathrine Switzer, Serena Williams, Florence Arthaud, Kiran Gandhi, Megan Rapinoe, the Norwegian beach hand team) who, as well as being champions, have crossed forbidden lines to crack the male-dominated sporting edifice, and true warriors fighting against prejudice.

-‘Ma plus belle victoire’ by Guillaume Cizeron (2021), four-time world ice dancing champion, five-time European champion, Olympic runner-up... with his partner Gabriella Papadakis, who tells the story of his happy and tormented childhood, the hurtful words he endured, the loneliness of feeling different and misunderstood, and above all his ‘greatest victory’, the day he finally accepted to be himself.

From this book, they were asked to produce two productions :

-An oral production in their mother tongue: a 3-minute audio clip in which they had to present the author(s), the context in which the work was written, how the book was received by the public and justify its literary genre. They were then asked to summarise the book, introduce the hero/heroines and select an extract representative of the discrimination he/she has suffered and his/her struggle. Finally, they had to justify how this work fitted in with the topic ‘Writing and fighting for equality’ and find echoes between the book and current events.

-A written production in English : a poster about one of the sportsmen and women on which they indicated : the biography of this sportsman or woman, his/her prize list, 3 quotations from the work illustrating 3 situations in which they have been the victim of discrimination, 3 quotations from the work illustrating their determination to fight this discrimination and then a personal judgement on his/her career.

The students developed their general knowledge of literature, sport and current affairs. They produced work in both their mother tongue and a foreign language from a book that enabled them to confront the many forms of discrimination suffered by sportspeople because of their gender or sexual orientation, whatever the era in which they lived, the sport they practised or the country from which they came.

FRJB24 LC DETERMINATION - Determination in the fight against discrimination in sport

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