Ski jumping is the only Olympic sport still barred to women. According to Gian-Franco Kasper, President of the International Ski Federation, the sport is not “appropriate for ladies from a medical point of view.” While Kasper’s reasoning is thoroughly idiotic, it’s a fine example of the sort of Victorian-era nonsense that dogs women to this day. If a ‘lady’ wants to risk her neck sailing through the air with adrenal speed–well, that’s her business.

Last night Alex Mar’s new film, Fighting Gravity, previewed at Norwood. The film follows a group of female skiers as they petition to be allowed to participate in the 2010 Olympics in Vancouver. Anyone who doubts these ladies’ temerity need only watch a few seconds of footage: bodies travel diagonally like launched javelins, sometimes landing smoothly at the base of the slope, sometimes crumpling against the hill’s sheer surface. We may take solace in the fact that while gravity is constant, archaic gender standards fade with time. Kasper may be a big shot at the ISF, but, as history will no doubt prove, he lacks the lasting authority of Newton.