On 14th August French football referee Stéphanie Frappart made history by becoming the first female referee to officiate in a major men’s match – she was judging the 2019 UEFA Super Cup in Istanbul, Turkey. And although we’ve still got a way to go with gender equality, the fact that 2019 is full of female trailblazers in many male-driven industries is certainly a positive sign. Here are some of the most significant international breakthroughs.
Stéphanie Frappart – the first woman to officiate a major male football match
Stéphanie Frappart, 35, dropped the ball and picked up a whistle back in 2001. She quickly became well-known and respected in the world of women’s football.
But it wasn’t until 2011 that Frappart managed to make the bold move into a men’s game. She started with the third division in France, slowly working her way up to becoming the first female referee in Ligue 2 (2014) and then, finally, appearing at her first Ligue 1 match between SC Amiens and RC Strasbourg on 28 April 2019.
Two weeks ago major news was announced – Stéphanie Frappart will become the first woman in history to officiate something so extraordinarily huge as the 2019 UEFA Super Cup – a battle between the winning teams of the two main European club competitions: the UEFA Champions League and the UEFA Europa League. A dream come true for any football referee!
What made this match even more important is that Frappart was joined by her compatriot Manuela Nicolosi and Ireland’s Michelle O’Neill – the first ever all-female team of officials! And the ladies did their job brilliantly, refereeing all 120 minutes of a very intense game without a single mistake or questionable decision.
It’s hard to overestimate the significance of that night – visibility matters and that game was aired in over 200 countries with an estimated reach of 380 million people. Boys saw them doing a great job. Girls saw them achieving their dreams and making history. We can only hope the former will grow up with less prejudice towards women in football and the latter will keep on breaking these prejudices.
Karen Keskulla Uhlenbeck – the first woman to win the Abel Prize for mathematics
How important is that? Think Nobel Prize, only in mathematics! The Abel Prize was created in 2003 to honour the 19th-century Norwegian mathematician Niels Henrik Abel and is now awarded annually to people who’ve made extraordinary contributions in this field.
This year, Karen Uhlenbeck, from the University of Texas in Austin, became the first woman in history to be awarded the Abel Prize. We won’t even pretend to know exactly what her outstanding research was about – something to do with the geometry of space and time and bringing mathematics and physics closer together.
The honourable award was presented to her by His Majesty King Harald V at a special ceremony in Oslo, Norway on 21st May 2019. It’s worth six million Norwegian kroner or around 1 million NZD.
But this achievement isn’t the only one to define Uhlenbeck. She was the second woman in history to lead the plenary lecture in Kyoto, Japan at the International Congress of Mathematicians, back in 1990. She is also the founder of the Park City Mathematics Institute. and the co-founder of IAS Women and Mathematics (WAM) programme aiming to recruit more female mathematicians.
Halima Aden – the first Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue model to wear a hijab and burkini
Halima was born in 1997 in a refugee camp in Kenya and moved to the US with her parents when she was only six years old. At the age of 19, Halima made history for the first (but certainly not the last) time in her life – she competed in the Miss Minnesota USA pageant wearing a hijab. For the swimwear part of the competition, she wore a burkini – a swimsuit covering the entire body except for the face, hands and feet.
Since that first loud and proud moment, Halima Aden has appeared on several magazine covers, walked in New York Fashion Week and collaborated with Rihanna’s cosmetic brand. All without ever stepping away from her faith.
This year Halima Aden broke barriers once again when she appeared in the annual Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue wearing a beautiful blue-and-green burkini and a matching hijab. ‘Young Muslim women need to know that there is a modest swimsuit option available to them, so they can join the swim team and go with their friends to the beach’, said Aden in a press-release.
The burkini, created exclusively for this photoshoot by designer Cynthia Rowley, received such a great response that the design team even decided to start selling it on their website!
The photoshoot for Sports Illustrated took place at Halima’s home country – Kenya.