Citing section 15(1) of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, 15 women’s ski jumpers took the Vancouver Organizing Committee for the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games (VANOC) to court over the exclusion of a women’s ski jumping event. In this analysis of the initial court case and subsequent appeal, I demonstrate that Canadian (and western) citizenship was contested in this legal battle and that gendered, raced, and classed dimensions of citizenship were at play. To make this case, I draw on critical feminist and critical race theorizing on citizenship. From my analysis, three key silences emerge. These concern the underlying assumptions of sex segregation, whiteness, and class privilege.
