Downstream

weren’t allowed to compete.
‘I am not trying to shut men
out of swimming,’ she wrote.
‘There is enough water in the
world for all of us.’ But
women were more graceful
than men, had almost as
much strength, and could
nearly equal them in terms of
distance. Men swimmers, she
noted, had ‘physiques more
nearly resembling those of
women’ and she found Jabez
Wolffe ‘pretty fat for athletic