Wonder Woman of the Week: Helen Stephens
- Apr 13, 2022
- 3 min read
Jesse Owens may receive most of the attention as a member of the US Olympic delegation to the 1936 Olympics, but he certainly was not alone in feeling the pressure of Nazi oppression among American athletes in attendance. While Jesse Owens dealt with intense discrimination for his race from both German and American audiences to the games, this week's Wonder Woman felt the weight of gender oppression- and was even sexually assaulted by Adolf Hitler- while representing Team USA. Helen Stephens was born in Missouri in 1918 and spent her youth as a competitive athlete. By the time she was 18, she had yet to lose a competitive race- making her the fastest woman in the United States. After winning countless races on behalf of her high school in regional, state, and national competitions, Team USA selected the 18 year-old to represent her country in the 1936 Olympics.
For those a bit rusty on their world history, 1930's Germany was a tense place to say the least. A political party built on ideals of racial superiority had risen to power under the leadership of a anti-semitic Austrian who had eyes on empire building to kick off a eugenics program to cleanse the world of what he considered inferior races. When Germany hosted the 1936 Olympics, the Nazi party ruling Germany at the time wanted to use the games as a stage for performing their toxic ideology and the emphasize their mistaken belief in their racial superiority. What's worse however is Team USA's behavior while in that garbage fire of a political cluster-fuck. While African-American athletes like Jesse Owens faced intense discrimination from their own team ( more than from literal Nazis), women who represented Team USA faced intense sex discrimination.
In fact, 18 year-old Helen Stephens had to undergo a medical examination with at least one other female athlete to prove to officials she was in fact a woman- because none of the US officials could believe a woman could run as fast as she could. That pales in comparison however to a post-win meet-and-greet with the man who ruined the Charlie Chaplin mustache. Adolf Hitler wanted to meet Stephens personally after her dominating performances on the running track. During the meeting, Hitler hugged Stephens and groped her ass while whispering to her that she should be representing Germany because she would make a perfect Aryan. He even invited her back to his private retreat at Berchtesgaden. Stephens refused and returned to the US where she soon retired from competitive running. She played baseball and softball, and even became the first woman in US history to own an semi-professional basketball team before working for a mapping agency.
A lasting legacy of Team USA's discrimination against its female athletes was specifically against its lesbian athletes. Lesbian women in the US during and following the Second World War was intensely restrictive for LGTBQ+ rights, and many lesbian woman had to remain in the closet or face hate and violence. Helen Stephens was one of those women. Stephens was a long-time partner of Mabbel O. Robbe who was married to an abusive husband before managing to get a divorce. That didn't stop the towering lesbian (Stephens was half an inch away from being six feet tall) from being loyal to her long-time love. In 1993, Stephens earned a spot in the National Women's Hall of Fame and died the following year in 1994. Known as the "Fulton Flash," Stephens is remembered today as one of the United States' first medal winning female Olympians and likely the first medal winning lesbian athlete from the US.
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