RECENTLY, I watched a clip of the women’s long jump at the Paris Olympics.
One of the young ladies jumped and landed. In between landing, gaining her balance and getting up, she ended up with her legs stretched head down.
The cameras caught that shot and perhaps immortalised it. It was an uncharitable rearward shot of a young woman in a bikini in a most unflattering pose.
I never caught her name, nationality, the day of the competition. I just caught and remembered the shot as a tremendous injustice to that young woman, her talent and women’s sport.
The question why this young woman was not dressed appropriately for the activity she was engaging in needs to be asked.
Why is it that female athletes always seem to dress in a way that reveals more of their bodies than male athletes?
There is an obvious eroticism that is assigned to certain aspects of a human body, but this is undeniably biased more so towards women.
It seems to me that sports in general tend to defer to this eroticism in the way female sportspersons dress.
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Women athletes do not dress in a way that adds to their performance, but that certainly subtracts from it.
Is women’s sport about sport alone or its sport and their bodies.
A women’s performance can never be about sport alone it has to throw in a side of her body.
This has prompted me to ask the question: What is the identity of a woman? Society appears to have inextricably linked the latter to a woman’s sexuality.
When women models take to the ramp, the outfits they model are inevitably described as “sexy”, the same happens when a female celebrity takes to the red carpet at an awards ceremony, dinner or party. It seems as if women have to look sexy.
The word sexy apparently compliments and completes a woman. At the same functions, men turn up in their well-cut tuxedos, their bodies well covered.
Women’s clothes are generally shorter, tighter and reveal more of their bodies than men’s.
Female athletes’ sports attire also is shorter, tighter and reveal more of their bodies than those of men.
Nobody ever seems to question this. And yet an honest to goodness answer to why is needed.
In sport, men’s attire is without exception functional. Male athletes will wear loose attire where it is appropriate and short, tight fitting attire where it is required. It is a very common sense approach.
Women’s on the other hand is another totally different and shameful story.
During the Olympics, there were clips and pictures of women athletes, be it in athletics, volleyball or beach volleyball, to name a few disciplines, with rather modest pants that left their backside exposed.
Some of the young women were clearly proud of how they looked.
This is to be understood because that is how women have been socialised the world over to revel in their sexuality without ever asking why.
Patriarchy has created the illusion of power around female sexuality. Holding one’s body as desirable to another is not power.
It is self-objectification and an abject capitulation of the self to another’s perception.
This is not to fault women’s bodies, but to question why male athletes do not also run the 100 metres or do the long jump in underpants.
The question that then comes to mind is: Is it about gender that women have to show their bodies or “some skin” as it is put, even on the field of sports?
Isn’t this being patronising about women’s sports that no matter how good they are; how fast they might run there always has to be a bit o’ skin to maintain interest in the sport?
If one correctly interprets the noise that has been going on about gender and equality, one must reach the conclusion that we are moving towards a gender neutral world.
This is not to nullify one gender or move to a gender amorphous world, but cease the discriminatory practice assigning certain values and roles to one gender and not the other(s).
Under this paradigm, athletes will no longer have to dress in a certain way because of their gender.
For female athletes, it is most unfortunate and regrettable that dress practice in sports mirrors society’s obsession with female sexuality.
You do not see male athletes competing in teeny-weeny shorts or tops that expose their midriff. Women should be allowed to choose where and when to expose their sexuality.
Surely, women do not exist in an aura of their own sexuality.
Female sexuality, like male sexuality must, have its own time and place in a woman’s life as defined by the woman herself and not be imposed upon her.
When women athletes take to the arena in any sporting discipline, they must be allowed their dignity.
Dressed as they are today, female sportspersons are at risk of the “wardrobe malfunction”, where an item of dress through their several exertions might ride up a little higher than intended and reveal a little more than due decency allows.
A young woman does not take to the field of play with the intention of putting her body on display. Her dressing must not, by default, do this for her.
There are thousands of pictures on the internet of women athletes who have suffered the so-called wardrobe malfunction. No doubt those pictures have haunted the women concerned.
Can’t sporting bodies the world over take this risk away from all female athletes and allow them to dress in a functional manner that gives due discretion to their bodies?
We live in a voyeuristic world, where technology has given the pervert more and better tools to not only carry out his sick trade, but also spread his efforts to all corners of the globe.
Our female sportspersons need their dignity and decency to be safeguarded if for no other reason, because their male counterparts are not running the same gauntlet of voyeurs’ cameras everytime they take to the field.
My takeaway from the Paris Olympics is the old philosopher’s mantra: We need to question everything, even the unremarkable.
It is time to ask: Why are our female athletes dressing the way they do?
It is also time to advocate gender neutral dressing in sports without deference to sexuality to preserve the dignity of our female sportspersons.
After all, dressing is a concession to societal values around the dignity of the human body. Athletes, regardless of gender, are athletes and nothing less.
- Ignatius Tsuro is a commentator on social and political issues. He writes in his personal capacity.
