Olympic Uniforms Men vs Women

[Steve]

Lots of Olympic discussions going on on the forum now, which is awesome, because I can't get enough of it. A big sub text to the events is the topic of sexualization of the female athletes, and in particular the lack of parity in their uniforms. Some sports are better about this than others, but a few are being challenged by some of the athletes. The Norwegian handball team is being threatened with fines if they wear shorts instead of bikini bottoms. The German gymnastics team is wearing body length unitards instead of the traditional one.

What do you guys think? Following are some of the best and worst offenders, in my opinion. I'm basing this off of a few things: overt sexualization, fitness for function, and contrast with the men's uniform. In other words, is it unnecessarily skimpy, and if so, are the men similarly objectified?

Also a consideration is that sometimes, women may choose to wear what they wear, though with the recent examples, it's pretty clear that there is at least some level of dissatisfaction from women.

Worst:

• Handball - Men wear loose fitting shorts and loose tanks, while the women wear... well, just look for yourself.
• 
  
• Beach Volleyball is pretty much the exact same situation as handball above.
• Gymnastics - the men wear loose pants and a compression style tank top, while the women wear bikini cut unitards

Best - a lot of great examples, but some that come to mind:

• Combat sports (Judo, fencing, wrestling, TKD) - where the wear pretty much the same things.
• Weightlifting
• Cycling

And one that seems to be the inverse, where men wear less than the women:

• Swimming / Diving

 

[Buka]

Olympic officials are basically weasels. Always were, probably always will be.

 

[Tez3]

Before the London Olympics and the introduction of female boxing we had to campaign to get the international amateur boxing organisation to change the rules that the female competitors HAD to wear skirts. The chair of the organisation said they had to because they must look feminine and attractive. Luckily our lobbying managed to get it changed to being allowed to wear shorts if they wanted but we couldn't change the headguard rule..... that the females had to come into the ring without them on, putting them on in the ring because the audience needed to see their faces and hair.

 

[MetalBoar]

Before the London Olympics and the introduction of female boxing we had to campaign to get the international amateur boxing organisation to change the rules that the female competitors HAD to wear skirts. The chair of the organisation said they had to because they must look feminine and attractive. Luckily our lobbying managed to get it changed to being allowed to wear shorts if they wanted but we couldn't change the headguard rule..... that the females had to come into the ring without them on, putting them on in the ring because the audience needed to see their faces and hair.

Wow! That's absurd. They're boxers, the audience needs to be able to see their skill at boxing, their appearance is entirely irrelevant. I know there's a lot more of this sort of thing going on than I'm aware of as a man but this seems especially ridiculous. I mean, it seems absurd to me that anyone would be required to wear a bikini to compete in beach volleyball but at least you can see a connection to the origins of the sport and maybe follow the (seriously flawed) reasoning behind how someone might make this decision.

I guess in fencing you salute your opponent and the judge at the start of the bout before donning your mask and that seems reasonable to me, but unlike boxing headgear you can't see your opponent's eyes or even be sure who's behind a mask if you're at any distance and maybe not even up close with some of these masks painted with the nation's flag. It's also done by both male and female competitors and has little to nothing to do with appearance. I know they played around with clear lexan masks for a while with the intention of making the sport more audience friendly so there's absurdity there too, but it wasn't so much about appearance in the sense of the audience's prurient interest, rather humanizing them so that the audience could identify with the competitors rather than seeing them as literally faceless beings.

 

[Steve]

To be fair, if it's a practical issue of function, I'm all for it. But where there is such a clear difference between the men and the women, it's like, come on dudes.

 

[Dirty Dog]

To be fair, if it's a practical issue of function, I'm all for it. But where there is such a clear difference between the men and the women, it's like, come on dudes.

Agreed. It's absurd.

It's also ironic that while the Norwegian Beach Volleyball team is being fined for covering their butts, a Welsh runner was told her butt wasn't covered enough.

Come on... the Olympics used to be nude. If someone wants to renew that tradition, that's fine. It's also fine if they want to compete in formal wear. Unless the clothing provides a demonstrable unfair advantage (like the LZR suits a few games back) it just should not matter.