The Latest on Slut-Shaming

If you were competing in the Paris Olympics, would you want to wear a uniform so revealing your pubic hairs were exposed?

I’m no athlete, but I imagine it would be challenging to focus on competing if I had to dress like a lingerie model. Yet Nike created a women’s track and field uniform for Team USA requiring a bikini wax before jumping and sprinting.

When Nike revealed the uniform in April, someone asked on Instagram, “If the labia are hanging out on a still mannequin, what do we expect to happen to a moving person?”

Members of the team can select an alternate uniform if they wish. But why was the so-called “Baywatch” uniform designed in the first place?

Because women athletes are caught in a bizarre trap. Athletics historically has been seen as a masculine endeavor, with women athletes mocked as unfeminine. However, paradoxically they also are sexualized.

Looking sexy could be regarded as a shrewd strategy in the face of the sexist stereotype of the ugly, masculine woman athlete. But it's the stereotype that needs to be examined, not what women athletes wear. They should not be pressured against their will to wear skimpy uniforms. Meanwhile, many runners find that running in a sports bra without a shirt enables them to compete most effectively; they choose their attire with the objective of performing at their best, not putting themselves on display as sexual objects.

If the Paris Olympics uniform controversy sounds familiar, it’s because women athletes have been putting up with this nonsense for a long time. Until 2021, the international federation of beach handball mandated that women had to wear bikini bottoms as part of their uniform at the international level (they could wear shorts in domestic tournaments). Men, however, were permitted to wear long, loose shorts.

In 2021, members of Norway’s women’s beach handball team protested by wearing shorts during a championship game—and were fined 150 euros each—prompting the International Handball Federation to drop the bikini bottom requirement.

Will Team USA women’s track and field take home a gold medal? To my mind, if they feel comfortable in their uniforms and can compete without being sexualized, we should consider that a victory.

Key takeaway: Women athletes are alternately masculinized and sexualized. Let them wear whatever makes them feel confident, comfortable, and able to compete.

What do you think? Email me and share your thoughts.

ICYMI

I'm quoted this week in USA Today about J.D. Vance's "childless cat lady" comment and the Kamala Harris memes.

My hot takes on dress-coding