We just want them to look feminine
The badminton people are still tussling about that “women have to wear skirts” rule that the genius marketing people came up with. There are some crazy-radical voices pointing out that this is sexist.
To create a more “attractive presentation,” the Badminton World Federation has decreed that women must wear skirts or dresses to play at the elite level, beginning Wednesday. Many now compete in shorts or tracksuit pants. The dress code would make female players appear more feminine and appealing to fans and corporate sponsors, officials said.
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Women wear more revealing outfits than men in a number of Olympic sports like gymnastics, track and field, volleyball and beach volleyball.
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Badminton’s world governing body now finds itself on the defensive, accused of trying to sell a sport by showing more leg and skin. Male players are required only to dress in “proper attire,” officials said.
“We’re not trying to use sex to promote the sport,” said Paisan Rangsikitpho, an American who is deputy president of the Badminton World Federation, which is based in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. “We just want them to look feminine and have a nice presentation so women will be more popular.”
Oh is that all!
This is Michelle Obama’s skirt all over again. Look at the picture on that article – you can see up the skirt. There’s nothing to see, just cloth, but it’s the thrill of looking up it, isn’t it. That seems to be the point of skirts – making women peerable.
Oh well what do I expect, when the only women you see on television are on shows with “Housewives” in the title and are like no human being I’ve ever seen in my life.
Paisan Rangsikitpho uttered two sentences that directly contradicted each other. So, female players can’t conceivably be popular unless they’re “feminine” and have a “nice presentation” (whatever that means)? It makes my skin crawl.
I can’t imagine watching badminton with or without skirts.
The interesting question is whether it’s sexist for women to continue to wear skirts in tennis. Though it seems like a lot of the “sex appeal” of women’s tennis is driven by the players themselves.
Speaking of TV, I’m more offended that Marg Helgenberger isn’t allowed to headline CSI even though she’s been on for 11 seasons and plays the boss. They had to bring in Laurence Fishburne to be the “star” even though his character is the most junior member of the team. Can’t let a big show have a female as the biggest star on a “non-chick” show, I guess. Not unless she’s a weird over-tanned plastic surgery victim on a “reality” show. *rolls eyes*
Anyhoo, it is hard to imagine how forcing women to wear skirts can possibly not be sexist.
That’s the thing about “feminine” clothing, and I noticed this a long time ago. It gives all the appearance of being deliberately constructed to put the wearer in danger of exposing herself (even further). To make it fairly likely, in fact, that she will. Short skirts, teensy little tops,
pubehip-hugging jeans, bras that barely cover the areola when one is sitting perfectly still. One must literally carefully mince to avoid letting the whole world see her breasts, ass, or crotch. And “formal” wear for young women at proms? Gownless evening straps.I think women in tennis should quit wearing skirts, in solidarity.
Josh, exactly. Ironic, isn’t it – one the one hand head-to-foot bags, on the other hand “ooooooh maybe my tits will fall out, maybe my skirt will fly up, maybe I’ll fall off these shoes and then my skirt will fly up.” I wish women would rebel.
Thanks for the fix, O:)
Yeah, I wish they’d rebel too, but most don’t. Certainly not teenaged girls, who are (as boys are, but very differently) hugely concerned about being fashionable and whatever “sexually attractive” means at a given moment. Having recently driving a charming young couple to their prom, I know what this is. My friend Laurie would call it dressing. . . professionally. Not the office kind. The girls hanging around waiting for rides were invariably in dresses that were very short (higher than mid-thigh), and very very low-cut. Serious danger of boobage exploding everywhere at the slightest dance move (really, how much support can a strapless bra really offer?).
Boys, of course, have to do nothing equivalent. Formal wear is still a suit. Streetwear is a strange opposite – shirts and pants so ridiculously, exaggeratedly baggy that it’s impossible to see the shape of their body at all. It’s like a total negation of sexuality. That perverse inequity really angers me; I wonder if anyone else has noticed it. I know, of course it’s been this way for a long time. I mean the so-baggy-you-can’t-see-a-body-outline style of dress for young men since the early 90s. It almost seems. . . consciously designed.
I’ve certainly noticed it – it’s a major item on the list of Grave Objections to the Way Things Are Done that I keep so sedulously.
If you look at the makeup of the BWF Council and Executive Board, perhaps this decision is not too surprising. Ten out of ten Executive Board members and 13 out of 15 Council members are men.
Personally, I think the men should have to wear skirts too. That would make the male players appear more feminine and appealing to fans and corporate sponsors.
Ophelia, thank you for posting this. This issue has been a major gripe of mine for over 20 years. When I was in my early 20’s I certainly did start to rebel, mostly my outfits consisted of old army pants! I can’t stand the double standard that exists about clothing, and this (sports) is just one area. In Canada there is some lingere women’s football league starting up!! I cannot F^*&ing believe it!!!!
I kinda liked your idea of stiletto heels, though. It could be quite entertaining watching men or women try to play badminton wearing them. Alas, this is not likely possible as the very likely injuries would prevent it.
One question, though: Why don’t they believe shorts “look feminine and have a nice presentation”? Just because men wear them, too? I can’t say that I’ve ever seen a woman in shorts and thought that she looked masculine, or had a ‘bad presentation’ (whatever that means).
Josh,
As I understand it, the baggy male clothing thing didn’t start as a way of negating sexuality, but as a way of concealing criminality. It started among inner-city drug-dealing gangs, as a way of concealing who was holding the dope being dealt, and who was carrying the guns, and who was just a low-ranking lookout or a high-ranking dealer who wouldn’t be holding. The cops don’t know who to stop and frisk, so it’s a herd camouflage thing. (Hoodies, too—it can be a way of concealing your identity if you’re a mugger or whatever, or just an article of clothing.)
Then it took on a life of its own, with various people adopting the look, some of them affecting a gangsta look to seem maybe not like harmless suburban mall rats, some just doing it because others were doing it and not wanting to seem out of it, and some because it was actually comfortable and convenient. (Freestyle skateboarders and snowboarders actually have a use for baggy clothes that don’t restrict motion.)
All along the way, though, there’s been this or that sexist thing going on, with it being a “guy thing” to be a drug-dealing or gun carrying thug, or just to look like one, or just to dress like other guys and not like girls.
Heteronormative male gaze, innit? Women’s bodies as objects of sexual temptation, rather than subjects of action – either ‘good’ or ‘bad’, dependent on the wrinkles of your culture.
We just saw the school production of Grease. The music’s great and there are some great lines, but there’s no getting away from the fact that the message seems to be that the secret of a successful relationship is the woman dressing like a floozy (the show’s choice of word!) and the man getting exactly what he wants.
In Japan, many teen-age girls like to wear their skirts dangerously high (to the extent that they have to hold a bag or case behind them when walking up steps from the subway), whereas many teen-age boys like to wear their trousers, or pants, dangerously low (to the extent that every so often they have to hitch them up a bit to prevent them from collapsing about their ankles) … I don’t know whether this contributes anything sensible to the conversation. I hope the badminton players rebell.
@Tim – Won’t they use the same kind of adhesive for trousers as for loose socks?
Jeebus wept. This is awful. See, the dudes in charge get to decide what constitutes a ‘nice presentation’ and what will make women ‘popular’ (NB that’s apparently their looks, rather than their sporting talent – who knew that badminton was actually a beauty contest?). Rather than women, say, deciding for themselves that they might want to, oh I don’t know, just concentrate on the sport they’re world-class at and ‘nice presentation’ be damned?
Svlad, I don’t think they do, because it might spoil the underwear (Calvin Klein, etc) that they are so keen to display to all and sundry, together with most of their buttocks.
I’d be more impressed if male players started wearing skirts instead. But I’m not holding my breath that they’re any more sensible than their bosses.
Still a coupla men going skirt and commando would prolly fast make the advertisers reconsider.
Quite – and now the same thing is creeping into atheism, apparently, where the men who run conventions are Inviting More Women Speakers by……………inviting the sexy pretty ones and then rejoicing at their sexy prettiness. Who knew that atheism was actually a beauty contest?
I recall in reading about the semiotics of clothing that the skirt always symbolizes sexual availability. Thus when women began working in offices in the late 19th century, they wore skirted suits. They were masculine from the waist up, in jackets and shirts, but from the waist down, still female. Skirts can be lifted for easy access and underpants are a relatively recent invention. (Where I grew up we saw London, not Spain, by the way).
I find that skirts and dresses can be quite comfortable in the heat of summer, but perhaps that is because I don’t sew weights into the hems.
A couple of years ago I read this awful newspaper article about how little schoolgirls in the UK increasingly are wearing trousers instead of skirts and some old bloke was reminiscing about schoolgirls and skirts from his childhood. It was seriously creepy.
To add to my comment (no. 21) above, by ‘little schoolgirls’ I mean young schoolgirls (primary school).
It’s about time. I used to find it seriously creepy how few women and girls wore trousers. Women stocking shelves in supermarkets wearing skirts! It’s so stoooopid. (Again – because if you do it wrong, you just get people looking up your skirt.)
Careful here, it’s veering towards a collision with the well-established “I can wear what I damn well please and if someone looks up my micro-mini skirt to see my thong it’s his problem [and he ought to be arrested!]” tendency. With which I can empathise, on account of it being an emotionally-valid position, but not entirely sympathise, ignoring as it does various basic rules of civil interaction.
My wife is a lawyer. When she was newly qualified, 15 or so years ago, she was expected by the firm’s partners to wear a skirt at work. In fact, there was a whole dress code for women and not – of course – for men. The men did and still do wear suits they might have inherited from their fathers: crumpled, rarely cleaned, decades out of style and often stinking. This was considered acceptable, whereas a woman in trousers was not.
She capitulated for a few years but as her confidence increased she quietly rebelled by just starting one day to wear trousers. Unsurprisingly, the male partners who had been so strongly in favour of the dress code did…..absolutely nothing. They were clearly uncomfortable, but they were too scared to say or do anything. They knew there was no basis at all for a dress code and yet were genuinely surprised that someone might defy it. Gradually, the other women in the firm started to wear trousers when they wanted to and the very idea of the dress code was quietly dropped.
Now she’s a partner and there’d be no question of this kind of thing happening again on her watch, although she’s still battling some woeful maternity/paternity rules. But I still enjoy thinking about the moment they realised that the gig was up: that someone had called them on the fact that their policy was pure bullying and entirely indefensible. I like the thought of them realising that power was slipping from their hands because people started realising that they never really had that power in the first place.
Perhaps the situation with the badminton players is more difficult. Their careers will be harmed in direct ways if they are prevented from playing the right games at the right time and this could easily happen while the mess is being sorted out. This makes the rule even more despicable, of course.
Latsot @25 — Exactly. A few years ago I was doing a round of job interviews and was avidly reading all sorts of interview tips on the Web. One of them was that female candidates must wear skirts to interviews because what if the interviewer was an old-fashioned person, you wouldn’t want to make a bad impression, would you? I decided that should there be such a dinosaur on my interview panel, I wouldn’t want to work for such a company anyway. I wore trousers to all my job interviews, and then I continued wearing trousers (and no make-up) to my workplace, after I was successful in my job hunt.
It appears from this article on the BBC Badminton chiefs shelve skirts ruling that the The Badminton World Federation are having seconds thoughts, which as far as I’m concerned is better for the sport. If you want to enjoy looking at the male or female body, then there are other places for this. If you enjoy sport for the sake of the sport then how the players dress should be the least of your concerns.
Peter
Sepp Blatter, head of FIFA (world governing body of soccer), suggested that one way to increase the popularity of women’s soccer was “tighter shorts.” Nothing was done about this. Most of his cronies probably agreed.
Dave – I know it is – but in truth I adamantly reject that tendency although (as Jerry Coyne has pointed out with some indignation) I don’t say so very much, because I know what a can of worms it is. But no, I don’t think women can wear a washcloth for a skirt and get indignant at the male gaze. One, it doesn’t work, but two, and more to the point, it’s not honest. If you want to look like a hotty, ok, that’s what you want, but then it’s cheating to get righteously indignant at people who accept the invitation to leer.
Indeed, which is why I only wear my mankini in private.
Obviously there is a presumption of short skirts being worn by the female badminton players. However, so far as I can see, there is no stipulation about the types of dress to be worn nor how long they have to be. Perhaps a few of the players could adopt fancy dress to show the authorities the error of their ways. I’ve always wanted to see Scarlett O’Hara play Queen Victoria.