Women and sports and the clothing they dont wear.

Watching the video today in class about sports and politics wasn’t really doing anything for me until the section about women athletes came on. I think this is partly because when it comes to athletics, it’s a male dominant world (and politics bore me) and I couldn’t relate to any of the players being mentioned because I had no idea who they were. But my interest was sparked when it came to women athletes. Like, too dainty and fragile to play a sport? Changing basketball so it wasn’t as dangerous? Bike face or whatever the heck they called it? That’s freaking ridiculous. I understand and thank the male dominated world at that time for being concerned about the well-being of their women, but at least let us have some fun! Roll up our skirts and play ball like the rest of them! Okay so that’s that, and it got me interested. Then came the section about how many women were on the cover of the different magazines and I don’t remember the exact numbers, but six in the last 5 years or something for the one, and on the weekly Sports Illustrated magazine the only women featured on the cover was the Dallas Cheerleaders FROM THE 70S?! Freaking absurd if you ask me. I find it insulting that they focus on the girls in skimpy swim suits or other skimpy, way too revealing, articles of clothing. Media coverage has started to show more Olympic female athletes down on the synthetic sand. That is awesome, a step in the right direction, but guess what they are wearing. Skimpy “swim suits.”

I, my friends, am a pole vaulter. Now currently, I do not wear just a sports bra uniform top and buns (as I found out they are not called “underwear”, buns is the actual term for them). I wear the full length tank top and spandex short uniform. Could be considered revealing, especially at a high school level, at a college level I’d say it’s a normal appropriate outfit for competing. If, however, I was in the Olympics, I would be wearing the same amount of clothing as those beach volleyball women. It is insane to me that the world is still trying to show off women’s bodies instead of their great athletic abilities. I want to be recognized and watched because of my great talents in vaulting, not because my great body attracts the attention of males. I mean that’s nice, but there is more to us than the skimpy outfit, but do men notice that when females are put in the least amount of clothing possible?