One for you and three for me
What was that I was just saying about beauty pageants for little girls and hyper-sexualization of girls and women and the way that plays out in gymnastics and ballet and ice skating where men usually wear clothes while women always wear bathing suit equivalents?
The Badminton World Federation has made a new rule that women players have to wear skirts or dresses. Yes really – to play a sport, women have to wear skirts. Queen Victoria would so approve.
The BWF has received feedback from various parties with regards to the introduction of Rule 19.2 of the General Competition Regulations which require female players to wear skirts or dresses for Level 1 to 3 tournaments. This specific regulation has its genesis in the extensive review into the marketing and events structure conducted by an external international marketing agency in 2009.
Well why stop there then – if it’s a matter of marketing, why not make a new rule saying women have to wear makeup and long flowing hair and V-neck halter tops and stiletto heels along with their skirts? Why not tell them to stop playing and do a pole dance instead?
The BWF has developed guidelines to go alongside the new Regulation, to ensure that it will not in any way discriminate against any religious or other beliefs and respects women. Players will continue to wear shorts if they wish but simply wear a skirt over the top of the shorts, as is often practiced already by some players.
Oh isn’t that kind and sensitive and liberal – all women have to do is add an extra, bulky garment that won’t disadvantage them in any way at all apart from interfering with their freedom to move. It won’t degrade them in any way at all except for pointlessly and stupidly sticking a Gender Label on them at the behest of a marketing agency. It won’t treat them as second-class in any way at all except by ordering them to put their Gender Identity ahead of their athletic goals.
Deputy president of the WBF Paisan Rangsikitpho says it’s “never been the intention of the BWF to portray women as sexual objects,” it’s just that they’re trying to get more people to pay attention to badminton and they figure this is the way to do it.
If this is the biggest women’s issue that we as a culture have to wrestle with, then I would say that we have it made. I prefer to concentrate on women’s employment / glass ceiling issues, as well as the fact that in most religious cultures, women are practically considered the property of men.
Oh yeah, and the child beauty pageants, where they dress and makeup little girls so that they look like 25 year old predators ready for a wild girls night on the town are sick. Those events should be banned immediately. That is a bit different though. They are exploiting children who don’t really have the option of declining, since their parents make all of their decisions for them. With the badminton issue, if you feel like the uniform is degrading, don’t support the sport by participating or watching. Personally, I think that the women’s beach volleyball uniforms are much more in line for criticism, but as a male spectator, I kind of like those.
I am a huge sports fan, but I recognize that in real life, all sports could disappear from the face of the earth, and it really wouldn’t change much except for the people whom the various sports employ. They are not a necessary function for life or civilization. They are ultimately entertainment, nothing more. The costumes that entertainers wear are pretty irrelevant. They are marketing tools and usually not much more.
I would really rather return to the days when the Greeks invented the Olympics. All challengers participated in the nude. They figured that if you were celebrating the perfection that the human body is capable of, then it should be on display. Kind of tough to market that in our society though.
If you still want to talk about silly sports uniforms, look at men’s Olympic wrestling and swimming. The uniforms don’t get much sillier than those.
This is making me seethe in rage. As far as I remember, women badminton players from the East Asian badminton powerhouse countries usually wore shorts and t-shirts to play. Now they’ll be FORCED to wear ridiculous mini-dresses?! So that they are not portrayed as sexual objects?! What the hell is this? I suppose now we have to assume that up is down, black is white and wearing a burkha is ‘liberating’?
Sometimes I bloody hate the world.
Oh forget the skirts. Why don’t they just play in their lingerie like the talented ladies in the Lingerie Football League? Oh the humanity.
http://www.lflus.com/
Rex (Comment no. 1): You said it yourself, “If this is the biggest women’s issue that we as a culture have to wrestle with…”
The key word is ‘if’. You know very well this is NOT the biggest women’s issue that we have to deal with, it is just another little turd on the steaming pile of crap that gets dumped on women every day.
“With the badminton issue, if you feel like the uniform is degrading, don’t support the sport by participating or watching.”
So we’re not to protest in any other way against this ludicrous infantilising? As Ophelia said, what will they insist on next? That the women wear sparkly hairclips and flowery headbands?
“Personally, I think that the women’s beach volleyball uniforms are much more in line for criticism, but as a male spectator, I kind of like those.”
If you want to ogle women in skimpy clothes, there are dozens of non-sport settings where you can do that to your heart’s content. Sportswomen’s dignity should not be sacrificed on the altar of someone’s erection.
This trend of hypersexualising of women’s sport outfits (in certain sports) continues parallel to a reverse trend in men’s sport outfits — for eg. in tennis the men’s shorts have grown baggier and longer, whereas all the women seemingly HAVE to wear mini-skirts with hot-pant knickers.
Ouch! That guy’s rationalizations make my brain hurt.
The next step in the hypersexualizing of badminton will be to forbid the women from wearing panties under the short skirts. Next, raise the floor so all the ringside (expensive) seats are at eye level. WOW!
Rex –
Notice I didn’t say this is the biggest women’s issue that we as a culture have to wrestle with. I didn’t imply it either. The fact that it isn’t is not necessarily a good reason to ignore it or endorse it.
It’s interesting to know what you prefer to concentrate on, but this is my site, so I concentrate on whatever I feel like concentrating on; I don’t concentrate on what Rex prefers to concentrate on. (I’m not sure I would call it “concentrating on” though – it’s one brief post.)
I have criticized the women’s beach volleyball clothes, and my awareness that the point of them is that men “kind of like” them didn’t prevent me. Of course you as a man “kind of like” to watch women in underpants and bras jumping around, but the Olympic Games are supposed to be an athletic contest, not a sex show for men.
Nude badminton, anyone?
I guess the main point I was trying to make is that we as a society have bigger fish to fry everywhere across the board, and if we want to have any real impact, we have to prioritize the things that are the most wrong and concentrate on those. The smaller items will naturally fall into place after that. If we complain about everything in the world all at once, there will be no concentrated effort in any one particular place, and thus, no improvement anywhere.
As to your point about how this is your blog, and you will focus on whatever you want; I agree wholeheartedly. I was just making a comment.
And finally to the point of not wanting to be forced to wear a particular uniform to participate, I am reminded of the pharmacist who refuses to dispense certain drugs or items that they find objectionable, for whatever reason. I think that they should be compelled to choose a different field or fired if they refuse to meet their job description, because they are unfit to be a pharmacist, again, my opinion only.
All of this is why I lament the fact that I can never become a professional bowler. I hate the shoes, and I have a strong aversion to wearing them. That is why I choose not to participate.
Rex – I know, only a comment, but it’s of a type that fits a pattern: the u r doin it rong pattern. It’s a pattern that tends to irritate bloggers, because it seems so pointless and entitled.
Rex
May 7, 2011 at 1:05 pmIf the biggest thing American society had to deal with in the 1950’s was where a black woman could sit on a bus, or what tap she could drink from, or what door she could walk through…Its from the stupid little bits of bullshit that we see the big things we have to deal with as a society. The minor, petty things act as signatories to the big injustices.
So the players that don’t like this new rule should just stop playing, rather than comment on it?
When adult women were banned from attending? That celebration of the ‘human’ body only went so far.
There’s at least some plausible practical reasons for those silly uniforms (reducing the risk of grabbing, water drag), unlike skirts vs. shorts.
Hey, at least the Lingerie Football League is being honest about what they’re doing. Not that I’d ever watch badminton or anything, but the idea of requiring skirts doesn’t make me want to start. And yeah, it is “just a little thing”… but if it is just a little thing then it is an easy thing to fix in the CORRECT direction. Anyone who says it is no big deal should have no problem with getting rid of a stupid little rule like this, right? If they aren’t willing to support changing it, then maybe it is a bigger deal to them than they let on.
Ophelia,
Since you mentioned ballet dancers, surely the costume of male ballet dancers is sexualized and offensive to hetero men(skin tight pants and cod pieces)I’m certainly offended.
Netball(similar to basket ball) players wear tunics over shorts, their freedom to move doesn’t seem to be restricted in any way.
As a man I ‘kind of like’ to watch some women in underpants and bras jumping about,however,most of us, men and women, look much better with our clothes on. I’m definitely against the current fashion in my country for plunging necklines and bare breasts on the beach.
What about the corsets? Skirts on top of shorts are a big step forward — but we mustn’t forget the corsets.
Explain that again? You need to be able to differentiate the women’s game by controlling the appearance of the players? In order to help us to understand that this isn’t sports, it’s women’s sports?
Ah, obvious troll is obvious. The reason most people consider this a problem is not simply because of “job description” but because the pharmacist is making it more difficult to access a necessary service. What necessary service is being denied if we see a woman playing badminton in shorts?
First of all, criticizing “the little things” does not preclude also trying to do something about the “big things.”
Secondly, though, going after the most important things doesn’t make all the other stuff automatically get fixed. Women getting the right to vote, anti-discrimination laws, etc., demonstrably hasn’t by itself changed a culture in which sexism is embedded in countless ways, subtle and not-so-subtle. Pointing out instances of this embedded sexism is a very good way to make it visible, when most people would otherwise prefer to ignore or dismiss it.
Also, notice that the “suck it up or leave” choice being given to women is not a choice that men playing these sports are forced to make. Wearing skimpy uniforms is neither required for playing the sport effectively, nor imposed as a requirement on anyone who wants to play the sport. (It’s not a part of the ‘professional role’ in the way that dispensing prescribed medications is for a pharmacist). Women who like badminton, and are good at badminton, have to accept an idiotic and sexist ‘dress code’ imposed by the marketing guys, or give up their badminton. Men who like badminton, and are good at badminton, get to just go and play badminton without even having to think about this stuff.
We must all decide what the worst thing in the world is and only talk about that one thing until it is resolved completely and permanently. Then we can move on to problem #2.
#19 Chris Lawson,
Sound advice, but first, we have to decide what the ‘worst thing in the world’ is,my nomination is philosophy since after 2600 years of intellectual effort,it hasn’t produced a single fact.
I’d be interested to know exactly why RJW feels offended by male ballet dancers, and why he thinks most heterosexual men are. As for philosophy being the worst thing in the world, has RJW read, say, David Hume? Or considered the importance of Whewell’s thought to Charles Darwin’s practice. Finally, windy’s and Jennie L’s remarks are spot on.
RJW,
Since I perceive science to be a subset of philosophy, I’m gonna disagree with you there.
Even if it were true that philosophy hasn’t produced any facts (it’s not), then 2600 years of philosophy not producing any facts would have in fact produced at least one fact: namely, the fact that 2600 years of philosophy has not produced any facts. This fact could not have been produced in the absence of 2600 years of non-fact-producing philosophy.
#21 Tim Harris,
I was facetiously pointing out Ophelia’s double standards, when I mentioned being ‘offended’ by male ballet dancers. I’m certainly not claiming that philosophy hasn’t contibuted to the scientific method,however that’s quite distinct from the contribution of philosphy as a distinct and separate discipline.
#22Chris Lawson,
You might “perceive science to be a subset of philosophy”, I’m not sure most scientists think the same way,philosophy is more the precursor to science than science is a subset of philosphy. During a video of a seminar that Dawkins and Dennett attended (on the RDF site) Daniel Dennet(philospher) quotes Richard Dawkins'(scientist) opinion of philosophy-“What good is it?”aked Dawkins.
#23 Jennie L,
I should have been more explicit,I mean scientific facts about the natural world, not philosophical ‘facts’. So the ‘fact’ that philosophy has not produced any facts is not actually a fact itself.
What a marvellouslly circular argument,how philosphical. What are these facts that philosophy itself has produced?
Yeah, so sorry I stopped by to leave a comment, especially since I chose to offer a comment different than a typical sycophant would here.
RSS feed delete
All you are saying, RJW, is that philosophy is not science, and that we knew before. Perhaps you might explain why you find reading, say, Hume on religion so desperately unrewarding.
Actually, regarding ballet dancers (of both sexes), I rather agree with you. The erotic is and has been central to the arts, and clearly the male dancer’s garb is meant to make him look as masculine as possible – just as here in Japan on festival days the young men wearing little more than fundoshi (loin-cloths) who carry the portable shrines intend to look as masculine as possible, whereas the women wear yukata that are meant to bring out their femininity. That said, I think the requirement that women volley-ball players should wear skirts is degrading.
Perhaps I should add, regarding the dress of Japanese women at festivals, that in Japan modesty is associated with femininity, and also that nowadays young women do quite often help carry the mikoshi (portable shrine) and in that case they usually wear shorts, and not loin cloths.
Rex (#1)
For fuck’s sake. When a woman faces a sex-based limitations to what she can wear to do her job, it is a women’s employment issue. Even when that job is something you deem frivolous.
(#25)
And what do you imagine it would look like if everyone was disagreeing with you simply because you’re wrong, o thin-skinned one? Or does that never happen?
Says the privileged male. Listen, pal, you don’t get to decide what issues get concentrated on at this blog. Ophelia does, end of story. And a lot of us think it’s fucking outrageous that a sports league would propose a rule that makes all women wear sexually appealing clothes for marketing purposes.
How would you feel if the Gay Mafia (assuming it existed and actually had power) decided all NFL players would now wear tight-cut briefs only, or jockstraps, you know, for marketing reasons? You’d be outraged – if you could even contemplate the scenario, which you can’t, because you can’t even conceive of being on the receiving end of this degrading shit.
Oh, and your flounce? Tired. Think of something more clever than “sycophant.” If I were Ophelia, I’d react to your deleting my blog from your RSS feed the same way I’d react to a piece of chewing gum spontaneously falling off my sneakers. Less to worry about, no effort involved.
Tim Harris,
I don’t find reading philosophers on religion as unrewarding but as irrelevant, since there appears to be, from scientific research, an evolutionary basis for religious belief no amount of philosophizing is going to enlighten us as to why many people are religious and a minority, simply find the idea of belief,ridiculous.
Something else came to me: I think it was Hilda Geertz who remarked (rightly) that the decorated penis sheaths that certain Indonesian or New Guinean tribesmen wore were the most immodest things she had seen in her life – this was in response to the customary embarrassed and insensitive assertion on the part of male anthropologists that penis sheaths were worn to preserve male modesty.
Another interesting question is precisely when did the so-called classical tutu (as opposed to the longer, bell-shaped ‘romantic tutu’) come into fashion? I think the latter preceded the former. The origin of the word, it seems, is a (French) childish alteration of the word ‘cucu’ (buttocks), which is a diminutive of ‘cul’. You see plenty of ‘cucu’ at festivals in Japan, and they aren’t female.
But what the issue is about is not whether male ballet dancers or whoever also flaunt their sexuality, the issue is about power, and the moulding of women to suit men’s sexual tastes.
Yes, RJW, Boyer, Guthrie, Atran, Whitehouse and many others, none of whom, I note, share your disdain for Hume,
NFL players wear very tight pants,like male ballet dancers.
Cut the bullshit, RJW.
#31Tim Harris,
“But what the issue is about is not whether male ballet dancers or whoever also flaunt their sexuality, the issue is about power, and the moulding of women to suit men’s sexual tastes.”
How can you tell when either sex is ‘flaunting its sexuality’ or being ‘moulded to suit the sexual tastes’ of the other? I heard women express their approval of the skin tight shorts of footballers,whose idea was that?
Then, RJW, you believe the badminton (I don’t know why I got on to volley ball above) federation is both entitled and right to insist that women badminton players should wear skirts because a marketing agency thinks a bit of sex will attract male punters?
#36 Tim Harris,
Not at all, I’m suggesting that male athletes could also be subject to sexualization,not that the practice is ‘right’.
I have to say that, after some consideration,I agree with Rex in that ‘sports’ these days are, in fact, entertainment,if you’re a real sports fan you play sport, you don’t watch. So what else do you expect in a market economy? Any athletes/entertainers that are outraged by their sports dress codes are free to form their own association,probably with little or no corporate sponsorship.
I’m old, so my memories are unreliable, but I seem to recall that Twiggy was denied admittance, as a spectator, to a tennis event because she was wearing shorts. She took them off and was admitted. This, to my adolescent mind, was a turn-on.
Why do we put up with gendered clothing at all? It’s considered unremarkable that professional men wear wool uniforms with silk scarves and women wear tight-fitting dresses with necklaces and pointy shoes, which is comfortable and practical for neither of them.
I live in a beach town and watch volleyball practice nearly any day. The usual group isn’t all that good, or that good looking, but they’re doing it for themselves, because they enjoy it, and worth watching at that. I like looking at women in bikinis, but it’s pretty clear that they wear them for their reasons, not mine.
Silly men. Tits are for kids.
Bare legs may be an over-generalization of the right to bare arms, but it’s a widely shared misconception.
RJW,
1. Most of the Greeks who worked out the circumference of the Earth, the size of the Sun, eclipse prediction, the basis of geometry, and the principle of mathematical proof saw themselves as philosophers and are still generally classified as philosophers. Modern science grew directly out of natural philosophy. Naturalism was a common and important tenet of many Greek philosophers. What modern science added was the methodical processes to naturalism. So, yeah, I don’t see any reason to see science as a schism with philosophy so much as an offshoot of philosophy that has been more successful than all the other branches combined.
2. It’s nice of you to quote Dawkins indirectly, but what was Dennett’s answer? And why would you leave it out? And why would you take one vague quote of Dawkins and extrapolate that to “most” other scientists? And even if most scientists believe that science != philosophy, does that automatically make them right? You could try presenting a counter-argument rather than a fallacy from authority — especially one that is not well-referenced or persuasive, or indeed from an actual authority.
You know, here’s the problem with all of these responses:
The central issue isn’t sexualisation. We would be just as up in arms if the league had said female badminton players had to wear niqabs.
Its about treating women as being little more than property, as being our women who we can dress the way we want, their own desires being ruled irrelevant.
Its 2011, not 1950, we should be past this crap.
I hope, bad Jim, that Twiggy put on something else to replace the shorts…
Ah, RWJ, the MARKET, that universal solvent of all our moral qualms, that grand excuse! To an extent, as I say, I agree with you – women too feel empowered by their sexuality (there’s a rather good little novel by Rumer Godden, whose title escapes me, about sexual awakening in a young girl), but as I suggested above, the behaviour of the badminton fedration is an abuse of power, and as Bruce Gorton has said very well it bespeaks a contempt for women.
Bruce,
“The central issue isn’t sexualisation. We would be just as up in arms if the league had said female badminton players had to wear niqabs.
Its about treating women as being little more than property, as being our women who we can dress the way we want, their own desires being ruled irrelevant.”
Well, I dearly hope it isn’t about what you say it is, because if it is you really don’t have a case. All sporting federations — male and female — have restrictions on dress and equipment, and one of the reasons for those restrictions has always been the image of the sport and ensuring that the image they want to portray is portrayed. Not only is it the right but it is the obligation of sporting federations to do this. We cannot complain about sporting federations limiting what their athletes can wear because that is, indeed, what they’re there for. We can only evaluate their reasons for that limitation and the image they are trying to portray by doing so.
So the sexualization point is a good one, as it strikes at the image badminton might be trying to portray. And fortunately, it does indeed seem that this is the point Ophelia is trying to make.
And they are also free to comment on and protest against codes imposed on them by their current associations. What’s the problem with that?
Besides the question of whether this sort of thing disproportionately affects women, it seems to be symptomatic of a creeping corporatism where we are supposed to follow any arbitrary rules imposed from above and not have any demands on the employer, since we live in a market economy, doncha know.
Well, then. Death to the Badminton World Federation. Long live the Badminton Global Association.
#41 Tim Harris,
I think that the novel you’re referring to is The River
RTW – no, I’ve remembered! It’s The Greengage Summer, a novel for young people that I bought for my nieces. It is very well-written.
#39 Chris Lawson,
1.In my opinion you’re begging the question,certainly the Classical and Hellenistic Greeks were described as ‘philosophers’,some were philosophers in the modern sense and some were essentially scientists such as Archimedes and Eratosthenes. Even 17th scientists such as Newton, were described as ‘natural philosophers’,the divergence of the two disciplines was gradual and probably imperceptible until modern science developed in the 17th century and the term ‘scientist’ appeared later. Science is not an ‘offshoot of philosophy’ but an evolutionary development.
2. There’s no attempt to ‘appeal to authority’ by using ‘other scientists’ or Dawkins’ names. I wasn’t presenting an argument. My reference to Dennett’s quote of Dawkins is simply anecdotal and is only an aside by Dennett at a seminar,so all I can remember is that Dennett made a dissenting remark, naturally. They weren’t dicsussing philosphy-science relationships but religion. If I can find the video in the RDF archives you will be the first to know. In my opinion Dennett is rather pompous(“Brights”,Jeez!),so I was amused at the exchange.
Regarding Dawkins’s remark (RJW, #24 above),
During a video of a seminar that Dawkins and Dennett attended (on the RDF site) Daniel Dennet(philospher) quotes Richard Dawkins’(scientist) opinion of philosophy-”What good is it?” asked Dawkins.
I’ve listened to the audio of that video lecture many times. Richard Dawkins was introducing Dan Dennett, and a very close paraphrase is “I sometimes think, what’s the point of philosophy? And then I hear Dan Dennett, and all is made clear, all is revealed.” Dawkins went on to say that he valued Dennett (and, by extension, the best of philosophy) as a check on the validity and coherence of arguments that he (Dawkins) was thinking of making.
#48 Jeff D,
No.that’s not the video I’m referring to,I haven’t heard that particular one, Dennett was the speaker and was possibly paraphrasing that conversation,perhaps I got the wrong idea from the video I heard.
Jeff D,
I’ll have to award the point to you,as I can’t even remember what year the video was published.
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