Olympic gymnastics humiliates and infantilises grown adult women

[Thebellofstclements]

The ridiculous leotards, the twee hairstyles. Having to do the ridiculous flicky "dance" moves (artistic expression, ha!) and grinning inanely (insanely) in between moves and when presenting...
Arguably the best athletes in the world but these grown adult women have to present themselves in a ridiculous, almost grotesquely infantile manner, looking fairy cheap and tacky.
The men do not.
My family argues that the gymnasts choose to do this.
We know that historically female gymnasts have been abused with no voice, so I'm not convinced this is all what they would necessarily choose given the option. AIBU?

An interesting point (truly, not intended to sound passive aggressive) regarding ballet and ballroom dancing. I was a competitive figure skater for many years, including representing Team USA internationally though unfortunately never quite made it to the Olympic level. I'd say that figure skating is absolutely a sport that incorporates elements from ballet and ballroom (and we took those classes as part of off ice training). A controversy in my sport was when Tara Lipinski won the Olympics and there was much talk about whether her lack of artistry should have prevented her from doing so; as Olympic skating trended towards a jump off for several seasons, I'm glad to see it trend back on track. Anyway, our makeup would have looked just as intense or drag lack, as a poster described it, because the judges sit so far away from the ice. We wanted them to be able to see our facial features and that is why the makeup was so heavy. Same with crystals on our competition dresses. We wanted to be highlighted for an audience sitting very far away from us, and it definitely did look crazy in person and on TV, but those are not the viewers for whom it was applied. I never felt infantilized by my sport having a points category for artistry, wearing makeup to highlight my facial features for a panel of judges, nor for wearing a tight and sparkly competition dress. Apologies for the long response, but a lot of the points risen in terms of dance also apply to my sport, which is definitely an Olympic sport.

why would you assume when the correct information is in this thread or easily googleable? Nothing in the gymnastics rules (FIG ones anyway) makes any reference to the undergarments of the athlete, there are no deductions or penalties associated. You don't see professional gymnasts pants and/or bra because most adults choose appropriate underwear for their outfit as they prefer to not show it.

They are choosing to wear what they were. Which is utterly depressing.
Much like some of the other female sport gear is their choice and utterly depressing.

The men dress in gear which males them look like serious athletes.

The woman are expected to and choose to do all sorts of contortions with their bare arses hanging out.

It's depressing that they seek that kind of sex doll approval, rather than saying , fuck off, I am an elite athlete and I am not displaying my body parts because I am worth a bit more than that .

@montysma1 "It's depressing that they seek that kind of sex doll approval, rather than saying , fuck off, I am an elite athlete and I am not displaying my body parts because I am worth a bit more than that ."

They're saying "fuck off, I've died a thousand times over to get this body and I'll display it anyway I want to and the approval or lack thereof of armchair critics who have NO idea of what attaining elite status involves means absolutely nothing to me."

”Be more like men isn’t a feminist position.

It’s not really as simple as that, is it?

In some instances, being more like men was and is exactly what feminism is about. When women campaigned for the vote, they wanted the power men had, for example. Men had all the rights and freedoms, and women wanted them too.

Women quite rightly wanted to compete in sports like men could. They did want to be ‘more like men’ in that men were able to, say, compete in a marathon.

Most of the time, men have taken the best stuff for themselves and women have to fight for their share.

Women aren’t crap versions of men; they don’t want crap versions of human activities such as sport.

There’s no reason why women should have a prettied up version of gymnastics where they’re judged on appearance rather than skill. They are just as capable of being judged on skill as men are.

Quite a lot of the time, the way to work out whether something reeks of misogyny is to ask ‘are the men having to do this bullshit too?’ If the answer is ‘no’, there may be a clue there.

Women who are the very best in the world at what they do should have the right to choose what they wear when they do it ✅

The choice those women make should be exactly what I would choose to wear, and if not I can throw sexist insult their way ❌

Here you go Slip prevention

But you've still not explained why the women's version is worse than the men's.

You and the others making this argument have all made comparisons to things like FGM, being barred from a sport completely and voting rights. Comparisons where it's quite obvious that the way the women are being treated is worse than the men.

Not one of you have yet managed to tell us why women's artistic gymnastics is worse than men's. There's just an assumption that what the men do must be better, and therefore we need to explain why the independently developed women's sport isn't the same as the men's, instead of why the men aren't doing what the women do. Why is the women's version the crap one and not the men's? You appear to think the women are being judged on appearance rather than skill, but why do you think there's no skill in the artistry aspects?

That framing matters, and it matters a lot. You are making the male the default standard. That is sexism.

Female gymnasts are not judged for their appearance at all by the judging panel. They are judges for their skills. Some of those skills aren’t in the MAG Code of Points, such as leaps and spins, but that doesn’t make them crap.

I was in full support when a male gymnast tried to include them in men’s gymnastics and was disappointed it didn’t get through. Having more diverse elements in the Code of Points makes gymnasts more versatile and includes different people with different skill set. Want to be tumbling force like Simone, incredible. Want to have less tumbling and build difficulty through leaps, spins (which are not easy) and other non acrobatic elements, also great! I wish men’s gymnastics had more of it.

People can be so blinkered on issues like this. Yes, I’m sure most of the athletes are happy enough and they don’t feel bullied into wearing their outfits. And yes, sparkly stuff is nice blah blah blah

But the wider issue is the glaringly obvious fact that women’s clothing and appearance is always scrutinised more than men’s. These focal points (eg gymnastics, a sport with a very murky past where young girls are concerned) can be quite significant when analysing these values. Women who are so angered by people pointing out the completely obvious issues around the outfits in gymnastics and the tendency for women’s performances to be judged on beauty as well as skill, is bizarre and nonsensical.

Yep, and I wonder how many of the people blundering their way through the thread making quite basic mistakes about the sport have heard of Heath Thorpe?

Furthermore, the inclusion of leaps, spins, and non acrobatic skills for difficulty may well help contribute to further increases in athlete age and longevity in the sport - something I think we all want to see. Landings are hard, and something about the female form, q-angle, and gymnastics landings make women artistic gymnasts especially vulnerable to ACL injuries. If the only way to achieve excellence in the sport is through bigger and badder tumbles then bigger and badder injuries will surely follow. This scoring system allows athletes to build their skills up is a slow and safe manner while maintaining a competitive routine, and the option drop back if they are feeling not quite right.

Women's performances in gymnastics are not judged on beauty. There are zero marks for appearance. They are judged on the difficulty of the elements of their routine and how well they executed those elements.

Just to clarify, do you understand that the artistry elements of women's artistic gymnastics are different from what the athletes are wearing? The way you're phrasing your argument is blurring the two, and it is quite important to distinguish them.

If you have a look at the outfits that top women gymnasts wore when the sport was more about artistry and less about acro than now, you'll see that the leotards were lower cut on the leg and they tended to wear less makeup.

On the general subject of make up and performance, there was actually a famous rule change a few years ago when a gymnast decided to paint her face as a cat because she was using music from Cats. The sport didn't like that at all.

I know there’s not a ‘beauty’ mark.

Are you saying the men’s and women’s gymnastics are identical?

I have quite a lot of idea actually.

You have entirely missed the point but go you.

But women aren't judged on appearance in gymnastics any more than men are.

They aren't getting points for these leotards, makeup etc.

They are judged on controlled movement of their bodies, as are men.

@BernardBlacksBreakfastWine
"Quite a lot of the time, the way to work out whether something reeks of misogyny is to ask ‘are the men having to do this bullshit too?’ If the answer is ‘no’, there may be a clue there."

And there's your fundamental problem. You think that women's artistic gymnastics is bullshit. And that's fine - different people like different things. But it's not a feminist standpoint - in fact quite the opposite, it's denigrating women's sport, and one of the few sports which is fundamentally different from men's sport. Women's gymnastics stands alone - it is not some watered-down version of "real" (sorry I mean men's) gymnastics. I've heard the same arguments made about heptathlon to decathlon and they aren't feminist, they are deeply misogynist.

I don’t like the spangles and shit for reasons that have been debated at length already but I do think that gymnastics is one sport which seems to do a good job at showcasing women’s particular physical skills. In many sports what the men and women do is the same I.e sprint racing, but it’s just a fact that over a short distance the time of the fastest woman will be slower than the fastest men, still briliiant, measure against category and no one achievement is better than the other but if the end point is simply (say) “speed” then men take the gold. But women’s gymnastics feels like it has actually been developed to take on account of women’s peak skills, not a “this is what men are doing, women - have a go too”. Nothing wrong with the latter, it just seems to me that if men and women did actually compete directly against each other in some gymnastics categories, it wouldn’t be a slam dunk that men would win as it would be with most (if not all) track and field.

I’ve watched the olympics for years. Never seen it happen.

I didn't say that they couldn't choose?

No. This is one of a very few sports that has evolved to womens’ strengths. Why are you trying to denigrate that and portraying it as just a crap version of mens’ ?

This. 100%. Thank you. The amount of misogyny masquerading as feminism here is astounding.

Of course they aren't. They use different apparatus for a start. But that doesn't make men's gymnastics better.

Clothing aside I think gymnastics is one of the few sports that where to the casual observer you can watch both men and women shine.

I don't like watching most sports and if I'm going to I'd rather watch the best of the best, which in nearly all sports means you're watching blokes.

Gymnastics is my favourite Olympic event and only sport I'd actively seek to watch.