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?

What about the men’s diving and their tiny trunks? We must help them cover up too! Poor things being objectified.

side note @AGoingConcern as you seem like a gymnastics fan? I loved that our women's qualifying outfits matched our mens from the day before, you don't often see that and I found it cool they created a designed that looked so good on both the men and women.

Also you’ll get a shock if you see the costumes for the male acro gymnastics (not Olympic sport but probably should be as v entertaining). The level of glitter and razzmatazz is off the roof!

Sorry OP, but that’s pathetic. It’s you who’s ‘infantilising’ if you think that a grown women who have the ambition and determination to compete in the games can’t think for themselves because of how they’re presented or how they move during their routines.

Most of them are teens arnt they. Not adult women

Anyway there are arguments going on about the costume but otherwise you are being ridiculous

How come the men don't have to do flicky wrist movements?

no actually, this is a tiring misconception that keeps getting rolled out.

Perhaps it's irritating as it infantilises / sexualised / trivialises all women by rating so highly women who prance and strut alongside the great moves they do

The great moves are not enough - they have to look preened and do silly movement to get to the medals ?

Because men’s gymnastics is a different sport.

But maybe they should, and should have to perform dance elements and use music. Why should the women change to be more like men instead of other way around? Especially when the women’s sport is more popular.

Because the men's sport evolved to focus on other things, like strength. The women's sport has more emphasis on balance, flexibility, presentation and dance. Personally I don't see anything wrong with any of that.

If you don't like 'flicky hand movements' acro would be a better sport for you as a viewer.

Maybe they aren't up to it. We don't have to view the male way of doing things as the right way and the female way as inferior or silly.

Exactly. Why are things that men are better at always held up as superior?

Gymnastics is one of the few sports that flexes to the strength of each sex. Men would struggle to complete in the women's sport and vice versa.

But what you're saying comes across as blaming women for men being disgusting. It's the old "you can't wear that because men are gross".

I don't watch the Olympics or gymnastics. But just checked out a couple of routines mentioned in the thread and I didn't see them as overly twee. Yeah there's a few dance moves but that just links the more impressive moves. I trust what people have said on the thread thus far about there being a level of choice to what they wear.

I do not agree they look "cheap and tacky". To me, OP's point was lost when she made that statement. Claiming to be a supporter of women and yet has no issue calling their look cheap and tacky. If you watch one of those routines and your take away from it is "how cheap and tacky" then you're the one focusing on their looks and not their skill. Don't try and then dress that up as some sort of concern for them.

The German team are wearing unitards specifically because there have been concerns about the sexualisation of the sport and to address the participation of girls who are made uncomfortable by the traditional outfits. Sara Voss has spoken about this.

big agree on this. I'm a fan of mens and women's gymnastics and if I ask family or friends (who don't typically watch) their favourite women's event, almost without fail people say they love the Floor - the music, the dancing, and the tumbling come together to create such an engaging performance. No-one says of the mens events they favour Floor, which arguably has the most bombastic moves you will see across the whole discipline of gymnastics, but ends up being a bit dull and flat and forgettable.

What's wrong with their hair, they wear it pulled back so it doesn't get in the way.
They can wear long leggings now if they want, which is the only area I would vaguely agree with your opening post. I'm not a fan of having yo wear high sides to do a sport but they don't have to now so...
I love women's floor far more than men's floor because of the artistic elements. It makes it so beautiful and graceful. Stunning to watch. I always feel whilst the mens floor is impressive its more disjointed and isn't as affecting as the women's.

I think there was more artistry in 70s/80s. Whilst the power moves of today are incredible it leaves less time and energy for the dance element which I assume the OP refers to as ‘flicks wrists’.

NB being feminine isn’t humiliating or infantilising.

And anyone can wear as much or as little glitter as they like although I noticed yesterday that there seemed to be far less glitter than 20 years ago.

Absolutely not. What would we do without the dedicated MN stalwarts always there to tell us why we are wrong/misguided/just plain stupid to think and feel the way we do.

Grinning inanely? My impression yesterday was of the absolute opposite. I saw intense concentration, and if anything, quite fierce looking faces. They looked so serious. Simone Biles didn't crack a smile until she'd finished that last exercise on the uneven bars.

There is a huge variety in styles - gymnasts wearing makeup, gymnasts without, gymnasts in unitards, gymnasts in leotards, gymnasts with bows, gymnasts with plain ponytails or buns.

The gymnasts are mostly adult women these days.

If you were watching yesterday and saw team USA or Brazil - they were very sparkly, mostly with lots of makeup. These women are superstars and dress like the celebrities they are, in line with their home cultures.

Canada, China, Romania, Italy, UK - mostly much more workmanlike, but makeup use varied by gymnast, as you'd hope. Germany - unitards. Japan - matching hair accessories to honour their captain who made them (long story).

Several gymnasts have businesses relating to sports accessories and fashion. Good for them.

Smiling is not required - on floor only, expressiveness matching the music is required. That's not necessarily smiling. Dance, movement and extension account for a small proportion of points on beam and floor. That's the nature of the sport.

I am bored by fashion and can't do makeup but these women are just behaving like women from a mix of cultures on the world stage. You are projecting here, based on the appearance of a small number.

Wonder if OP has ever watched film of Olga Korbut ? She was heralded as an innovator in the sport in the 70’s. Beautiful to watch but definitely ‘flicks wrists’!

YNBU my dd is a competitive gymnast, she lives and breathes for it. She is unbelievably strong and all the other girls in her team work and train incredibly hard for the skills they have. When it come to competition they have to spend so much time thinking about their appearance - leotard and bloody hair, it feels like they way they look is more important that the incredible things they can do!

Have you not seen the men prance in the corner before the next tumbling pass before? Or wave their arms in front of them to they don’t get penalty for hesitation (as beautifully demonstrated by Ellie Black here at 2:04)? Neither sex is allowed to just walk up the next corner to start their next tumbling pass. The dancing nature of the women’s routines is able to build in natural transitions which fit the routine composition and build their score. Men have prancing and man wipes.

Tell me you don’t know much about gymnastics without telling me you don’t know much about gymnastics.

First of all, there is no such thing as “Olympic gymnastics” - the sport is a quad and year-round discipline and arguably, the biggest and more important competitions for these athletes happen in the 12 months prior to the Olympics itself. You wouldn’t be seeing these women in Paris if they hadn’t qualified as a team / themselves and then beaten everyone else in their country at national trials / selection events. So to suggest that for the past 3-4 years (on top of their whole childhood) they have been somehow going through the motions with no choice or personal drive, only to somehow magically appear on the Olympic stage yesterday wearing a hairstyle someone enforced on them… is quite ignorant.

As PP have already pointed out, all gymnasts have the option to wear long leggings with an upper body suit that covers arms and elbows if they so wish. Two gymnasts wore these yesterday, actually. It was also interesting to see that their third teammate was wearing the more common leotard, which in my opinion shows that their country allowed them to each make their individual choice about what they wore.

Is the sport still a long way from being a safe, less pressured and abuse-free space for women? Of course. That’s the case in most sports. Gymnastics having been one of the most toxic environments, historically.

Is it acceptable to use denigrating words towards 20-something young women who actually want to be part of this sport and dress and style themselves in the way they do? No, it’s not acceptable.

It would be fairly easy for these women to “disappear” during an Olympic quad due to the depth of talent in most countries - perhaps not Simone Biles or Rebeca Andrade, but outside of the gymnastics community few would notice if a lesser-known gymnast chose to retire from the sport at any given time.

Go read up on what Sunisa Lee has had to overcome in the last 3 years and how she’s competing with two chronic kidney illnesses that most doctors said would be the end of her career. Most of us would be laid up in bed unable to work for the rest of our lives after that diagnosis. Yet she chose to put on “frilly and twee” make up and hair clips and go to Paris so that women can be further infantilised through her performance… instead of them being inspired by her strength to push through adversity and fight to do what you love most.