Why do female gymnasts always look like that?

[LovelyBitOfHam]

I’m sure you know what I mean.

Hair tied back in a big scrunchie - the kind of scrunchie you last wore when you were 9 years old.

Glittery make up.

Plaits, braids and hair clips.

I understand a lot of sports have a uniform but ultimately, if you take a track and field athlete, a swimmer and a tennis player just before they perform, you wouldn’t really be able to tell which sport they play just by looking at them. But you can identify the gymnasts from a mile away.

It isn’t just at Olympic level either. Even the little girls in weekend gymnastic clubs have the same sort of style.

Is it some kind of male gaze thing? Or is there a “type” of girl who grows up wanting to be a gymnast? I’ve always associated gymnasts with the sort of girls who didn’t really grow up, but I’ve now realised just how wrong that is.

I think what they can do is incredible, and Simone Biles is great. But there’s something about the “look” of gymnastics that’s always bothered me, and I can’t put my finger on what it is. Anyone else?

I’d love to see these examples as well.

A lot of these posts feel they’re coming from people who are holding on to stereotypes from 30+ years ago. Or maybe they’re confused because most gymnasts are shorter than average height for women that must make them child like?

Svetlana Khorkina, Kerri Strugg and Nadia Comaneci.

But gymnasts have gone through various styles. I think as the sport has developed hair has to be either short, which means regular haircuts or tied back and clipped tot he head.

https://thegymter.net/2016/04/06/gymnastics-hair-a-retrospective/

OP

Have you noticed the swimmers do the same, and then cover their heads with a hat. Synchronised swimmers have hair similar to gymnasts. It's almost like some sports need a particular hair style.

I have not watched every minute of the gymnastics, no, I didn't see the Germans compete. Very pleased they got to wear clothing of their choice.

It's super interesting though that those shifts have been through athlete pressure, and considered to be newsworthy, rebellious and subversive. I'm also thinking of England women having to mount a campaign to get the colour of their team shorts changed because white shorts are a nightmare when you have your period. Needing media and public backing for that change is pretty telling and tells me it's not simply a dialogue between athletes and institutions, they need to campaign. Would volleyball have changed without all the negative coverage?

Why does the sport institution think it worthy of comment and rules what women wear?

FWIW I did artistic swimming ('synchro') for a time as a kid. It is hard, very hard. There is no need for the slicked back hair and makeup, we could have simply worn caps like other swimmers. You are supposed to smile, despite essentially doing Cheer upside down, in water, while holding your breath. I guarantee if men had done artistic swimming from the outset smiling would not be on the score sheet. (Technically men can now participate if they want but none seem to have made teams this time round, which means I'm guessing it will be one of the only mixed events if that happens, eventually, which will be interesting to observe).

I'm not sure why people are picking on horse riding, men and women wear exactly the same thing. You might as well pick on taekwando.

I think it's due to nowadays most girls and young women have long hair - DGD(15) and her friends and classmates all have long hair.

I'm more struck by the prevalence of so much make-up and false eyelashes on many of the female athletes - I expect that's to do with sponsorship deals and public image.

Hair tied back in a big scrunchie - the kind of scrunchie you last wore when you were 9 years old.

Glittery make up.

Plaits, braids and hair clips

With all due respect it should be fairly obvious why you don’t do gymnastics with your hair down and flowing freely 😂

I think the hair would get in the way, with the incredible stuff they sometimes perform.
What I wonder about, how these ladies deal with periods or feeling "under the weather".

For ballet, the bun stops you hitting yourself in the face with your own hair when you do multiple spins. I assume gymnastics is the same.

Some ballet teachers get fixated on bun neatness (and precise shoe colour, and hairstyle etc) but the main exam boards don’t mark them. Cecchetti does, though. From memory 10 marks for appearance so basically hair and make up, and maybe also correct leotard and clean shoes.

I think it's more that gymnasts and coaches find a norm that works to keep hair out of the way and in place, so they enforce it as part of safety and building good habits. I didn't know they used scrunchies because they're soft - I'm 40+ and I still wear them because they're comfortable.

For ballet dancers they wear buns so there artistic uniformity and also to keep their hair out of the way. Many ballets will have wigs on top of the buns.

You could ask the same about the women in cycling and why so many have childish braids, and presumably to it's keep their hair flat so it doesn't get in the way of the cycling helmets.

You made a point earlier about not seeing female track athletes with elaborate hair - they absolutely do have huge hair! Especially the US teams! It obviously works for them and doesn't get in the way. I'm sure it's a combination of expressing individuality and making themselves more interesting to sponsors.

Finally, I actually disagree with your OP. The gymnasts today look more like women than ever - did you see Rebecca Andrade? Their leotards are uniforms that work for them. There are also plenty of gymnasts who go for a plainer no make-up look. The whole Chinese team wears gold star hair clips in their hair - their flag has yellow stars. For the non-team events they wear leotards of their choice and some choose sequins and some don't. Many of the gymnasts have elaborate very un-girly nails as well. I don't understand how they don't get in the way but they do fine. So they are able to express themselves within the confines of their uniforms.

I am no sports fan and walking up and down the high street is more than enough exercise for me, but even I can take a wild guess as to why gymnasts tie their hair back!

on a purely selfish note- my little one will practice for three hours plus a day for the incentive of getting a sparkly leotard … I haven’t sat down this much since she was a newborn. Please don’t take this from me 😂

The breakdancers were wearing loose "street" styles from the 90s with a fake DJ pretending to scratch.

It's part of the genre. The male gymnasts dress like gymnasts from the 30s for the same reason.

Btw I always have my hair up in a bun and my wedding dress was sequinned (with lights) and I can't even skip let alone back flip.

I'm more struck by the prevalence of so much make-up and false eyelashes on many of the female athletes - I expect that's to do with sponsorship deals and public image.

Or, and hear me out here, it's because they LIKE wearing makeup! Just like millions of non-atheletic women do.

Surely the hair style is simply a practical decision.

They need to make sure it does not get undone in the middle of acrobatics...also they don't want anything to distract the judges.

So it makes sense to have everything really tightly set with clips and so on.

Same with ballet.

The make up also helps with accentuating facial expression and making them more visible to the crowd.

People wear heavier make up on theatre stages, films sets and so on.

The glitter helps catch the light.

I really don't see any problem with this.

They can't complete with long hair obscuring their vision (that would be dangerous...) and I don't see anything wrong with them wearing make up.

I seriously don't think many blokes gaze longingly at scraped back hair or sequins

Hair is obvious. Been explained a thousand times.

Makeup is like with many performance sports and in the arts. So it can be seen from the audience. Stage makeup is equally heavy. It also needs to stay on through sweat and being accidentally swiped by a rogue swinging arm

Sparkles? Because when you are spinning and leaping, they catch the light and add drama to the performance. And it is a performance. It is a performance sport

Plenty of gymnasts wear little or no makeup.

Any chance it could be because that's what they like? They know there's a good chance they will get interviewed after the race and feel more confident with their face on?
I've never been one for make up, but I know some women wear it to work because they feel more confident. And the time when you really need confidence is when you are on the world's biggest stage, about to run the race of your life.
The thing I don't get is running with a chunky pendant whipping about in the wind. Men and women.

I’ve been trying to think of ANY of the (artistic) gymnasts who meet the OP’s description. The nearest I’ve got is Jade Carey, but she didn’t even have a bun and her make up was barely there. I think she might have worn a ribbon once.

Honestly, the rhythmic gymnasts and synchro swimmers have much more elaborate costumes and make up. And frankly, good for them.

Maybe somebody could post a photo of a gymnast looking "like that" so we all know what we are talking about?

Jordan Chiles is clearly into makeup, but no more so than countless 23 year olds and you could point to many in other sports of the same age who wear similar.

Even historically I can't think of who people are talking about.

Thank you @masomenos .

You’ve very eloquently articulated the points I clumsily tried to make.

I'm in the UK and my perception of gymnastics seems to match yours.

But perhaps we’re just two raging misogynists.

I have just typed “gymnasts” and “female gymnasts” into Google Images and have been met with very many recent photos of sparkly eye make up, sequins, glitter, plaits, ribbons and bows.

They remind me of those little pageant girls.

Can someone please post a picture of an Olympic gymnast who looks like a pageant girl. Because I'm drawn g a blank.

I've just done that. I see hair tied back, some hair ornaments, leos (some a bit sparkly).

I'm not seeing any excessive makeup, plaits (not sure what's wrong with plaits anyway) or anything glittery beyond a Leo.

I just feel we're here fencing with shadows. We have pages and pages of people telling us they have a problem with what gymnasts wear, so people with knowledge of the sport explain the reasons, the options, the variations ... but nobody will show us what they are actually talking about.

Really, I'm not inventing this - and reading others on the thread I can see they're talking from experience and knowledge too. There's no one gymnast look. There's no one hairstyle. There's no trend of particularly heavy make up among elites. Sparkles are in at the moment. Leotards are standard sportswear. So you will see gymnasts, mostly in leotards, mostly with long hair tied up or back, usually with makeup like other women of their ages, often with sparkles which show well under lights in TV.

All of this seems a very reasonable range of choices by gymnasts.

Clubwear is down to local rules

I think this thread demonstrates how it maybe really is a cultural thing. There’s strong “defence” (I put it in quotation marks because I don’t think there have been any accusations to defend) of the make up, glitter, ribbons, bows etc from ex-gymnasts and mothers of gymnasts. It sounds like these women are totally fine with this, see it as normal and unremarkable. Just like in the real world to plenty of women such things are totally normal.

Go to the surfing world and I won’t think it would be the same. It would be all Aviator Nation, hair that’s a bit rough because of the water, no fancy nails, no glittery wetsuits, dry skin, cracked heels etc - all appropriate for the sport (just like the former look is for gymnasts), and also all culturally normal and unremarkable.

There’s no point posting of photos: it’s like eg someone who doesn’t wear makeup at all posting a photo of a random woman in the street wearing a full face of makeup and false nails and eyelashes and saying “see what I mean, they look so heavily made up right?” to a bunch of people who don’t see what we mean because for them it’s totally normal and that’s not all at all heavy. It’s a perspective. I find the look of gymnasts noteworthy and unsettling, others don’t. To each their own.