Feminism: chat
Wimbledon ball girl outfit
babychange · 30/06/2021 12:07
I was very lucky to get tickets to Wimbledon yesterday and had great seats, right next to the umpire.
I then realised how short the skirts are for the ball girls. One girl in particular was very tall so her skirt kept riding up and she had very tiny shorts underneath. She kept tugging them to pull them down and looked very uncomfortable.
The boys had shorts that were mid knee and looked way more comfortable than the girls.
Why aren't the girls given an option to wear shorts? The female umpires were wearing long trousers!
Maybe the girls like wearing short shorts, who knows but they are 14/15 years old. Just felt so wrong watching a young girl running around with her bottom on show 
CovidCorvid · 30/06/2021 12:13
Yes, they should be able to wear shorts....don't know if they can or not. But then I doubt the adult female players are allowed to wear shorts either. Tennis has some daft rules. So they are flashing their (sports knickers covered) bums a lot. But even more inappropriate for kids.
coronaway · 30/06/2021 13:26
Wimbledon has some very 'traditional' rules and regulations. I think the players can only have sponsors on their clothing that take up at most 5% of the overall space and their clothing must be white. I presume there is even less chance of having the ball girls wear shorts.
VikingVolva · 30/06/2021 15:08
They're skorts for girl, not skirts.
And if you look at them when they're lined up, there's little difference in length between boys shorts and girls skorts
But I suppose there will always be some outliers in terms of his well they fit (single supplier) so they might look skimpy on tall skinny boys and girls
Bluntness100 · 30/06/2021 15:35
I don't know about the ball girl uniforms, no doubt they know what they know what they have to wear before they sign up
Thr uniform is provided by Wimbledon, it’s a skort with built in cycling shorts, thr days of them running around , if they ever existed, with their bums visible like the op describes are long gone.
Ghislainedefeligonde · 30/06/2021 20:06
Yes bellini I’ve seen that and was pretty 
Yuk
Back to Wimbledon I noticed some of the female staff within the crowds were wearing awful brown pleated skirts, can’t imagine why anyone would choose that over trousers.
The ball girls should def be allowed to wear shorts though!
KimikosNightmare · 30/06/2021 20:40
www.theguardian.com/fashion/2015/jun/26/wimbledon-ballgirl-how-i-achieved-my-ambition-20-years-too-late
The uniform is a skort designed by Ralph Lauren.
I'm not interested in tennis but out of curiosity watched a bit just now- didn't look like what the OP described.
KimikosNightmare · 30/06/2021 20:50
And female players are allowed to wear shorts.
Personally I would think a short tennis skirt would be more comfortable than baggy, knee length shorts over a long match on a hot day. In the game I watched briefly the men's shorts were obviously sweaty and sticking to them.
babychange · 30/06/2021 21:13
Yes it's skorts but....
I was sat at the front row on one of the courts.
There was a very tall girl there whose skort was very short and the skirt element of it kept riding up, so that you can see the 'short' element of it. Her bare bottom wasn't on show of course, but the shorts were really looked like pants on her. It was very uncomfortable to watch, especially when you know how young she is.
Regardless, the boys shorts were much much longer than any of the girls skorts.
It was obvious that the skorts that the girls wore were made to be much shorter than the shorts that boys wore.
Bluntness100 · 30/06/2021 21:16
What you wrote op is not true. They don’t wear skirts. They wear skorts which have in built cycling shorts underneath, she wouldn’t have been wearing “tiny shorts that she had to keep tugging down” nor would she have been running around with her “bottom on show” . It’s televised we can all see what they wear. The uniforms are provided.
campion · 30/06/2021 23:51
@Ghislainedefeligonde
Yuk
Back to Wimbledon I noticed some of the female staff within the crowds were wearing awful brown pleated skirts, can’t imagine why anyone would choose that over trousers.
The ball girls should def be allowed to wear shorts though!
I think the brown skirts belong to army personnel and are worn on formal occasions.They help to steward at Wimbledon, though as volunteers not line judges!
KimikosNightmare · 01/07/2021 01:10
I think the brown skirts belong to army personnel and are worn on formaloccasions.Theyhelp to steward at Wimbledon, though as volunteers not line judges!
I'm not interested in Wimbledon and even I knew that. The description obviously sounded like a uniform. And why this obsession that every woman is desperate to wear trousers?
www.forces.net/evergreen/photos-day-life-wimbledons-military-stewards
JessCrowley · 03/07/2021 16:56
I’ve been a ball girl at Wimbledon. It was in 2017 but I doubt very much that the rules have changed. The uniforms this year look pretty much the same as the one I wore. We weren’t given the option of wearing shorts, girls have to wear a skirt but as has been pointed out, they have built-in shorts and I never felt exposed in it. If I’d been given a shorts option I wouldn’t have chosen them. I think the skirts look cuter and I suspect they’re more comfortable. I never wore the boys shorts but they looked like a more restrictive chino style material to me. Not the most practical for all the crouching and bending down that’s involved I reckon.
There’s so many traditions at Wimbledon that they like to uphold. I think generally tennis and skirts kinda go together. Even in this day and age I don’t think you’ll be seeing ball girls in shorts any time soon.
Perhaps the girl you are talking about just had an ill-fitting skirt.
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