Why do women athletes compete in clothing so skimpy it could be underwear?

[FortiesCromarty]

This occurred to me whilst watching some of the athletics on TV, the women are in small pants and crop tops, yet the men wear vests and shorts, their bodies totally covered.
It can't be a question of that's what clothing gives the fastest time, else the men would be running about in their skimpies.
My DH says he thinks it's fashion, the women have chosen to wear these clothes as they are proud of their bodies and want to fit in with the other female athletes. Yet I do not agree and feel profoundly uncomfortable at the sight of adult women competing in an international event as if they'd forgotten their PE kit and their coaches had made them do the race in their bra and knickers.
What do you feel about it?

What eleison and meow said.

As a feminist I object to objectification of women - womem who are being paid to display their bodies for the arousal of men, or girls and women feeling that they have to conform to certain beauty standards imposed by sleb mags and fashion and the like.

I don't object to the female body full stop which is what seems to be going on here. These women (from where I'm sitting) look confident and powerful and at ease in their own skins, and the clothes they are wearing are not mainstream "appeal to men" clothes. If they were doing it in padded bras and preening before they went off then that would be different. But they aren't, they're there to compete, to win, their bodies are strong and there to work hard. Their purpose in wearing these clothes isn't to set teenage boys off wanking.

Maye someone should find a way of askign some sportswomen what they think of all this.

fakeplastictrees did

You now get one or two a year. Your suggestion sounds like the whole team is sat in the dressing room handing around all sorts of stuff. The Olympic comp's in the 70's when Germany was still split and Russia was still officially communist, there were 15 or 20 athletes that were found to be using drugs, usually anabolic steroids.

I don't know the stats for Beijing, but in Athens 04 only 5 athletes were confirmed to be using banned substances. They are not even supposed to use some cold remedies, fgs!!

my assumption is that a lot of it goes on. That's the message that came to me via the media but I have no exp of top-level sport personally. Just how it comes across to me.

There may of course be an element of display and competing body-wise with each other. I'm sure that happens with both sexes and across most sports, showing a very fit/trim/muscular body to someone you are about to compete with might servse to intimidate.

I'm thinking snooker and darts as the exception to this

Why would we want to denigrate other womens hard work though without any evidence at all?

It's nice to have a space where the male gaze is irrelevant.

I watched it last night and they were a sight for sore eyes. It surprised me how healthy, good, strong they looked.

xposts zzzen.

I also find these doping comments sad.

Yes doping is awful etc and gives the sport a bad name but frankly you could give me all the drugs in the world and I wouldn't be able to do what they do. Doped or not it's bloody hard work, to dismiss the whole spectacle as "well they're all doped" is depressing.

That's how I feel too marsha.

It is sad in a way that in an environment where, perhaps above all others, the female body is something other than grist for male fantasy, it is possible for a woman to take on the 'male gaze' by imagining that women athletes are so influenced by it that they would make a less-than-optimal choice of clothing. Sports clothing is something of a science, isn't it? Chosen for its capacity to shave off that extra 0.001 second?

well I didn't mean to make anyone feel sad about it. It's just my view and i can accept that obviously I see things in a strange way that other people really find weird and incomprehensible. I'm not trying to make you think the way I do. It's just my view on the OP that's all.

Zzzzenagain (Did I get the number of Z's right ), Working from memory the last Brit athlete to be caught using a banned substance (possibly nandrolone) was Darren Chambers, it's long enough since that he has served his ban, had a go at pro Rugby League, didn't like it and returned to competitive athletics.

Team GB is not a hot bed of banned drug use, can't speak for other countries but I would suspect that it's only the daft, really secretive ones like N Korea and China that seriously think they could get away with it. The Chinese athletic associations had to show that their drug testing regime was rigourous enough to cope with the recent Olympics, so their home athletes were tested often during training to ensure that results were secure and reliable. Imagine the shame on the authorities of someone testing + when they were -. The Chinese athletes must have been like pincushions!!

Dwain Chambers Meow?

Greece?

So you admit you know nothing about professional athletics but you think they're wearing those clothes to flaunt their bodies and they're all taking performance enhancing drugs Zzzenagain?

Nice.

Darren Campbell. Sorry - too many D's and C's!!!

argh no
I don't think they are flaunting their bodies for men
I think it is a movement in sport fashion that I persojnally don't like the look of and maybe it shaves of a millisecond and is therefore important but I don't really think it is necessary to wear the brief shorts. It's my personal view and a matter of taste. Other people may think it is a really nice development and looks better than what they used to wear.

Ok

and yes, I think that doping is a problem in sport once you get above a certain level whether you succumb or not. The pressure to do better and better puts a limit on what can be attained naturally.

I am not claiming that Jennifer or anyone else doped, how would I know and I am not assuming it.

I am saying that I cannot say how any woman who did dope in order to do well at sports could be a good role model for a girl any more than a woman who had plastic surgery to succeed in pop music/film or whatever else.

Darren Campbell was very outspoken against Dwain Chambers and famously refused to race in the relay with him after Chambers was allowed back.

I don't think you need to be a professional athlete to get the impression that doping goes on. Everytime any major high-level sporting activity is on, the commentators touch on it in more or less detail. And people are caught out all the time, so to some degree it must be going on, even post cold war.

Omn, thanks for helping my poor little bear brain!!!

I knew they were both "involved" somehow; just trying to save time by mixing up their names!!

Meow

If wearing less clothing means that you are going to increase your chances of winning then they are going to wear it. And a millisecond can count for a lot. Yes there is some doping that goes on but it is very rare and the tests are so regular and unscheduled that the vast majority of athletes compete on sheer skill. And yes I do think they're better role models than women who have had surgery to compete in pop and fashion.

Would you want your DD to have surgery?

I think you are reading a lot into my posts that is not there

Personally I think some of the running knickers are getting too 'brief'. I agree that it is more comfortable to run in fitted clothing but some of the knickers worn are so little. I honestly don't see what difference a bit more material so the knickers came up a bit higher would make.

The woman running for Turkey who won the 5k managed to do so in much more modest clothing.

"I am saying that I cannot say how any woman who did dope in order to do well at sports could be a good role model for a girl any more than a woman who had plastic surgery to succeed in pop music/film or whatever else. "

that's what I wrote and I think it makes it clear that I think neither is a good role model for a girl so why would you assume I'd want my dd to have surgery?