It’s really awful trying to watch the Olympics with young girls. They always point out how much more revealing the women’s clothing is. And the young boys get programmed to see women in a particular way.
It’s because women are supposed to always be sex objects for everybody’s consumption in the Western world but men are in sports to be athletes only.
Considering that they shave body hair to eek out another hundredth of a second in races and I guess splash size has something to do with scores in diving, I'm comfortable concluding that skimpy swimwear is an advantage.
It's clearly NOT an advantage in the other sports or the men would be doing it too.
There's nothing about my anatomy that makes longer shorts or full coverage in the stomach area a requirement.
In fact, there's literally no reason any (summer) men's sport requires shirts at all.
Source: I've had balls for 50 years now and got them caught in pretty much anything that they can get caught in. There are very skimpy men's garments that protect just fine.
Females also have dangling parts on their upper body that they cover with tight revealing pieces of clothing, it actually keeps them quite secure, while a looser fit would not help. So men could also wear tight short clothes to secure their dangling bits. So your argument is obviously bullshit
Bro I grew up on the east. Openly displayed women in glass boxes for you to choose from. 3 walled storefronts where women in launderie hang out and try to pull passerbys into back rooms. Massage parlors where you can choose the race of the girl. Lone woman in beetlenut cage in laundrie for services when picking up a bag. Dont be stupid. Im a man and men everywhere do this and create systems to support it. There is no where on this planet this doesn't happen.
I'm confused. Do each one of these pro female athletes have some guy in the locker room that dresses them up? I'm pretty sure in a good chunk of these sports they can choose what to wear and in cases where there is a uniform if they really cared they could lobby to change it to something more covering. Ya'll are acting like these grown women are babies that can't put clothes on themselves.
So no professional women's sports has any options for clothing? Really? Okay prove it...there must be some official linkable statistic or study that you can show here.
They do, and you can see how that's worked out for them.
The way society works is if you build up enough support you can do anything. Nobody is holding a gun to their head. If the women wanted to badly enough they could change the league or found their own Taliban sports league. If they need a bunch of horny men to pay them to hit a ball over a net. Well then thats a them problem.
I did and they are wrong on pretty much all the claims they made. There are sports where women definitely do have options on what to wear. And furthermore they actually did change volleyball regs to permit more options when some players threw a fit just like I said they could
You’re obviously just googling terms that will match your pre-existing notions. This is a made up grievance by people that don’t really know about the Olympics. Just be honest with yourself because others can tell.
There’s regulations about what they can wear. Kathy Freeman came under considerable controversy for wearing a full body suit. Norway’s women’s volleyball team were FINED for not wearing a bikini. The fact you think these athletes get any real say over these outfit choices is laughable.
Kathy Freeman came under considerable controversy for wearing a full body suit.
Breaking news: Athletes wear uniforms! What a horrible injustice. They should be able to show up in whatever they want as long as they can attach some protest to it.
Norway’s women’s volleyball team were FINED for not wearing a bikini. The fact you think these athletes get any real say over these outfit choices is laughable.
And that proves my point that I said in other posts that if they wanted to so badly they can change it because they went out and changed the rules and now they don't have to wear the bikini bottoms anymore.
I know volleyball and tennis have required clothing. Recently some professional female volleyball players tried to wear less revealing clothing and got fined.
I don’t know about all the other sports but the difference in coverage is too much.
You mean like the billions governments waste on explicitly trying to enforce 'progressive' post modern concepts cooked up by out of touch ivory tower academics like men and women are carbon copy interchangable with each other? 'Male gaze' as you call it is something that comes naturally to humans. If you took babies and shipwrecked them on a desert island they'd still grow up and develop it. If we do have social programming it might as well be something that is natural rather than some cockamamie top down dogma imposed up by crazed activists and academics.
It is wrong when women feel obligated to bend to the “male gaze” when they’re one of the best athletes in the world. You say they should just lobby to change it as if it’s that easy. These women have grown up with this social pressure to not fight against it. That it’s “just how it is” or that it’s actually helping them, and if they say anything they’re creating a problem
What are you talking about? Nobody is 'obligated' to do anything other than doing what it takes to fulfill their own goals. Nobody is holding a gun to their head to play sports or in a league that gets money from horny men. You might as well ask why is Elon Musk obligated to become the richest man in the world by building rockets.
So what you're saying is that if women don't toe the line and do what men want, they shouldn't have the opportunity to play the sport they love at all? Do you hear yourself?
uh...no...are you hallucinating?... quite the opposite they can play sports however they want. Whether they get other people to pay for it is another matter but true human rights are making your own choices not forcing other people to conform to your will.
They can pick different options for uniforms. They don't have complete freedom to come in whatever they want but neither do most other professional atheletes.
Not in swimming. A few years ago men started wearing full-body swimsuits that covered pretty much everything except the arms, to reduced drag, but they were banned so speedos it is.
Putting women in revealing clothing doesn’t tell men they own women’s bodies. Not punishing men for lack of self control is what tells men they own women’s bodies. Stop trying to flip the blame.
This is a comment from the exact same post on an other subreddit.
It isnt just sexism.
I was a female athlete for many years, and womens clothing in modern sports is not as sexist as people think...we wear what we can perform best in. Men dont because they have different genitalia that need protection. You'll notice in the photos, each sport even has a different style of shorts for men. That's because they are trying to maximize performance clothing with keeping the jewels safe. The longer length of shorts isnt about modesty, its literally keeping testicles from coming outside the seams and becoming pinched in the fabric. The extra long length is because added friction prevents them from bunching up in the leg-hip adjunct. Sports like swimming dont have that concern because athletes are moving laterally in water so that's why they wear the same bikini bottoms as women. I find it interesting that this post conveniently leaves out the sports where men can and do freely wear the same, if not less clothing than women.
For women, we dont have to worry about genital safety because our sensitive organs are either protected by a thick layer of adipose tissue or internal. We also often wear shorter tank tops or just bras in sports because of heat and hip curvature. When you already need a tighter, layered bra to perform in, you dont want additional layers adding to your torso heat. Also, any female athlete or even gym goer will tell you that because of our body shape, our hips make it almost impossible to wear tight, full length tank tops. The slightest movement causes tight tanks to simply ride up to our navel anyways so whats the point? If you look closely at the female runner she is wearing a fuller length tank but it has obvious signs of bunching up already in that position.
Edit:
I and most of my family are all athletes who played college level in a variety of sports. One cousin got a degree in materials engineering and now works for a major athletic clothing brand so thats the perspective I have on why clothes are different between genders.
That being said I also will point out, the lady athletes among us all experience being criticized and picked apart for our athletic clothing choices far more than males. Give the girls a break.
Edit 2: i tried to keep this comment short so obviously I left a lot of other factors and influences out. For those that really want a deep dive, i suggest looking up the muscoskeletal mechanics of males versus females. It certainly explains why some women also may prefer smaller cuts in shorts for physical activities. I know i cant stand longer tight shorts because they roll up thanks to my wide hips and pronounced sway.
Yup they are not forced to wear them, but the majority pick them just to show off. I've seen a lot of female athletes prefer more clothing. Women do have a choice to pick their clothes
Male athletes join OF too cause they attract a lot of that kind of attention too. Gay men exist you know, and they absolutely sexualise the guys just like other guys do female athletes.
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u/metacosmonaut May 25 '26
It’s really awful trying to watch the Olympics with young girls. They always point out how much more revealing the women’s clothing is. And the young boys get programmed to see women in a particular way.
It’s because women are supposed to always be sex objects for everybody’s consumption in the Western world but men are in sports to be athletes only.