Shorts may turn girls gay

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OPINION: Forcing netballers to don short skirts will keep them from turning into lesbians.

Whew, that was a near miss, wasn't it? The suggestion that women's sport deserved to be taken seriously, I mean. Up until the past few months the idea actually seemed to be catching on. Talk about hangovers from the nanny-state. Thankfully, sanity has finally prevailed and we blokes can now get back to the business of treating all sportswomen as pretend shags. To be honest, anything else was always going to be a challenge.

Wimbledon officials, in particular, deserve our thanks for helping to put women back in their place. Not only did they again stoop to the often-suspected practice of scheduling the best-looking females to compete on centre court in the opening week, this time they came right out and admitted it. The women were there for their looks, not their talent. Attractiveness was a "factor". Finally, people with the courage of their convictions.

Traditionalists wouldn't have been overly-alarmed, however, as Wimbledon contestants were still required to play in virtuous white. Objectifying women was one thing, clearly, but strict standards were to be otherwise maintained. The All England Club still had its limits. Jacket and ties for members; smart trouser-suits for the "ladies". No masculine grunting.

You can understand where they're coming from, too. If tournament organisers are prepared to go to the trouble of highlighting not the best women players on offer but the most exciting eye-candy, the least the spectators can do is dress up nicely to leer at them. If there's a few oddballs who prefer to watch the women for their tennis ability rather than their sex-appeal, they can easily relocate to less-salubrious surroundings.

Happily, the efforts of academics such as Dr Mary Kane haven't caused much damage to this type of thinking. Kane was the sports sociologist who demonstrated through a wide-ranging study that sex might sell sex, but it certainly didn't help to sell women's sport. Her results suggested the concept was a turn-off for most women in the 18-55 age-bracket, and offensive to fathers with daughters.

Using the "Women of the Olympics" Playboy issue as one of her examples, Kane said there was no doubt that young men were excited about seeing female athletes in that type of environment. However, she said, "they wanted to buy the magazine but they didn't want to consume the sport". That is, rather than sex promoting sport, it was the other way around. Sport was promoting sex.

Luckily, no one listened to her.

Certainly, Netball Manawatu didn't, if its recent actions are any guide. The august Palmerston North-based body last week advised a social side made up of, shall we say, women of a certain age, that they could no longer wear shorts as part of their uniforms. Regulation short skirts were compulsory, and that was to be the end of the matter.

Here's another organisation that deserves great credit for sticking to its guns. It's easy to see what they're so concerned about: the thin end of the wedge. If one team is allowed to wear shorts, pretty soon everyone will be doing it. Netballers would lose their girlish, St Trinians' image. They might even look (shock, horror) like basketballers. And you know what comes after that.

"Women's sports," says Kane, "want to distance themselves from the lesbian label. How do you do that? You reassure the viewing audiences, the corporate sponsors, the TV networks, and the female athletes themselves that, no; sport won't make your daughter gay. Women's sports will be more acceptable if you believe, even though it's stereotypical and inaccurate, that if you're pretty and feminine in a traditional sense then you are not gay."

All of which makes perfect sense. You are what you wear, presumably. And if forcing netballers to don short skirts will prevent them from turning gay, Netball Manawatu is doing the country a great service. Sport needs more administrators like that; folk who can see the true danger in what, to the rest of us, looks only like a pair of shorts.

Women's cricket has never been the same since the demise of culottes, after all.

Hopefully, the tide is now turning and we can soon dispense with the charade. Previously disgraced figures such as Michael Stich ("women's grunting is unsexy"), Richard Krajicek ("fat pigs"), Justin Gimelstob ("great body but her face is a five") need to be rushed back into the fold.

Formula one boss Bernie Ecclestone might be getting on in years, but his remark that women racing drivers should be dressed in white "like all other domestic appliances", shows he still has a firm grasp of the issue.

We need more visionaries such as Ecclestone. It's good that people are now speaking out about women's sport and insisting on their right to sexualise it. I mean, why else would anyone want to watch it? At least TV3 have been clear on this recently, bringing us updates from events such as the world wife-carrying championships in Finland, yet sometimes making it through an entire sports news bulletin without otherwise mentioning women.

The other night we received a diet of all the serious men's stuff, a quick mention of the Black Sticks result against China and that was it for the women. Oops, sorry; that's not entirely correct. Forgot to mention the special effort that went into presenting The Top Five Sporting Wags (that is, a gratuitous perv at male stars' wives and girlfriends). Fertile ground, indeed. How we laughed about Tiger bagging "a nice birdie", and Lewis Hamilton "having a 'mare".

It's such a relief to be returning to this sort of mentality. For far too long we've been treating women's sport as if it mattered.

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Emma   #6   04:49 am Feb 06 2010

This may sound politically incorrect but actually I agree with Kane. Women's sports in which the contestants look and dress more like men are stigmatized as being butch/lesbian and many girls and women don't want to participate. But if they wear feminine uniforms, the sport becomes more popular, not just with guys for bad reasons but women themselves for good ones.

The best example of this is volleyball. The indoor sport used to be really popular when the contestants wore briefs; then shorts look over, and now it's a minority sport. The beach version meanwhile kept the bikini bottoms and is thriving.

TJ   #5   04:19 pm Jul 16 2009

I wonder if Boock realises that both Stich and Krajicek were Wimbledon winners and know a thing or two more about tennis than himself.

rosser   #4   02:57 am Jul 15 2009

Probably too good? Probably too true.

Few and far between are there sports where women can compete at a comparable skill level and intensity to men. Wimbledon, mentioned above, pays men and women equal prizemoney for very different standards of tennis. They admit to "factoring in" the female athlete's appearances because they need to recoup the lower standard of sporting spectacle when charging the price of admission. Netball NZ is in charge of a tepid sporting spectacle which needs to maintain an image it can sell to sponsors. Good on them for taking care of "the thin edge of the wedge". Women racing drivers on the other hand, don't need to wear white. They are in one of the few sports where there is no reason they can't reach the pinnacle.

paul hewson   #3   02:04 pm Jul 14 2009

Great article.

Probably too good - I spoke with someone of an earlier generation who I think believed that Mr Boock's sentiments in the article were genuine.

Paulhews

don   #2   09:49 am Jul 13 2009

not to mention the fact that by the look of the bods in the photo, that team should be allowed to play in track-pants.

rPghg   #1   09:28 am Jul 13 2009

Great article, very witty and to the point, not only enjoyable reading but very thought provoking.

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