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This photo is what passes for sports journalism at the Sydney Morning Herald nowadays. I did not crop this photo; the Herald did. Here’s a possible original from AFP/Getty Images, nabbed from Daylife:

A couple of years ago, Tigtog posted about athletlcs uniforms and the trend toward sexified, midriff-baring, underwear-style women’s uniforms.

At the time, she wondered whether the women at the next Olympics would be running in sports corsets. While not quite corsets, the women’s uniforms in the big sports are all skintight, while the men (with the exception of swimmers) are wearing looser with more coverage. Tigtog said it before, but I’ll say it again: minute increases in performance cannot account for this difference, otherwise the men would be in skintight clothing also.

No. It’s not about faster, higher, stronger. Women in sports are promoted as sexualised bodies for ogling; men are promoted as performers.

Here are a few side-by-side comparisons of what Aussie contenders are put into:

Bring on the judo and the soccer, I say!

Oh wait, there’s not going to be Olympic women’s judo or soccer coverage on Channel 7? I shall now attempt to fake a surprised look.

P.S. Stop calling grown women “girls”. Especially when they can kick your arse.

[While not all pictures are of the exact Olympics 2008 uniforms, all are very recent, and Olympic uniforms are expected to be near-identical. Images are drawn from smh.com.au, hockey.org.au, athletics.com.au, foxsports.com.au, olympics.com.au, beijing2008.cn, and judowa.org.au]

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Categories: arts & entertainment, gender & feminism