Breaking body image barriers
And the Old Firm heads to the WSL???
“Sports help girls to like and love their bodies – to trust their bodies. But we were always taught not to trust our bodies.”
Those are the words of tennis legend Billie Jean King in an interview with Glamour magazine this week.
I agree. The stronger I get through fitness, the sexier I feel. I trust my body.
But broadly body image is still an issue at the top of the funnel when it comes to getting more girls into sports. It’s going to be vital fix this if women’s sports to expand.
According a survey from beauty brand Venus, over a third of women (38%) said they did not want to participate in sport because they worry about the way their skin looks, whether that’s cellulite, scars and stretch marks, or worries about weight.
At school, I was spindly, not by choice. I would get comments about my ultrathin body shape. Even though they were fairly positive, I hated that eyes were on me when I was getting changed, especially when in those years we are navigating new experiences with our bodies such as body hair and periods. On the field, my skinniness, and introversion, went against me. Always picked last and rarely encouraged by the PE coaches. Any love I felt for sports — watching or playing —slowly faded away as I felt I didn’t have a space in sports.
I learnt far too late in life that I was wrong and there was a space for me. Unfortunately I just had to fight for it, which meant fighting against natural assumptions people would make about my skills or personality based on my stick-like shape until I eventually got more ripped. I also found that while I was never gonna be a natural sportswomen, I could be competitive with hard work and the right type of encouragement.
Through my fitness journey in my twenties, I’ve made some of my closest friends and much of my conversations now centre around sports and fitness. I wish I could go back in time to tell teenage me that embracing sports would have not only built a stronger friends group, but also a stronger mind. But instead I shunned sport like I was shunned for trying to participate.
As Arsenal player Lotte Wubben-Moy, who is leading Venus’s body image campaign, puts it:
“There are kids, girls in particular, that don’t want to participate in sport because they worry about the way their skin looks. And to me, that seems like the saddest thing that you can imagine, because it inhibits any kind of soft skills that you develop on the pitch which have served me so well, not just in football but in my life, with communication, confidence, self-esteem, growth. These are key skills that, if it wasn’t for sport, I don’t think I would have at my disposal.”
I still see many of these dynamics play out today in the gym. The box I train at has no air conditioning, but many women — often new members — will come wearing long-sleeved tops or big baggy t-shirts because of fearing of how their arms will look or be perceived by others. No one cares — we all look like sweaty messes at the end of the work out, but that doesn’t stop people’s body image anxieties, often ingrained from a young age, getting in the way of their fitness. While the tops might protect their arms, they aren’t always the optimum gear for this type of class.
Wubben-Moy describes the journey of starting to feel empowered within her body coming from the realization “it’s not necessary to hold the visual side of it to the highest degree, because that’s not my job, and that’s not what I need to do in order to be successful.”
She continues: “I work day in, day out, to be the strongest, to be the fittest, and if that means that my body looks a certain way, then so be it. I don’t view it as a negative thing. I view it as something that’s quite positive.”
It’s going to become essential that women athletes keep hold of this perspective as women’s sports grows. In the interview with Wubben-Moy she describes not being concerned about how the increase in eyeballs on the game will impact her body image, explaining that she is grateful that women’s football is becoming more prominent after years of domination from the men’s side.
For newer athletes, who are just getting established, it might be more challenging. We’ve already seen an uptick in tabloid coverage of women’s sports, often driven by divisiveness, from likes of the New York Post and Daily Mail who now frequently report on Caitlin Clark and the WNBA. The articles are more often than not driving divisiveness rather than have anything to do with the gameplay.
And as more women athletes cross over into the worlds of fashion, culture, and music, more people will have a desire — and feel they have a right — to comment on athletes’ appearances or body shape without any understanding of their sport or fitness regime. While these comments will be targeted to those in the limelight, it no doubt have a trickle down effect to the general public and young women who are playing or interested in sports.
It could become especially challenging for women for athletes who appear more masculine or don’t conform to gender stereotypes. In the US this week, the House has passed a bill that could see transgender girls and women banned from girls’ sports in federally-funded schools by amending Title IX. The passage in the House moves the bill one step closer to becoming law. If the bill is made law, public K-12 schools would be implicated by the legislation change as well as colleges and universities. Can you imagine the fear girls who may appear more masculine will face in participating in girls sports, especially in Red states where anti-trans rhetoric is particularly strong? And if this law comes into place, will we start seeing people trying to police who can and can’t play sports based on appearance?
Some conversations do need to be had about transgender athletes participating competitively in sports. We’ve talked about this before. But when it comes to school age — the time when kids are just playing sports for fun — we should be removing barriers not adding more. There’s a risk that anti-trans rhetoric put will many young girls off playing sports altogether because they are worried about how they look or whether they will become too masculine and shunned for their appearance. In this scenario, we could suddenly see women’s sports losing pace rather than gaining pace.
The best of the rest
Bleacher Report is aiming to build a “preeminent social destination for women’s sports” with its new women’s sports-focused social brand, B/R W
Elsewhere in media, iHeartMedia is debuting eight new shows on its iHeart Women’s Sports network. Interestingly most are led by former athletes or sports executive rather than journalists.
The Times reported that Scottish football clubs Celtic and Rangers, know as the Old Firm, had preliminary talks about joining the WSL. As a Scot, I have a lot of feelings about this, which
summarises well.Arsenal finally appoints Renée Slegers as its permanent head coach. While former England captain Casey Stoney has been named head coach of Canada’s women’s soccer team.
Monarch Collective is reportedly in discussions to take a minority stake in Chelsea’s women’s team. The fund is co-founded by Kara Nortman, who is also the co-founder of Angel City FC, and raised $150 million to invest in women’s sports two years ago.
My take: If we want to see the WSL grow, I am not sure it’s Chelsea that needs the investment…
On the topic of WSL investments, despite being able to lean into a top brand name, Liverpool manager Matt Beard said the club is “'quite far behind” the top budgets in the WSL.
A fun one, inside your favorite WSL players’ phones.
What it means when a free agent get “cored” in the WNBA.
Reebok made customized kicks for Angel Reese for her Unrivaled debut this week, featuring mini roses. The world of sports and fashion continue to collide.
Image source: Photo by cottonbro studio