Hope Again Women in Played Skirts
Badminton's New Dress Code Is Being Criticized equally Sexist
In an effort to revive flagging interest in women's badminton as the 2012 London Olympics approach, officials governing the sport have decided that its female athletes demand to appear more, how to put it, womanly.
To create a more "attractive presentation," the Badminton Earth Federation has decreed that women must clothing skirts or dresses to play at the elite level, offset Wednesday. Many now compete in shorts or tracksuit pants. The dress code would make female players appear more than feminine and appealing to fans and corporate sponsors, officials said.
The rule has been roundly criticized equally sexist, a hindrance to performance and offensive to Muslim women who play the sport in large numbers in Asian countries. Implementation has already been delayed by a month. Athletes' representatives said they would seek to have the clothes code scrapped, possibly as early as Sabbatum at a coming together of the earth's badminton-playing nations in Qingdao, China.
"This is a blatant endeavour to sexualize women," said Janice Forsyth, manager of the International Centre for Olympic Studies at the University of Western Ontario. "It is amazing. You lot'd think at some point, somebody would have said: 'Look a infinitesimal. What are nosotros doing?' "
Women will all the same be allowed to clothing shorts or long pants for cultural and religious reasons. Only these garments must be worn beneath a clothes or skirt, which could exist cumbersome.
"You sweat a lot doing badminton at a actually high level," Forsyth said. "Sometimes clothing sticks to y'all. Calculation some other layer does not enhance performance. It detracts. It counters the basic argument that they're trying to generate more interest in women."
Women wear more revealing outfits than men in a number of Olympic sports like gymnastics, runway and field, volleyball and embankment volleyball. Even the bikinis in beach volleyball tin can exist somewhat justified on grounds of functionality (it is easier to clear sand from a ii-piece outfit than a one-piece).
Yet the badminton dominion seems to have been devised strictly for reasons of appearance. It was formulated in consultation with Octagon, an international marketing house, which did non respond to requests for annotate.
"When you dictate apparel for reasons of sexuality, it should be offensive," said Donna Lopiano, a former chief executive of the Women's Sports Foundation.
Badminton's world governing body now finds itself on the defensive, accused of trying to sell a sport by showing more leg and skin. Male players are required simply to dress in "proper attire," officials said.
"We're not trying to use sex to promote the sport," said Paisan Rangsikitpho, an American who is deputy president of the Badminton Earth Federation, which is based in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. "Nosotros just want them to look feminine and have a nice presentation so women will be more popular."
Interest is declining, Rangsikitpho said, adding that some women compete in oversize shorts and long pants and appear "amorphous, almost like men."
"Hardly anybody is watching," he said. "TV ratings are down. We want to build them up to where they should be. They play quite well. We want them to look nicer on the court and have more marketing value for themselves. I'm surprised we got a lot of criticism."
Some women have embraced the dress dominion. Nora Perry, a one-time globe doubles champion from England who is on the council of the earth governing body, said in a argument, "We demand to be able to differentiate the women'south game to create the attention the game deserves."
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Cee Ketpura, 17, a rise American star, said she always wore skirts in contest because "I think they look more than professional."
Yet many others have said that while they supported attempts to popularize women'southward badminton, like offering equal prize money, they considered it an affront to exist told to wear a dress or a brim.
Mesinee Mangkalakiri, 28, who competed for the Usa in the 2008 Beijing Olympics and is known as May, said that she preferred shorts. Skirts made her experience self-conscious before in her career, she said.
"Information technology doesn't matter what Kobe Bryant wears," Mangkalakiri said, referring to the Due north.B.A. star. "People like his skills on the courtroom. You'd hope they come to watch y'all considering you lot are their favorite player and you have ability and way, non considering you're wearing someone's favorite brim."
Kaveh Mehrabi, an Iranian who is president of the Badminton Players Federation, which gives vocalism to the concerns of athletes, said his group would seek to have the dominion abolished.
"I believe the intention is good to raise the profile of the sport, merely it takes freedom of choice away from female person athletes," Mehrabi said. "I recollect we should work on promoting personalities. When people scout tennis, they like the stories around the rivalries and personal lives. Whether y'all wear a dress or not doesn't make much divergence."
Pakistan's badminton federation said in April that its female players would not adhere to the new rule because "our religious behavior and norms do not allow our lady players to vesture skirts." Presumably, Pakistani women would be permitted to wear skirts over long pants.
Some players accept said the size of the skirts obstructed movement, while others have said that badminton fashion lags behind lawn tennis apparel. Others find it unfair to have different rules for women and men.
"It is sexist to demand the women wear skirts while the men can article of clothing short shorts, baggy shorts, whatever they want," said Imogen Bankier, 23, a Scottish doubles actor.
Writing in The Hindu, an English-linguistic communication newspaper in India, the columnist Kalpana Sharma noted that while badminton took its cue from the glamour of lawn tennis, female tennis players have greater input in the way their sport is operated.
"Thus what women wear is decided by women players and not imposed by a male club," Sharma wrote. "If women lawn tennis players choose to be seen as fashion statements, it is their choice."
Others are struck past how outdated the dress rule seems. Hugh Robertson, the British sports minister, told The Evening Standard of London, "This is not a very 21st-century approach."
Nevertheless the badminton federation, similar many international sports governing bodies, continues to be run largely past men. Of the 25 members of the federation's council and executive lath, simply two are women.
Female athletes have long faced obstacles to competition. They were barred from some sports for decades; restricted from certain events because they supposedly lacked stamina or would become masculinized; subjected to gender testing; and had their athleticism suppressed in attempts to feminize them.
Equally recently as 2004, Sepp Blatter, the president of FIFA, soccer'due south earth governing body, suggested that women wear tighter shorts to promote "a more female person artful." Just last month, women's ski jumping was added to the Wintertime Olympics after concerns that female person athletes lacked the force to compete safely.
"Equally soon as women got involved in the Olympic Games, the focus for many decades was on beauty and femininity, and then athleticism," Forsyth said. "What you are seeing in badminton is a modernistic, hyped-upwards version of that."
Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/27/sports/badminton-dress-code-for-women-criticized-as-sexist.html
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