NWLC’s Weekly Roundup: July 23 – 27 – Olympics Edition!

Happy Friday! Hope you’ve all remembered that today is also the opening day of the 2012 London Olympics. And just in case you haven’t heard it yet, 2012 marks the first time that there are more women on Team USA than men. Team USA totals 530 athletes, 269 of them women. To celebrate this achievement and to tip our hat to the influence Title IX has on this year’s team (in its 40th anniversary year, no less!), we created this graphic and posted it to our Facebook page! Please share it with your friends to spread the good news about Team USA and to support our team in London.

And speaking of the Olympics, it seems like there’s a bit of kerfuffle over what some of the uniforms female athletes will be wearing to compete in. While women were required to cover their legs when first allowed to compete in the 1900 games, these days we typically see things like female beach volleyball players competing in bikinis. Starting this year, female volleyball players are allowed to wear shorts and sleeved tops. Of course, this has sparked some debate and is winding up to be just another step in a long history of concern – often times misplaced concern – over women’s Olympic sporting attire.

Some concerns are legitimate to me, chief among them the religious concerns over modesty that some countries have. Regardless of whether you agree with religious attire seeping in to sport culture in form of things like the sports hijab, hopefully we can agree that that seems like a more sensible issue than, say, the controversies that rose within the boxing and badminton worlds over whether or not women should be required to wear skirts if they wish to compete.

Earlier this year the Amateur International Boxing Association (AIBA) proposed uniforms for female boxers that included skirts. That’s right – skirts. In boxing. I don’t think I need to point out that boxing is a sport that is decidedly not in alignment with the stereotype of femininity that skirts fall in to. But the AIBA thought it’d make female boxers look “elegant” and would help TV viewers tell them apart from the men.

But the push for mandatory skirts was shut down – now they’re just optional. So when women’s boxing makes its Olympic debut this year, boxers will wear whatever pleases them. And I just LOVE what Claressa Shields, a 17 year-old boxer on Team USA, had to say about this ridiculous proposal: “I really didn’t understand that. It was to help separate the men from the women. But we got different names! Women got breasts! We got butts! Can’t you tell which one is who?”

This sentiment is echoed by some other US athletes. “I couldn’t care less what we wear while we play,” said April Ross, one of the American beach volleyball players. “I understand that other women have other concerns than we do. So wear shorts, wear pants. I don’t care. And I don’t think anyone else should care, either.”

At the end of the day, all this hullabaloo over what women wear just seems like concern trolling on the part of the different committees governing each sport. Personally, I’ve always found it odd that women show up to play beach volleyball in bikinis, but men show up in shorts and t-shirts. Does it make a difference what women wear to compete in? If a beach volleyball team wants to wear shorts and t-shirts, power to them. If they want to wear bikinis, power to them. Let’s just let them play.

Oh – and Claressa Shields, I don’t think I’ve ever watched boxing in my life, but I’m going to make a point of finding out when you’re competing and watching you.

Also of interest this week:

6 Classic Olympic Tearjerker Moments
VIDEO: Debate on Saudi Women Participating in Olympics
Sexual Assault Victim Faces Jail Time For Naming Her Assailants
Contempt motion dropped against Ky. teenager
VIDEO: Twitter Rape Victim Punished!?
Amazon’s Founder Pledges $2.5 Million in Support of Same-Sex Marriage
Restaurant Workers Serve Up Rousing Praise for Rep. Miller’s Proposed Increase to Tipped Minimum Wage

That’s all for now! What have you been reading? Let us know by sharing a link in the comments or emailing it to us at djackson(at)nwlc(dot)org.