Ok. Just go read this. I have no real comment to add except WELCOME TO REALITY SMH – women in sports? Treated badly. About time you noticed.
Also…can I just…let’s consider WHAT passes as beauty. Serena Williams is a resounding *no way* apparently cos her arms are arms built and trained to whack a ball and whack it hard, which surely comes in handy in tennis even for a woman.
I’m sure the shit levelled against this woman has *nothing* to do with her being black, a powerful athlete and unapologetic.
Let’s look at the other picture can we for a moment? The ‘beauty’ contrasted with ‘talent’. She’s what? Young, thin and white and that’s the best that can be said really. Also SHE doesn’t have arms that might be able to rip your precious pee-pee off! Therefore, ticking the boxes of bland, thin, young and white (and no overt markers of a nasty refusal to bow to feminine dictates even where they hold you back like, say strong and muscular arms on a woman) she can be designated as beautiful despite having a face that could only really be described as really, fairly fucking spectacularly BLAND.
I’m sorry, I don’t know the girl, and I don’t care to be drawn into judging women on their appearance and no, I am not saying she’s ugly…she’s fine. She’s just…you know…meh. She’s got a face. How nice for her. That’s about all you can say. I’m not suggesting she ought to have more, that she needs to stun me with her beauty in order to play tennis. But when those people who DO assert that sort of nonsense, also try to assert that “beauty” is an objective thing, I do take exception to WHAT is being called ‘beauty’ and then being set against what is apparently unacceptable to beauty.
Sure, Serena’s pulling an allegedly ‘unladylike’ face of exertion there, contrasted with Kirilenko’s ‘ladidah’ face, however she’s just BELTED a ball far harder than any of us could, so you know, let’s kind of cut some slack there regarding the face pulling. What is pissing me off is that the spitefulness against the Williams sisters seems to be that they DARE to be black, female, powerfully built and sure of their own talent. BURN THEM AT THE STAKE THOSE UGLY MAN-LIKE MOLES!!!
And Kirilenko et al get to be ‘beautiful’ simply by virtue of being young, thin and white. They whack a tennis ball the way a lady should, ie without those unladlylike faces/noises/muscles and without putting the men off their erections. With a demure blond ponytail. But what’s considered ‘beauty’ here isn’t really about looks/faces, it’s about markers that you still know you’re subservient to the dictates of a certain kind of femininity, that you still observe the rules and don’t alarm the menfolk by taking up precisely the amount of space you need to in order to do what men are always allowed to do and turn your body into a high performance sports machine, that you will always play only if you can look ‘pretty’ doing it.
ETA geez I made a hash of spelling back there, hope I caught most of it. What a mess!
The only think I could think about this was that at least die-hard tennis fans got to see some really excellent women’s tennis rather than trying to get seats in centre court. Why would you go to the tennis just to see pretty girls, surely your main aim would be to see some kick arse tennis? Never before have I wanted so much to see both Williams sisters in the final. Keep them off centre court then you shmucks.
The scariest thing about this shit (which is exactly what it is) is that people believe it to be true.
Man, Serena looks like she would totally kick my arse.
[...] Tennis, discrimination and ‘beauty’ – I’m sure there’s nothing political about it! [...]
But what’s considered ‘beauty’ here isn’t really about looks/faces, it’s about markers that you still know you’re subservient to the dictates of a certain kind of femininity…
This is a great point, and applicable to standards of beauty more generally: it’s more about subscribing to a particular formula or regime than about anything else.
I remember thinking it bizarre how much the producers of Big Brother went on about contestant Brigitte’s “beauty” in the final season last year, for no more than having bleach blonde hair extensions and breast implants as far as I could see. So bizarre, in fact, that I went on to write both a blog post and a feature article about it. It was far more about the visible effort she put in to her appearance than it was about anything else – and that goes for so much of what is heralded as female “beauty”.
Anyway, great post.
Thanks Rachel…yeah you remember that shit headed little nine year old whose boots the mainstream media was so keen to lick as he’d written a vile little book on how to succeed with women? He was saying stuff like ‘You can tell who the pretty girls are cos they’re the ones with all the earrings and stuff’. It’s about markers of femininity, about all those frilly little ‘girl’ things, dangly shiny things from your mobile, shiny handbags, jewellery, makeup and accessories, about showing you invest in the idea of being a girly girl.
I started to support the Williams sisters when the first articles appeared that criticised their ‘attitude’ and called them ‘cocky’ and ‘ungracious’ and I thought that basically boiled down to them being unladylike and unrepentantly calling themselves awesome. Which they are. Probably not saints – not the point. Great sportswomen, trailblazers, and they just get shit for being what they are, and called fat while winning major tennis tournaments! Ever occur to anyone that rather than being an anomaly, maybe skinny=healthy/fit is just not necessarily true? At least for these women?
I also don’t get the ‘fat’ thing – if you look at the pics, she’s not rail thin but that’s muscle…this is another thing that shits me, is that ‘hot’ seems to equal ‘does not occupy too much of my space’/'makes me feel large and manly in comparison’/'I don’t want her to only EAT lettuce when she’s around me cos THAT’s annoying, but I certainly want her to LOOK like she only eats lettuce’.
Being skinny has nothing to do with being healthy or fit. In fact people who are ’slightly overweight’ are healthier than people who are ’slightly underweight’. I know obese people who run marathons.
And in sport, of course some women are gonna be big and strong! Sharapova once said something like, ‘I don’t look like this because I eat ice cream every day’. But I bet even if she did, she could still play tennis pretty well. She might not be so thin though….god forbid.
I also remember the shit that players like Lindsey Davenport and Monica Seles got for being ‘chubby’. I think on the contrary, they proved that you can be brilliant athletes without having ‘appropriate’ figures.
Oh, and I’m glad John Alexander said some decent things in response to the disgusting tactics of those in charge of game-scheduling in Wimbledon.
I am laughing hard at the comment from the Aussie that the scheduling at the Australian Open is about “quality of tennis”. At least in Australia it’s clearly based more on whether you’re Australian (and therefore worthy of centre court/MCA/one of the show courts) or not.
As for Michael Stitch, what a wanker. I watch women’s tennis because it’s a far more interesting game to watch than men’s, where the sole skill seems to be whacking the ball extremely hard.