Olympics.. women's clothing story from CBC

[Doug Eastick]

Saw this on Twitter from CBC.  Related to the other thread on this list, which I can't reply to at this moment.

https://twitter.com/CBCTheNational/status/1420440005898641412?s=20

[Tom Wolper]

On Wed, Jul 28, 2021 at 10:11 PM Doug Eastick <eas...@mcd.on.ca> wrote:

Saw this on Twitter from CBC.  Related to the other thread on this list, which I can't reply to at this moment.

https://twitter.com/CBCTheNational/status/1420440005898641412?s=20

I can imagine sports and TV executives seeing the rise of womens' sports following Title IX and deciding the only way it would be viable for the sports watching audience of the time would be to play up the sexiness and use that to sell it. When the first Womens World Cup was broadcast in the 90s there was a ton of commentary about how popular it was with little girls and mothers really wanted their daughters to see the competition. Those little girls have grown up and have replaced or outnumbered the men who need something to stare at in order to watch.

[PGage]

There was a great discussion between several of the Softball commentators, one of them a high profile US Medalist from the past, about a specific Olympics, I think in the mid 90s, that they viewed as the year women’s athletics really blossomed from the seeds first sewn by the passage of Title IX in I thin 1972. In that Olympics women basketball, softball, soccer and maybe a few other sports really shone. One of them talked about how when she was a girl she never saw any role models for being an athlete, and in the current Olympics there were several women athletes whose mothers had been Olympians.

I remember the many arguments over Title IX over the years, but by now it is clear just how needed and successful that has been.

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[Tom Wolper]

On Thu, Jul 29, 2021 at 3:01 PM PGage <pga...@gmail.com> wrote:

There was a great discussion between several of the Softball commentators, one of them a high profile US Medalist from the past, about a specific Olympics, I think in the mid 90s, that they viewed as the year women’s athletics really blossomed from the seeds first sewn by the passage of Title IX in I thin 1972. In that Olympics women basketball, softball, soccer and maybe a few other sports really shone. One of them talked about how when she was a girl she never saw any role models for being an athlete, and in the current Olympics there were several women athletes whose mothers had been Olympians.

I remember the many arguments over Title IX over the years, but by now it is clear just how needed and successful that has been.

There's an article on Five Thirty Eight about why elite female gymnasts tend to be so young. Before 1972 the top gymnasts were in their mid-20s and older. The two factors that led to the push to get girls started as early as age 4 were that gymnastics was completely amateur and young women were not offered scholarships, and young women were told their primary roles were to be wives and mothers and they were encouraged to treat sports as a hobby rather than a pursuit. Young girls weren't under these pressures and elite trainers started to focus on them.

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/gymnasts-age-olympics/