Uniforms
As female participation in sports increased, the sports uniform for female athletes also went through a series of changes and encountered several controversies. In many cases, women wear less material playing sports than men. The most controversial athletics uniform is likely cheerleading. With the feminization of cheerleading in the late 20th century, the focus on sexuality and erotic elements of cheerleading also amplified. The Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders was the first squad to make an explicit sexual element of cheerleading “with their patented hot pants and low-cut cowgirl vests and shirts” (Bettis). However, collegiate and competitive squads worked hard to disassociate themselves from this image of cheerleading the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders created. Whether the cheerleaders resembled this image or not at Poly is unknown due to archival silences.
The modern-day indoor volleyball uniform for female athletes includes the “bun-huggers,” which are the “tight, virtually nonexistent shorts” (Benbow). For outdoor, sand volleyball, the uniforms are even more scant. The more scientific explanation behind the bare minimum uniforms is that they maximize sports performance, where less material equals fewer restrictions. However, male volleyball players wear baggy shorts and tank tops. So what is the explanation behind this difference? Sexploitation. Of course, not everyone agrees that the more revealing uniforms are exploitative. Olympian beach volleyball player, Holly McPeak, said that the sports bikini is the most comfortable thing when it comes to sports on sand (Compton).
Despite the debates, the previous volleyball uniforms were drastically different from the modern-day version. On the Volleyball page of this exhibition, the female athletes in the Volleyball Team Photo from 1990 wore long-sleeved shirts with baggy shorts as their uniform. In comparison to the later team photos in the 2010s, the women’s volleyball team uniform changed to a sleeveless top with more athletic-looking and flexible shorts. The progression of uniforms in women’s volleyball at Poly shows some alignment with the societal change in female sporting clothes. Since the Poly, or NYU-Poly, teams ended in 2014, their progression also ended there. If the team still exists now, will the team continue to follow these changes in the broader context?
Out of the three sports explored in this exhibition, judo is the only sports team that is coed and does not have separate uniforms for males and females. The team all had the same uniform, judogi, the traditional Japanese uniform used for judo practice and competition. The only difference is that female judoka can wear a white t-shirt underneath the tunic, the outer jacket. As shown in the image, the male and female judokas wear different colors of the judo uniform, but the colors do not indicate anything. The only thing that varies is the color of the belt, which indicates the rank of the judoka.
In the broader context, in society, there is a war for uniform equity. In the wake of Title IX, there is also the fight for equal access to sports and pay equity (Friedman). Some uniforms evolved to become downsized versions of men’s style, as in basketball and soccer, and others “were designed to expressly feminine, like tennis dresses, field hockey skort and the highly sexualized abbreviated bathing suit-like bras and bikinis worn by track athletes and beach volleyball players” (Friedman). Either way, these uniforms are essentially tailored for men: either not fitting female bodies correctly, or for the male gaze (Friedman). The debates over the difference between male and female athletic uniforms continue to exist, and like most issues, it is “all about context [and] has no clear-cut answer” (Benhow). In swimming, for example, the “less clothing for women athletes” theory reverses. The fight to wear is more than just clothes, but it is more about choice. Athletes, or women in general, are fighting about the right to decide for themselves. Focusing on Poly, how female athletes reacted to the changes in uniform remains questionable. As female athletes at engineering schools with heavy male student percentages, it is more difficult and crucial for females to fight for what they want.