Far out: May-Treanor and Kerri Walsh won their second consecutive gold medal in beach volleyball Thursday, playing through a steady and sometimes driving rain to beat China in straight sets and extend their winning streak to 108 matches in a row. I’m not a big women’s sports fan, but I’ve enjoyed watching the beach volleyball . . . and not because of the outfits (“Right, Scheske, and you get Playboy for the articles, too!”). But why do the women have to wear bikinis? The men’s beach volleyball team wear baggy shorts and t-shirts. I also question why hard-floor volleyball players have to wear those tight shorts that accentuate their posterior. They can’t just wear the baggy basketball shorts that men wear? In an age when everyone screams “sexism,” everyone seems content to let these double standards slide. There’s an obvious (sexual) explanation, of course, but it’s hard to imagine that’s the real reason.
Combox is open for anyone who can tell me why women volleyball players gotta bare it.
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Is Michael Phelps a cad? My nephew talked with a girl who said Phelps was remarkably rude to her once. Or did my nephew talk to a girl who knows a girl Phelps was rude to once? Either way, these rumors of his, ah, um, prickly attitude toward the softer race have been running rampant around Michigan. Other than that second (third? fourth?) hand rumor I heard, I have no idea whether they’re true. Heck, I’m just glad he’s not Louganisian.
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Speaking of Phelps, this is kinda interesting: Where is his father? It’s on everyone’s mind. Yahoo! snoops it out. (“For crying out loud, Scheske, TDE is turning into a flippin’ gossip column!”)
Why do women, in general, have to bare it? Why do men get to wear hawaiian print board shorts to the pool, but women’s choices are between yellow or pink polka dot tanks of the itsy bitsy variety?
I’m not sure which is worse: the anti-feminine butch look or the bare-everything sex object style, but either way, women’s fashions tend to vulgarize feminine beauty. There seems to be little ground between burka and bikini.
Misty May-Treanor was quoted as saying that the feeling of a wet shirt clinging against their sandy and sweaty skin during the match is very uncomfortable. Without the shirt, they’re able to easily wipe away the sand and sweat from their bodies.
If that’s what is most comfortable for them, then I’ll just have to grin and bare it…. uhm… grin and bear it.
*ahem*
I think it may have a lot to do with tradition. The sport started as a loosely organized beach sport, so normal beach wear was probably what most of the athletes wore from the beginning. At the beach, most guys in the US wear big swim trunks, and most women wear bathing suits.
Of course, we could go European and guys of every age and build could don Speedos at the beach.
(Shivers)
You mean there was a volleyball match going on??? 😉