Sports Illustrated Swim Suit Issue

- In his 1928 book The Future of Sport, British author G.S.Sandilands wrote, "Only a very few years ago, no man of good breeding would have dreamed of mentioning in society the subject of ladies' knickers. Now girls in sports appear in running shorts and reveal great lengths of unclad legs. Even naked thighs are displayed as if they don't matter.

"Prurient people, i.e., all of us, have discovered that woman's legs are far less indecent than her underclothing," he wrote. "And now, one-piece bathing costumes and running shorts for women are mentioned everywhere, and women are cheerfully photographed in them."

Seven decades later, G.S. Sandilands would open an American sports magazine's annual disservice to women and discover plenty of naked thighs, and many other unencumbered body parts - every one of them also cheerfully photographed. This year's swimsuit issue, subtly themed "The Not So Virgin Islands," is the hip, guilt-free pseudo-Playboy for adolescent boys and their frisky fathers, the magazine they need not hide beneath the mattress or between Maclean's and Popular Mechanics in the checkout line. It's also the raciest annual edition ever, based on the nipple count that its buyers are calculating with painstaking care at this very moment.

The Canadian Association for the Advancement of Women and Sport and Physical Activity considers the models who loll among the ads for Trojans, hair-restorers and chewing tobacco, women who have spawned calendars, videotapes and TV specials, and it reacts more with sadness than anger.

"It's kind of disappointing when you consider what they could do if they wanted," says Marg McGregor, executive director of the Ottawa-based group that for nearly 20 years has encouraged and promoted the role of girls and women at all levels of sport.

"They could profile strong, athletic, powerful, muscular women in a respectful and artful way. You'd expect a sports magazine to do that, but instead they go with the soft-porn approach.

"But this (magazine) is recognized as a fixture now, and there isn't as much of an emotional frenzy as there once was. Besides, there are more compelling issues that concern us." Such as, for example, the thinking of volleyball's absolutely dimbulb world governing body, which in a bid to attract more male spectators has dictated that women playing indoors must wear second-skin, Speedo-like uniforms to give the sport the sex-appeal of the game served up on the beach.

"Why aren't male athletes stuffed into tight-fitting uniforms that display their genitalia as a way to get more women to watch?" Donna Lopiano, director of the U.S.-based Women's Sports Foundation, asks rhetorically. Of course, she isn't putting the question to David Menzies. In Marketing Magazine last month, Menzies, whose walls I suspect are decorated with crude drawings of bison, lauded the Cubans, who at the most recent world championship "wore short-shorts that seemed three sizes too small."By displaying a little more thigh here and a bit more cleavage there," he added, "the women can also amply compensate volleyball fans for supporting a watered-down product."

Caroline Sharp, director-general of Volleyball Canada, hoped in print that men might appreciate the women's game for the athleticism of the players, a thought to which Menzies replied, "Yeah, right - and we also dine at Hooters for the chicken wings."

McGregor would laugh at such knuckle-dragging ignorance if it weren't subscribed to by so many. Her group's mission is to achieve gender equity and respect for sportswomen on the playing fields and in the boardrooms, an uphill struggle considering their goals are often undermined even by their own sex.In recent months, figure-skating champion Katarina Witt has posed nude in Playboy. Sports executive Jeanie Buss was featured in a magazine naked but for the basketballs that covered her breasts for a feature titled "She's Got Balls", and top-ranked tennis star Martina Hingis appeared on the cover of GQ wearing a provocative dress for a profile headlined "The Champ Is A Vamp." In fact, women's tennis has used an image firm to coach its players to walk and talk and dress in a more sexually appealing fashion. ("And by the way, gals, a great serve would be fine, too.")

Yet McGregor is encouraged by progress in the coverage and treatment of women's sports, even if it is two steps forward, one step back."There is a recognition that it's passé to be sexist and objectify women," she says. "This summer's Women's World Cup (of soccer) in Pasadena should sell out. The Canadian Olympic team in Atlanta had the same number of women as men, and the IOC, despite all its problems today, is making an effort to approach parity in the number of Olympic events for women."

There's still some backsliding around the sexualization of women, but the flip side is that there's been some huge progress made." In 1928, G.S. Sandilands wrote of the remarkable concerns of his day: "Medical opinion is still doubtful of encouraging women to risk strain in the high jump and the long jump. . . . the menace to marriage and the birthrate will be rapidly increased with women's universal enthusiasm for open-air games. . . ."Already the charge is being made that the sternness of modern sport is giving her a hard, unsympathetic expression and that her good looks and feminine charm are on the wane. There is some truth in this statement; pioneers are always sufferers." But his personal observation: "When one considers the pot-hunting proclivities of the male, one realizes that the arrival of women in the athletic arena has been too long delayed."

We're far removed from the 1920s, thankfully, and seven decades later women continue to make long, overdue strides in sports. Yet we wonder how much higher they might fly if they needn't turn their backs on a magazine rack, or aren't told to dress with paintbrushes simply to satisfy the jockstrapped cavemen who either run the games or drool as they report them.

-- To learn more about CAAWS and its programs, call (613) 748-5793; visit them on the Internet at http://www.caaws.ca

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Canadian Association for the Advancement of Women and Sport and Physical Activity
N202 - 801 King Edward Avenue
Ottawa, ON, Canada
K1N 6N5
Phone: 613-562-5667
Fax: 613-562-5668
Email: caaws@caaws.ca

Swimsuit Issue