Phenomena of netball - Part 1: Gender and Uniform

[spally]

After a two year hiatus I have returned to netball this summer for a short season. Returning once again to the sport that occupied my childhood and adolescence has brought fresh perspective to some interesting phenomena of netball. Here is the first in a series of three posts.

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Part 1: Gender and UniformOne of

Comments

[mmaster]

It's only somewhat on topic, but you might find these pictures interesting, particularly the commentary:
http://feline643photography.tumblr.com/post/61435331232

[spally]

Fascinating! On a somewhat connect topic from those pictures, I saw A ballet called Bella Figura last year - you can see what the Sydney Morning Herald thought about it here. The dancers - male and female - were all topless and wearing identical, enormous red skirts. The choreography and the costumes worked together really well to challenge ideas of sexualisation and what it means to be naked in performance. It was so uncomfortable, and awesome, and really well done.

[tibbycat]

Great post. Yeah I was thinking about this the other day when I was watching a bunch of wrestling videos on YouTube. For the male wrestlers it seemed to be a power fantasy of showing who had the biggest muscles and who could slam the other guy into the ground the hardest. Whereas for the most part with the female wrestlers by contrast, the focus seemed to be them as sexual objects for the men in the audience to desire (as opposed to the male wrestlers being someone to admire instead and want to be like). The female wrestlers would slap each other's arses and act in a very sexualized way that the male wrestlers never did. It was curious.

That said, your post here has inspired me to want to go back to playing a sport and be fit and healthy again. As soon as I have my septoplasty and recover, then I'm returning to badminton.