After the women’s Norwegian beach handball team was fined for refusing to wear bikini bottoms in July, the sartorial rules of hand-based sports have been welcomely revised.
In welcome news, the International Handball Federation has dropped the requirement that women players wear bikini bottoms. This comes after the Norwegian women’s team was fined in July 2020 for refusing to abide by the rule.
The controversy reached a climax when American singer Pink offered to pay the fine for Norway’s team.
Their fine of 1,500 euros was ultimately donated to ‘a major international sports foundation which supports equality for women and girls in sports’, after public outrage sparked a global conversation about sexism in the industry.
Now, according to the guidelines, ‘female athletes must wear short tight pants with a close fit’. Hardly the loose-fitting shorts required of a male players, but a step forward nonetheless.
Before now, women were required to don sports bras and bikini bottoms, leaving little to the imagination. Norwegian Handball Federation President Kåre Geir Lio said in July that while women players were allowed to train in what they wanted ‘like the boys’, they were subject to international clothing rules when playing abroad.
The rules reflect a longstanding patriarchy within sports that spans hundreds of years. Women were only allowed to compete in the Olympics in 1900, confined to five sports: tennis, sailing, croquet, equestrianism and golf.
We’ve since come a long way, with the Olympics proving to be more gender equal year on year, but the sexualisation of women athletes remains an overbearing problem. Besides being forced to wear exposing uniforms, images of sportswomen are often circulated with sexual intent, and cropped to amplify exposed areas of the body.
VICE News even covered a Reddit page dedicated to ‘sexually invigorating’ images of athletes, including photos of wardrobe malfunctions amongst women competing in contact sports.
The reform in handball uniform is a breath of fresh air. In an industry dominated by men, it sparks a flare of hope – though clothing requirements still differ for men and women.
Handball’s International Federation has yet to confirm why they changed the rules. But it’s safe to assume the pushback from women’s teams – including Germany – and subsequent support from the media has encouraged the shift.
This marks a triumphant win for women in sport, assuring them that their voices are heard by those in charge.
On Monday, Geir Lio stated that the updated guideline was ‘both a real and symbolic step’ toward resolving sexism in the sport. The rules will come into place from January 2022. A long time coming, given resistance from Norway’s team has been mounting since 2006.
Outpourings of international support have come as a welcome surprise for Lio, who called it a ‘new experience’ for him and the team, which represents a small sport for Norway’s humble population of 5 million.
We can only hope this sense of novelty is replaced by a paradigm of gender equity, as the public continues to champion women athletes the world over.
I’m Flo, (She/Her) a remote writer at Thred. I recently completed a Masters in Visual Anthropology, and seek to interrogate the ways digital spaces can amplify marginalised voices in the arts and cultural sectors. Follow me on LinkedIn or ping me some feedback via email.
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