8 times women athletes threw out their sexist uniforms

If you were to time travel to Paris to the Olympic Games in 1900, when women were first allowed to compete, you would probably be shocked by what they wore.

Instead of the skimpier attire we’re used to seeing on women athletes, like the bikini bottoms Olympic beach volleyball players — just the ladies, mind you — usually wear, you’d see white women dressed in ankle-length dresses that also covered their arms and necks. At the time, women were only allowed to compete in tennis, sailing, croquet, golf, and horseback riding and made up just 2 percent of all athletes in the Games.

These women didn’t choose their outfits. Rather, the organizers of the Games thought women’s bodies would distract the male athletes, according to Fast Company. So they made them hide their bodies, often in restricted outfits that prevented the women from playing comfortably. A photograph of a female tennis player in 1900 shows her wearing a long skirt, long-sleeve button down, and a bowtie. Meanwhile, a male pro tennis player was depicted in a 1904 Vanity Fair cartoon wearing slacks and a long-sleeve button down, undone at the neck. The men who competed in discus at the 1908 Olympic Games wore loose shirts and shorts falling just above their knees, same with men who ran track, and men who played lacrosse that year. At the 1912 Games, male gymnasts were photographed wearing tight-fitting pants and shirts; women gymnasts can be seen in loose blouses and long skirts.

Left: Helen Provost, who won silver at the 1900 Paris Olympics. Right: Lawrence Doherty, a champion tennis player, as seen in a 1904 cartoon. (There aren’t a lot of clear photographs of men playing tennis at the 1900 Olympics.)
Credit: APIC And Print collector via Getty Images

By 1932, women’s Olympic uniforms employed less and less fabric and tightly hugged or emphasized female athletes’ curves, like ones you’d see today. The trend continued this month in Tokyo.

However, over time, female athletes rebelled against the sexist expectations connected to their uniforms. They pushed the boundaries of what people expected them to wear by choosing what they found comfortable and stylish instead. And their influence spread beyond their sport. What women wore in the athletic arena, especially in tennis, influenced cultural expectations of what women should wear on the street and in the office: from long and modest clothing to shorter attire like mini skirts. Slowly, across the board, women gained the freedom, and social acceptability, to wear more comfortable, less sexualized clothing. Early on in the Tokyo Olympic Games, the German women’s gymnastics team donned unitards instead of bikini-cut leotards because it made them feel at ease.

This doesn’t mean that pushing the boundaries of women’s clothing in sports and beyond wasn’t — and still isn’t — an uphill battle. Just before this year’s Games, Norway’s handball team got fined 1500 Euros ($1,775) for wearing tight shorts instead of bikini bottoms by a local sports federation during a separate competition.

“We still think of women athletes as women first and athletes second,” says Dr. Jaime Schultz, who teaches in the history and philosophy of sport program at Pennsylvania University.

The public usually views a woman’s strength as “almost suspect, more masculine, less feminine,” says Dr. Bonnie J. Morris, a lecturer of women’s history at the University of California, Berkeley, who’s taught women’s sports history for 25 years.

In the same vein, a sexy uniform can “compensate,” says Morris, for a muscular woman or one doing a spectacular feat of athleticism that historically has been associated with men. While supporting every gymnast’s right to wear the uniform they feel most comfortable competing in, Simone Biles said she personally likes wearing traditional leotards because at 4-foot-8, she thinks they make her look taller.

Morris says women gymnasts may be considering the preferences of judges when choosing what to wear. Gymnastics scoring is controversially subjective.

“That goes back to, not just the comfort of the athlete in terms of how much they’re exposing but how do you gain that extra half point of artistic merit from the judge? How do you make your body pleasing to the judge?” says Morris.

A sexist outfit also goes beyond what it looks like, says Schultz, who has a Ph.D. in the cultural studies of sport. You also have to consider the intent behind the attire. And if women are supposed to wear something very different than what men can wear, well…

“Putting special requirements on what women wear, I think, is inherently sexist,” Schultz says.

Mashable rounded up both historical and contemporary moments where female athletes, not all Olympians, bucked sexist traditions and wore what they wanted. Most examples come from tennis because, as Schultz says, unlike many other sports, tennis doesn’t mandate one set uniform.

1. Suzanne Lenglen, 1919

French tennis player Suzanne Lenglen refused to wear a corset while competing.
Credit: Corbis / Getty Images

More than a century ago, Olympic French tennis player Suzanne Lenglen made her debut at Wimbledon.

Lenglen attracted attention for both her athletic prowess on the court and daring outfits that pushed the boundaries of tennis. Lenglen refused to wear a corset, which was then part of the standard outfit of female tennis players. And, rather than wear the standard boots with heels, Lenglen wore “flat, rubber-soled shoes, according to the Atlantic. Lenglen’s comfortable and elegant style on the tennis court influenced women outside of the sport, with everyday women’s fashion parroting her outfits.

“[Lenglen] was famous not only because she was good, but because she was glamorous. She took off the corset and wore these gossamer-flowing gowns that ended at her calves. She wore a sleeveless gown,” says Schultz.

The press called her outfit at Wimbledon “indecent,” but their criticism didn’t stop Lenglen from dominating the sport and wearing uniforms that were a stark change from the modest clothes other female tennis players wore. She went on to win that match at Wimbledon — and 89 matches of the 92 she played in the tennis tournament— and won two gold medals and one bronze in the 1920 Olympics.

“When she was on the court it almost looked like ballet. She really created this spectacle with what she wore and the way she moved her body,” says Schultz. “But what she wore allowed her to move her body in new ways that women weren’t accustomed to. So we see the general losing of the corset during this time.”

2. Lili de Alvarez, 1930s

Spanish tennis player Lili de Alvarez wore a split skirt because it was more comfortable.
Credit: Getty Images

In the 1930s, Spanish tennis player Lili de Alvarez made a splash with her culottes, essentially a skirt split between the middle that also resembles pants. At the time, the standard tennis outfit for women was long skirts.

“Culottes are aggressively unsexy. Which is perhaps why men tend to hate them. But that’s kind of the point. Culottes are about women more than men, about what it feels like to wear them rather than how people respond to them,” the Cut wrote in a 2015 piece about the feminist history of the skirt.

Culottes allowed de Alvarez to more easily move about the tennis court. And, like Lenglen, de Alvarez’s influence on female tennis players’ outfits transcended tennis.

Women in the workplace were no longer confined to wearing just skirts and dresses. Rather, Alvarez “singlehandedly made it permissible for women to wear pants to work — if a woman could flounce around a court in loose culottes parading as a skirt, then society was fine with a woman wearing pants,” Atlas Obscura wrote.

3. Billie Jean King, 1950s

Tennis player Billie Jean King revolutionized the tennis scene for women.
Credit: Bettmann Archive

When famed American tennis player Billie Jean King was 11 years old, she wore shorts her mom made to an amateur tennis tournament, rather than the traditional women’s tennis skirt. King couldn’t afford a tennis dress and so she had to forego the traditional women’s tennis outfit. King was excluded from a group shot with the other athletes because her attire was considered “inappropriate.”

That experience deeply affected King and put her on a path to fight for women’s equality in tennis, while also putting her own mark on female tennis outfits.

Women earned far less prize money in tennis than men and so, in 1970, King and eight other professional female players set out to change that. They broke away from the traditional tennis establishment and embarked on a tennis tour, known as the Virginia Slims Tour. King enlisted the help of famous fashion designer Ted Tinling to design their outfits.

“They really bring this glamour to the sport,” says Schultz.

The tour allowed female tennis players, among them African American women, to play professionally and rake in as much money as male players. In 1971, King was the first female athlete to make more than $100,000.

4. Anne White, 1985

Anne White shocked Wimbledon with her white bodysuit.
Credit: Getty Images

When Anne White, an American tennis player, wore a white bodysuit paired with white leggings at Wimbledon in 1985, both her opponent, Pam Shriver, and Wimbledon officials weren’t happy.

“I mean, you’ve sat around for three days watching it rain, you finally get out there at 7:20 at night and the first thing you see is this person wearing the most bizarre, stupid-looking thing I’ve ever seen on a tennis court,” Shriver said in a Washington Post article at the time.

“Rules were you had to wear all white, so she wore this all white body stocking,” says Schultz.

A referee forbade her to wear the suit again. Two days later, White appeared in a white tennis skirt, eliciting a collective groan from the audience, according to the Washington Post article.

At the time, White said she wore the outfit “for warmth.” Years later, when tennis star Serena Williams wore a black catsuit at the French Open (more on that later), White called the ban on Williams’ outfit “sexist,” according to TMZ.

“It’s kinda crazy that women aren’t allowed to wear what they want to work. It’s a shame,” White told TMZ about the ban.

5. Florence Griffith Joyner, 1985

Track star Florence Griffith Joyner was lightning fast and fashionable.
Credit: Getty Images

Track and field star Florence Griffith Joyner was famous for her one-legged track suits along with other accoutrements she added that made her stand out while racing. The other competitors usually tied up their hair and stuck to the standard track and field uniform of a shirt and short bottoms.

“She was very fashionable, she had long hair and long nails,” says Schultz. Joyner, or “Flo-Jo” as she was known, “got a ton of attention for what she wore on the track and she ended up with her own Barbie.”

Joyner’s outfits and accessories made her a trailblazer, with Black women following in her footsteps on the track and off by using their fashion choices to showcase their individuality. Her speed also made her stand out from the crowd. When she competed in the Seoul Games in 1988, Joyner made her mark as the first American woman to win four medals in track and field in a single Olympics, according to the Guardian.

While Joyner died after having an epileptic seizure at 38, she’s left a powerful legacy behind. Williams paid homage to the late sprinter with a hot pink, orange, and black one-legged bodysuit at the 2021 Australian Open.

“I was inspired by Flo-Jo, who was a wonderful track athlete, amazing athlete when I was growing up,” Serena said at the time. “Watching her fashion just always changing, her outfits were always amazing.”

And Actor Tiffany Haddish will star and produce a movie on Joyner’s life.

“My goal with this film is making sure that younger generations know my ‘she-ro’ Flo-Jo, the fastest woman in the world to this day, existed,” Haddish told the Guardian.

6. Serena Williams, 2018

Serena Williams wore a black catsuit during the 2018 French Open.
Credit: Getty Images

Tennis superstar Serena Williams wore a black catsuit to the French Open in 2018 due to her concern about blood clots after having developed one following the birth of her daughter Alexis in 2017. (In a CNN article in 2018, she revealed how she almost died because of the blood clot).

“We see Venus and Serena Williams really push the boundaries of what’s appropriate in tennis, which is this staid and feminine and traditional sport,” says Schultz. “It’s [flashy tennis outfits] not just putting on a show and making this spectacle of oneself on the court but also, you know, it helps you be competitive for a variety of health reasons.”

7. Norwegian Beach Handball team, 2021

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While not an Olympic sport, the women’s Norwegian Handball team made waves when they decided to wear shorts instead of bikini bottoms in July. The International Handball Federation requires female players to wear bikini bottoms with “with a close fit and cut on an upward angle toward the top of the leg.” However, male handball athletes can wear shorts.

A spokeswoman for the International Handball Federation said she “didn’t know the reason for the rule,” per the New York Times.

The Norwegian Handball Federation offered to pay the fines, as did singer Pink. Norway team officials have continually complained about the bikini bottoms requirement to the international federation since 2006 to no avail.

8. German Olympic gymnastics team, 2021

The German gymnast team donned unitards instead of the traditional leotard during the Tokyo Olympics.
Credit: AFP via Getty Images

In an effort to prevent the sexualization of their bodies and the sport (and just feel comfortable while competing), the German gymnastics team in standard bikini-cut leotards for full-body unitards during an Olympics qualifying round.

“We wanted to show that every woman, everybody, should decide what to wear,” said Elisabeth Seitz, a 27-year-old German Olympics gymnast, before the qualifying event, according to Reuters.

While bucking tradition, this is not the first time the German team has worn these full-body outfits, which reach their ankles. In April, they donned the bodysuits during the European championships, the Washington Post reported.

While the team attracted widespread support for their unitards (and they weren’t breaking any rules), Schultz says Muslim athletes who’ve been disqualified for their body-covering outfits in the past have paved the way for the German team.

Schultz still applauds the German team and thinks it will pave the way for future female athletes who want to fight against sexist expectations of their sport.

“Women have been controlled in sport for so long and in so many different ways, how they act, what’s appropriate, what they can wear, that it matters that they finally feel that they have enough power that they can dress in a way that makes them feel comfortable or speak out against sexist policies,” says Schultz.