Female Athletes Don’t Want You To Look, But They Can’t Stop You

CNN – When women first competed in Olympic track and field events in 1928, they wore loose t-shirts and wide shorts, sometimes cinched with a belt.

Those breezy, decidedly non-aerodynamic silhouettes wouldn’t fly today (quite literally) as contemporary female sprinters, hurdlers and long-jumpers don tight performance spandex and high-cut briefs that purport to reduce drag and lessen chafing.

But how high of a cut is too high? That question surfaced — loudly — when Nike revealed its men’s and women’s kits for the 2024 Paris Olympic Games at an event this past April, and one image of two mannequins side by side went viral.

The evolution of the women’s running brief

On the left, the men’s uniform featured a tank and mid-length shorts combination; on the right, a women’s leotard seemed to rise to dangerous heights, with a narrow crotch and the mannequin’s plastic pubic bones visible.

“Professional athletes should be able to compete without dedicating brain space to constant pube vigilance or the mental gymnastics of having every vulnerable piece of your body on display,” former US track and field athlete Lauren Fleshman wrote in response in an Instagram post, citing “patriarchal forces” as the reason for the women’s kit design.

Other athletes chimed in, from American long-jumper Tara Davis-Woodhall, who said her “hoo ha was going to be out” at the Paris games, to pole vaulter Katie Moon, who shared a picture of herself in the kit on social media and wrote that she thought it was more an issue with the mannequin.

In a statement shared with CNN in April, Nike emphasized that the leotard was just one of 50 total pieces in the collection — and, in fact, sprinter Sha’Carri Richardson had modeled a singlet with shorts at the event — and that tailoring would be available as needed …

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AFTER EXHAUSTIVE RESEARCH, HEADLINE HEALTH HAS DISCOVERED A SOLUTION FOR THE ‘PROBLEM’ OF FEMALE ATHLETE PUBE VIGILANCE –