failedprototype - Tumblr blog

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what i don’t understand about trans women needing to be included in lesbianism is that like… if males are going to be in my sexuality, then what am i attracted to if not sex? it’s not femininity, since butch lesbians have existed forever and reducing women down to spinny skirts is misogynistic in nature. you are… attracted to someone saying “i’m a woman”? you’re attracted to the pronouns she/her? i don’t understand. that is literally not how attraction works

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the eeveeclipse o_O

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Flower Pottin Psyduck

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recently I discovered that Kawayoo, one of my all-time favorite Pokemon TCG artists, has some art of Loudred floating around and it's the best thing I've ever seen

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#0304 - #0306

Aron, Lairon, Aggron

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I know this blog focuses on TIMs invading women’s sports and locker rooms but Saving Women’s Sports means more than that. Like calling out sexist bs when companies give men real clothes to compete in and women get basically underwear.

The Nike Air Innovation Summit in Paris on Thursday.Credit...Dominique Maitre/WWD, via Getty Images

By Vanessa Friedman April 12, 2024

Ever since the Norwegian women’s beach handball team turned the fact that they were required to wear teeny-tiny bikini bottoms for competition into a cause célèbre, a quiet revolution has been brewing throughout women’s sports. It’s one that questions received conventions about what female athletes do — or don’t — have to wear to perform at their very best.

It has touched women’s soccer (why white shorts?), gymnastics (why not a unitard rather than a leotard?), field hockey (why a low-cut tank top?) and many more, including running.

So it probably should not have come as a shock to Nike that when it offered a sneak peek of the Team U.S.A. track and field unies during a Nike Air event in Paris celebrating its Air technology on Thursday (which also included looks for other Olympic athletes, like Kenya’s track and field team, France’s basketball team and Korea’s break dancing delegation), they were met with some less-than-enthusiastic reactions.

See, the two uniforms Nike chose to single out on the mannequins included a men’s compression tank top and mid-thigh-length compression shorts and a woman’s bodysuit, cut notably high on the hip. It looked sort of like a sporty version of a 1980s workout leotard. As it was displayed, the bodysuit seemed as if it would demand some complicated intimate grooming.

Citius Mag, which focuses on running news, posted a photo of the uniforms on Instagram, and many of its followers were not amused.

“What man designed the woman’s cut?” wrote one.

“I hope U.S.A.T.F. is paying for the bikini waxes,” wrote another. So went most of the more than 1,900 comments.

The running comedian Laura Green posted an Instagram reel in which she pretended to be trying on the look (“We’re feeling pretty, um, breezy,” she said) and checking out the rest of the athlete’s kit bag, which turned out to include hair spray, lip gloss and a “hysterectomy kit,” so the women would not have to worry about periods.

When asked, Nike did not address the brouhaha directly, but according to John Hoke, the chief innovation officer, the woman’s bodysuit and the man’s shorts and top are only two of the options Nike will have for its Olympic runners. There are “nearly 50 unique pieces across men’s and women’s and a dozen competition styles fine-tuned for specific events,” Mr. Hoke said.

Sha’Carri Richardson

Women will be able to opt for compression shorts, a crop top or tank and a bodysuit with shorts rather than bikini bottoms. The full slate of looks was not on hand in Paris but more will be revealed next week at the U.S. Olympic Committee media summit in New York. The Paris reveal was meant to be a teaser.

Anna Cockrell.Credit...Dominique Maitre/WWD, via Getty Images

Mr. Hoke also pointed out that Nike consults with a large number of athletes at every stage of the uniform design. Its track and field roster includes Sha’Carri Richardson, who happened to be wearing the compression shorts during the Paris presentation, and Athing Mu. And there are certainly runners who like the high-cut brief. (The British Olympic sprinter Dina Asher-Smith, another Nike athlete, told The New York Times last summer that while she opts to run in briefs, she also leans toward a leotard style, rather than a two-piece.)

What Nike missed, however, was that in choosing those two looks as the primary preview for Team U.S.A., rather than, say, the matching shorts and tanks that will be also available, it shored up a longstanding inequity in sports — one that puts the body of a female athlete on display in a way it does not for the male athlete.

“Why are we presenting this sexualized outfit as the standard of excellence?” said Lauren Fleshman, a U.S. national champion distance runner and the author of “Good for a Girl.” “In part because we think that’s what nets us the most financial gain from sponsors or NIL opportunities, most of which are handed out by powerful men or people looking at it through a male gaze. But women are breaking records with ratings in sports where you don’t have to wear essentially a bathing suit to perform.”

The problem such imagery creates is twofold. When Nike chose to reveal the high-cut bodysuit as the first Olympics outfit, purposefully or not, the implication for anyone watching is that “this is what excellence looks like,” Ms. Fleshman said.

That perception filters down to young athletes and becomes the model girls think they have to adopt, often at a developmental stage when their relationships with their bodies are particularly fraught.

And more broadly, given the current political debate around adjudicating women’s bodies, it reinforces the idea that they are public property.

Still, Ms. Fleshman said, “I’m glad Nike put this image out as the crown jewel of Olympic Team design,” because it may act as the catalyst for another conversation that has been long overdue.

“If you showed this outfit to someone from the W.N.B.A. or women’s soccer, they would laugh in your face,” she said. “We shouldn’t have to normalize it for track and field anymore. Time’s up on that.”

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friendly reminder that you can still be trans inclusive and supportive while being a feminist. misogyny affects trans women too because they're women. but - guess what - misogyny affects literally everyone ever. if you live in society, you're affected by misogyny. this includes trans men and cis men and non binary folks - this is what literally everyone means. some people are affected more, like women and trans people, but everyone is affected.

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The reason I talk about money here is that the majority of women I know completely lack any sort of financial education -they just don't know anything about it.

Money to people that don't know how to handle it is just something you put aside and/or you use. Maybe you budget, but there is never a long term plan for saving money, for investments or anything that goes further than paying off a debt. But there is no further objective than this.

Financial stability is fundamental and a goal that is worth pursuing. It doesn't mean being rich (realistically that's not going to happen), it means that if you get divorced you won't end up homeless, that if your car breaks down you can afford a down payment for a new one.

Which is wild, because long term plans are fundamentals.

Even more fundamental is the concept of "what do I do if everything goes south". And most women just don't have a clue, and it's sad. Because if I tell them "you know, you're getting screwed" I'm going to be the bad guy as usual.

(I'm aware that a lot of people live paycheck to paycheck, clearly this is not for them, it's about being a tradwife. I'm not shaming anyone for this, but I see a lot of naivety around and it will backfire.)

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