Category: clothing

athletes · body image · clothing · yoga

In praise of yoga jeans

Sam B10 Comments

I admit it. I’ve been a snob about yoga jeans for sometime. But no more.

In the past I’ve thought of them in the category of “jeggings.” Too much stretch to count as real jeans. I’ve been seeing them for sale in yoga studios for years. On the upside, they are made in Canada. On the downside, they cost twice as much as the jeans I regularly wear.

In the absence of a scale, jeans have been the bench mark for whether I’m losing weight, gaining weight, or staying the same size. Stretch defeats that purpose. But I’ve been struggling with jeans, with how clothes fit generally but especially with jeans, since I started cycling more, rowing, weight training, and losing a bit of body fat. My size 14 jeans have been too big for a year, like I can take them off without undoing anything too big. The belt is more than a fashion statement. But each time I go to a conference I pack them thinking I’ll leave them there. (That’s one of the tricks to packing light, disposing of clothes when I travel.) And yet, it seems, I bring them home.

The size 12 jeans–same style, bought a year ago–fit my waist and butt but are too tight over my thighs and calves. I’ve written before about the challenge of finding women’s clothes that fit athletic bodies.

I wear them but they make me feel like I can’t bend, run, or jump.

The added challenge is that I like clothes in which I can move. I don’t want to teach in yoga pants, though I confess I did wear them, sweats, and jammies for much of my last “stay at home” sabbatical.

I was fascinated to read recently about how athletic clothing affects our behavior. See this story on psychology, fashion, and fitness. Does the clothing we wear influence how we act?

According to their 2012 study, the answer is a firm yes. The two researchers coined the term “enclothed cognition” to describe the mental changes that we undergo when we wear certain clothing. Volunteers for the study were either outfitted in a lab coat or given nothing special to wear, and then performed attention-related tasks—at which those wearing lab coats proved significantly more successful.

“It’s all about the symbolic meaning that you associate with a particular item of clothing,” Adam said. And he thinks the study’s results can be applied to many more fields, including activewear and fitness. “I think it would make sense that when you wear athletic clothing, you become more active and more likely to go to the gym and work out.”

So, that’s the case in favour of athletic wear for everyday life. I thought about this recently when I was running to my building from university parking. My decision to run, rather than walk, is prompted by my cold hands. (You can read about my cold hands here.) But it’s made possible by what I wear, in this case comfortable boots and the yoga jeans.

Read more about the yoga jeans here.

Evelyn Reid writes this about them:

Well, they certainly look like jeans. But they feel like pyjamas. And they tuck it in like shapewear. The fabric was soft to the touch, the fit tight yet non-constricting and it smoothed the silhouette with zero flattening action in the rear and — very important — produced no muffin toppage, no visible cut at the waist whatsoever, an overall godsend, figure-wise.

Movement-wise, can a girl do yoga (or, say, competitive gymnastics) in these jeans? HELL YES. I tried it myself. Deep squats, lunges and assorted dance floor affectations were executed with ease. Comfort. I might as well have been wearing a pair of leggings.

Would I have run in a skirt and other boots? Likely not.

So I’ve moved on it seems to the world of yoga jeans. Not quite yoga pants, not yet anyway.

clothing · cycling

Will bike riding in Saudi Arabia change the way women dress?

Sam B6 Comments

I’m curious.

After all, it was the bicycle that fueled the “rational dress movement” associated with early North American feminism.

Women said goodbye to restrictive skirts, corsets and crinolines and hello to bloomers.

Here’s Elizabeth Cady Stanton on women’s clothing and bicycling:

“Men found that flying coat tails were ungainly and that baggy trousers were in the way [when cycling] so they changed their dress to suit themselves and we didn’t interfere,” Stanton told a reporter in 1895. “They have taken in every reef and sail and appear in skin tight garments. We did not bother our heads about their cycling clothes, and why should they meddle with what we want to wear? We ask nothing more of them than did the devils in Scripture – ‘Let us alone.’”  http://www.annielondonderry.com/womenWheels.html

The comic above is from Punch magazine. It’s titled “The Supremacy of the Skirt.”

Will the same thing happen in Saudi Arabi now that women are allowed to ride bikes?

See Women and the Wheel.

“The first feature-length film directed and shot by a female in Saudi Arabia is making its rounds on the festival circuit. Wadjda, a 2012 movie by Haifaa al-Mansour, follows a young girl living in the capital city of Riyadh who dreams of owning a green bicycle she sees everyday in a shop window. Bike riding by females is outlawed in Saudi Arabia (or was at the time the film was shot), so the girl’s mother refuses to buy her the bike, prompting her to hatch a plan of her own to purchase it.

But in April of this year, around the time Wadjda was being screened at the Gulf Film Festival in Dubai (Saudi Arabia has no movie theaters), Arabic newspaper al-Yaum announced that the religious police of Saudi Arabia had lifted the ban prohibiting women from riding bicycles and motorbikes in public. The country’s interpretation of Islam still prevents females from driving cars, but they’re now allowed to cycle in designated areas, such as parks — not as a mode of transportation or in a competitive capacity — and only if they’re accompanied by a male and dressed in their full-body abaya.”

See Saudi Arabian Religious Police ‘Lift Bicycle Ban For Women’ – As Long As They Wear A Veil & Are With A Male Relative

clothing · cycling · men

Bike shorts, bike seats, and sensitive girl bits

Sam B19 Comments

Through my years riding bikes, I’ve had lot of unavoidable glances at men’s bits and bottoms and heard lots of talk about blisters here, chafing there and of course, the inevitable saddle sores.

After races I’ve watched men change beside the trunk/boot of their cars into their regular shorts because it’s bad, and not very comfy, to sit around in sweaty bike shorts any longer than you have to.

I’ve also seen lots of my male riding companions stop for roadside pee breaks and spend a few minutes rearranging their boy bits before getting back on the bike.

(I know talk of “boy bits” and “girl bits” seems cute and coy but I’m actually stuck for terminology other than genitalia which seems a tad scientific and formal.)

And the conversations about genital comfort and bike seat and short choices never lets up. Add bike related concerns about impotence and infertility and you could manage a whole century ride on the subject.

I say this with lots of love, affection, and respect for my male riding companions.

If you’re a woman considering riding with men, you can’t say you haven’t been warned.

But in mixed groups women seem not to do any of these things. It’s as if we don’t have genitalia that might be affected by shorts, seats, riding position. We don’t talk about it around men. Certainly there’s no changing in public after races. And women will ride a long way to avoid peeing by the roadside. I once refused to add 10 km to a ride over a 100 km in order to find suitable shubbery.

In single sex training and social rides things are a bit different. We’ve had lively chats about whether shaving, waxing or opting for full grown pubic hair makes a difference in riding comfort.

Here in middle North America, corn fields help with the problem of road side urination although I’ve had some disappointments in the fall when all the ears have been cut down.

We women chat about bike seats and try out different seats for comfort.

We compare brands of bike shorts and chamois and chat about what works best for long rides, short jaunts, or triathlons.

I wish the women were as open in conversation as the men. Manly discussion of genitals seems to know no bounds.

My advice for women wondering about riding and comfort down there: Try different seats and find one that works (hint: it might not be a women’s specific saddle, see Why “women’s specific” anything is likely a bad idea), money on good bike shorts is very well spent and I find bib shirts work best, change and wash your bike shorts immediately after wearing them, of course don’t wear anything under bike shorts (that’s silly, read why here), don’t put off peeing if you need to go on the road, pull over and pee by the roadside, the world won’t end.

Here’s some resources

A delicate matter: cycling and genital problems

How cycling is different for women

Women only cycling issues explained

Female anatomy and saddle discomfort

image

Oh, and I don’t recommend stretchy knit hot pants. Image from the Smithsonian’s blog post about hot pants.

clothing · competition · cycling · running · swimming · triathalon

Approaching Try-a-Tri, TMI, Fear of Transition(s)

Tracy I16 Comments

triathlonOur try-a-tri in Kincardine, the Kincardine Women’s Triathlon, is in less than two weeks.  Because I like to be informed, I consulted quite a few people about how best to prep. And because I have great friends who are generous with their information, I have received loads of info.  Maybe too much.

Gone are the days when, in my ignorant bliss I thought the only thing to be concerned about was training for the three events.  A little swimming here, some running there, with some cycling thrown in.  Not so bad.

But no.  That is not all there is to be concerned about.  And upon reflection, I should have known that.  There are two enormously important things to which I was completely oblivious until very, very recently: clothing selection and, this is the scariest of all, the transitions.

I’ve seen photos of people in motion, running from the water to the transition area, barefoot with their wetsuits around their waists.

I read somewhere that it’s a good idea to visualize the transition. See yourself running from the water to your station, removing your wetsuit (another thing I hadn’t thought about), drying off, pulling on your shorts, putting on your shoes, sunglasses, and helmet, getting the bike ready, hopping on, and going.

But if you’ve never even seen a transition area, it’s really hard to picture all that.  And unlike the Ironman, I doubt there will be “wetsuit peelers” at the swim-bike transition to help us peel the suits off.  But let me not get ahead of myself.

One of the key things, I’ve learned, about a good transition, is to have your transition area set up properly, for maximum efficiency.  I read that an experienced triathlete can do the swim to bike transition in less than a minute, bike to run in less than 30 seconds. But in less competitive rosters, the average times are much longer — two minutes for the swim to bike, 45 seconds for the bike to run.

From what I understand, each competitor has an area where they rack their bike and can set up their stuff.  The helmet should be hung on the handlebars with the open side up, sunglasses inside with arms open, ready to be put on.  If you have a water bottle for the bike, it should be in its holder. If there is space to place a towel on the ground beside the bike, place a towel, folded in half, on the ground beside the bike. Shoes on the end of the towel, laces open or elastic quick-tie laces in, socks tucked loosely into shoes.  T-shirt should be on the towel with the race number pinned onto the front of it (or have a race belt on the towel, number attached. You’ll want another towel for a quick dry-off after the swim.

This set-up requires a number of apparel decisions.  Do I go with the quick-tie laces?  I initially thought that, since I am not changing shoes, I would just stick with my regular laces.  But a local triathlon coach told me that lace tying can be an issue when you’ve come out of the cold lake.  Your fingers just aren’t as dextrous as usual and tying shoelaces can be a frustrating challenge.  So yes, elastic laces, here I come.triathlon_transition

What am I wearing under my wetsuit and what am I changing into? Since I have no idea what my future holds on the triathlon front, there is no reason to invest in any special clothing (other than the laces) like a triathlon suit (as much as I like the look of them).  This weekend I did a wetsuit test run and wore my running bra and running undies under the suit.  It felt comfortable and it was easy to swim.  On race day, I’ll do the same, and pull on shorts and a running top over these undergarments at the transition.

Even the decision to wear a wetsuit is crucial. I’d never considered this until I read on the race page that you could rent wetsuits.  Sam told me her biggest mistake in a previous triathlon was not trying out the wetsuit ahead of time. I considered forgoing the wetsuit, but the race page for our triathlon keeps noting the water temperature in Kincardine as “COLD!!” with no actual temperature. It was like that all winter, but it’s now July 2, and it’s STILL like that.  As I said, I’m not investing in any special gear, so I am using a regular wetsuit. I was worried about mobility and how it might affect my stroke. I tested it out this weekend. No problem with mobility in the suit, but I can surely attest that Lake Huron is COLD!!

So:  Wetsuit–CHECK. Quick-tie laces–CHECK.  Running underwear—CHECK.  Old standby running shorts, shirt, socks, and shoes: CHECK, CHECK, CHECK, CHECK.

There is an order of things at the transitions.  My friend Chris kindly shared a tip sheet that she got from her triathlon training group. It’s two pages and is responsible for my sense of panic as I realized how much there is to think about.  If the set-up is good, the transition should go well.  The tipsheet recommends leaving the goggles and swim cap on until you’ve finished stripping off the wetsuit at the bike. Step on the towel you’ve laid out on the ground to dry your feet.  Pull on your socks and put the shoes on (I’ll have to remember to pull my shorts on first).  Then the shirt, sunglasses, and helmet (CHIN STRAP DONE UP!! — their emphasis].  You run your bike to the “mount-dismount” line, cross the line, find an area to the side [? that’s what it says but I’m going to have to ask about that], mount and ride.  That’s transition 1.

Transition 2 has its own complications.  You have to get off the bike AT the line; no running through the line at your fastest speed like in a bike race (not that I’ve experienced a bike race, but Sam has commented on this difference before).  Take off the helmet, [here’s where those with fancy bikes — not me — will change their shoes], grab your hat, RUN.

That seems easy enough. But then I read about “the heavy leg syndrome.”  Running from a long bike ride is just not the same as running on its own, or from a warm-up walk.  Here’s what can happen, according to this article about mastering the transition from bike to run:

Your free-flowing running gait, which was the hallmark of your style when you ran fresh, is reduced to nothing more than a pathetic shuffle as you struggle to maintain contact with those with whom three minutes earlier you were riding shoulder-to-shoulder.

So last week, I followed the article’s advice and started doing some “brick” training, where I followed a bike ride with a run (I confess that though the bike ride was “moderately long” as suggested, my run was just around the block, just to get a feel for the transition–I’ll do more than that this week). It’s true, your legs feel funny. They want to keep going in circles, like on the bike.

Then there are all the little things.  Spare goggles in case of a strap snap before the swim starts.  Practicing with the wetsuit. Learning to remove it as quickly as possible. This list of dos and don’t includes things like: bring your own toilet paper; bring a bike pump; set yourself a pre-race visual cue, like a ribbon or a balloon or something on your bike, so you can find it quickly after the swim; take your time in the transition [seems counter-intuitive, but I can see how rushing might lead to forgetting something crucial]; don’t try anything new, bring too much, take up more than your allotted space, forget anything important.

So my head is a swimming a bit with all of this pre-triathlon information. Helpful and scary at the same time.

But, as I keep reminding myself, this is for fun. It’s a try-a tri, the point of which is to try something new and see if I like it. So far, the prep has been enjoyable, and, I have to say, just telling people that you’re training for a triathlon is pretty empowering because they are always impressed, always excited for you, and always encouraging.

athletes · body image · clothing · competition · racing · running · triathalon

Do ladylike values clash with the norms of sports performance?

Sam B31 Comments

I wonder sometimes about the clash between the gender role socialization of girls and the demands of athletic performance. I’ve been reading and writing about the history of women’s cycling (see Riding this summer? Beware of bicycle face! and Bicycles: Making good women go bad since the 1800s) and it strikes that the mismatch between ladylike behavior and the norms of sport haven’t entirely gone way. What worries me is that if I think this, given that I consider myself mostly free from the oppressive aspects of femininity, I imagine there’s lots of other women for whom it’s worse.

I know, I know. I’m not free of femininity entirely, and I even embrace some aspects of chosen femininity as fun, but I don’t think of myself as particularly ladylike.

Part of the story is that the demands of femininity never quite fit me that well. And I suppose that’s true for lots of girls.I remember the clashes. I once got in trouble for chewing gum in church, ‘girls don’t chew gum.’ Later I got in trouble in grade school for sitting on a chair astraddle with the back of the chair between my legs. Clearly, not ladylike. I was even punished for pulling on my snowpants over my skirt and tights without waiting to get into the girls’ cloak room to do it.  The joys of attending a Catholic school, taught by nuns, during Newfoundland winter.

Part of the the ill fit now is age related. “Lady” sounds not just feminine to me, but also old, and I don’t plan to grow old gracefully. Part of it is also my connection to the queer community. I’ve spent time with people who’ve questioned gender roles much more seriously than I have and if traditional gender roles rub me the wrong way, for other people they’re a jail cell that makes life hell.

In grad school I started to approach this issue theoretically, reading Iris Marion Young’s Throwing Like a Girl. Young’s essay begins with the phenomenology of learning to throw a ball and argues that women are trained into fragility and self-consciousness because we are objectified. You can read more about Young’s views here at the blog Pondering Postfeminism.

I also loved Sandra Bartky’s Femininity and domination: studies in the phenomenology of oppression. I was a student of Sandra’s (she’s now a friend as well as a former teacher and mentor) at the University of Illinois at Chicago and I learned a lot about the demands of femininity and the ways in which those demands make women’s lives difficult. At that stage in my life though I didn’t have an athletic bone in my body and so the particular constraints femininity imposes on athleticism weren’t obvious to me.

But the clash between ladylike values and sports matters to me now because I’d like to get more women out on bikes and I’d like to see more women out there racing and competing. Yes, racing.

What are some concrete examples of the clash between ladylike behavior and the values of athletic performance?

I’m going to talk from my own experience here though I’m certain there are examples from sports I haven’t tried. Sigh rugby. Sigh roller derby.

First, there are the clothes. It’s clear that women aren’t always fond of, or comfortable in, performance athletic wear. I’ve written about that here and here. See also my post on going commando. Sports clothing geared to athletic performance have as their purpose to go fast not necessarily to cover everything you’d want covered or to look cute.

Second, there’s acting in a way that commands attention. I’ve had difficulty Kiaing in aikido, for example. But there’s also leading an attack in bike racing. Sports requires confidence and fearlessness and sometimes the way we’ve been taught to be quiet and to not attract too much attention or not take up too much space gets in the way.

Third, there’s physical contact with others. I play defense in soccer and when you’re covering a player on the opposing team. you stay close. Very close. Soccer isn’t a contact sport but you can be uncomfortably close and you do deliberately block and get in the way of players on the other team. In Aikido, I’ve had real difficulty learning to punch and strike people. Yes, Aikido is all about self-defense but in training one person needs to attack so your partner can practice defensive techniques. If your fist stops short of your partner’s chest, they aren’t learning very much and likely you aren’t giving them enough energy to execute the technique properly. I’m getting better at this but it’s taken awhile!

Fourth, and this one definitely sets ladylike values on their edge, there’s bodily excretions of various sorts and the way they’re dealt with in training and competition. My male cyclist friends laughed when they had to teach me how to spit. How could you not know how to spit? Well…

Ditto, blowing your nose on the bike. I had to be taught how. You can read about it here and here.

Luckily, I never plan on competing in an Ironman length event so I don’t have to worry about how to pee while riding a bike. That’s covered for men here.

The Fat Cyclist’s post How To Pee Whilst Riding Your Bike has this to say about women: “And if You’re a Woman… I have neither information nor advice for you. I’m sorry.” Gee thanks.

You can even buy a “I pee on my bike” triathlon tshirt.

Is peeing on the bike disgusting?

“Now, some say “Gross – now you’re covered in pee”. It’s all about getting to the finish line ASAP, not smelling as good as possible. But realistically, it can’t smell all that much worse than how everything else smells. Not to mention you’re doing it on the bike, which means the wind will help evaporate things very quickly. If you are properly hydrated, it is probably closer to water than anything else.” from How To: Peeing on the Bike

It’s probably clear now why the people helping to rack the bikes after the bike leg is over at an Ironman event do so in rubber gloves.

So, for me at least, there have been some tensions between the demands of ladylike behavior and the demands of athletic performance. And I don’t even think of myself as a lady.

I agree with the author of the West Yorkshire ‘was knitting, now cycling’ blog accident bizarro  on the matter of the term “ladies”:

“I’m worried about this word. Its connotations are bad, for me. Ladies are perfectly-behaved, delicate creatures in twinsets and pearls, or bootylicious babes in bikinis (as satirised by Flight of the Conchords so perfectly here). I can’t identify with either of these groups. I’m not that old, yet; I swear quite a bit and laugh like Sid James; I occasionally wonder what it would be like to have a cleavage. I’m not much of a lady.”

I think we women athletes may need to say goodbye to our inner “ladies” and channel our inner “bad girls.” I’ve been meaning to read Girl Trouble reviewed in the Independent here. The book by the cultural historian Carol Dyhouse “explores the history of our moral panics over rebel girls, from the late-19th century onwards.”

Sounds like a great book. And I’m guessing, maybe hoping, there’s a section on bikes, or at least on women and sports.

The reviewer says this about the New Woman, ‘Many depictions traded in stereotypes: “‘Girton Girls’ were caricatured as bicycle-riding, back-slapping, whisky-swilling, bloomer-wearing eccentrics.”

Oh, and note to self, on the list of things not to Google, add ‘bad girls on bikes.’ I did find this call for videos and short stories on the subject of bikes and sex.  They say they are into ethical bike perversion, joyful exploration, shameless flirtation, and radical honesty.

Fascinating.

aging · body image · clothing · diets · fat · fitness · yoga

A Tale of Two Locker Rooms

Tracy I19 Comments

Happy International Women’s Day! In honour of IWD, I thought I’d write about my experience in a women-only space that lots of us who lead active lifestyles spend some time in: the women’s locker room.

I frequent two locker rooms regularly: the women’s locker room at the hot yoga studio and the adults only women’s locker room at the Y. These locker rooms have very different vibes and cultures. The difference fascinates me.

More than half of the women in the hot yoga locker room are under 35. A good majority of these women have youthful, firm, slender bodies that fit the ideal of feminine beauty so prized by our current social context. They take their hot yoga class wearing the shortest shorts and the teeniest crop tops. And to me, they look enviably perfect in their hot yoga clothes.

Yet these same young women hide behind their towels when they are getting dressed in the locker room. Some even change in the shower stalls or the bathroom stalls.  Many do not shower at the studio after hot yoga. They opt to leave the building hot and wet with sweat rather than get naked in a public (not so public really — it’s a locker room!) space.

The culture of modesty in this locker room even makes me change my behaviour a bit. I feel positively brazen when I remove my towel to get dressed after my shower (unlike the majority whose skills of getting their bras and panties on while holding a towel astound me). I face the wall and get my undies on as quickly as I can.

At the Y, I chose an adult’s only membership mostly because I love the locker room.  It’s got extra amenities like a steam room, hot tub, and sauna. In addition to having plenty of day lockers, each member gets a kit locker where she can keep some basics like swim goggles, toiletries, gym shoes, and a lock. There are stacks of clean white towels.

But the main reason I love that locker room at the Y is that everyone is comfortable walking around naked.  The age demographic is different from the hot yoga studio.  In my locker room at the Y, most women are between 40-75.  Of course you get a few beautiful bodies in that age range, but for the most part we are an average bunch, with cellulite and saggy arms, tummies and back fat.

No one hides behind a towel. We walk naked from the shower to the steam room where we lie down, still naked, on our white towels.  We lounge naked in the hot tub.  Sometimes, we’ll throw a towel around our waist when we leave the shower area and blow dry our hair while topless.  No blinks, winks, or furtive glances. No cowering or mincing behind towels.

No body shame.

Samantha has written quite a bit about body shaming. I’m with her. I don’t like it. It doesn’t make me feel good about who I am.  It makes us do drastic things to punish ourselves. It makes young women starve themselves to achieve thigh gaps.

The main difference between these two locker rooms is the presence of body-shame in the air.  I’m not saying that the women in the hot yoga locker room are shaming one another. I think it’s more insidious than that. These young women shame themselves. They — beautiful, youthful, fit, slender, strong — do not like the way they look naked. They feel painfully self-conscious.

And so they hide behind their towels, deny themselves a good shower until they get home, dress in the shower stall if they do shower, or pull dry top layers over soaking wet yoga clothes for the trip home.

I’m not sure why the extra step of being naked brings this on, considering that lots of hot yoga clothes are, of necessity, pretty minimal to begin with. I myself do hot yoga in the skimpiest clothing I feel comfortable in (no exposed midriff for me — yes, I do experience some self-consciousness sometimes. I’m much more comfortable totally naked than in skimpy clothing).

I would love to take every single one of these women hiding behind towels to the locker room at the Y. I’d love to say “SEE! You are allowed to enjoy your post-workout routine without trying to be invisible.”

Older women can teach younger women to take up space, not to seek to be unseen.

I have sometimes reflected that the level of comfort with nudity in the Y locker room could have something to do with our cultural assumptions about sexuality and age.  Younger women’s bodies are undeniably more sexualized than older women’s bodies. Some people think (annoyingly and wrongly) that over fifty or maybe over sixty women aren’t “sexual.” I’ve heard older women express a kind of relief that, past a certain age, they are not considered sexual beings anymore.  Might the inverse be true of the young women? Our hyper-sexualization of young women might make them want to hide their bodies. Could this have something to do with their ability to feel at ease naked in the locker room?

I hope that’s not the reason. I hope, rather, that we reach a certain age in our lives when we feel comfortable with who we are and accepting of one another.  Maybe some get there sooner than others, but we can all get there eventually.

If you aren’t there yet and want to feel inspired, I recommend a gym like my Y  where there’s a diverse age range in the locker room, bodies of all shapes, sizes, and abilities, and no shame. There’s a lot to learn about body image from the wise women who have reached a certain age.

body image · clothing · fashion

The day I discovered the dreaded camel toe

Sam B31 Comments

Okay so I live in a bit of a cave. It’s a happy cave filled with friends, family, and other assorted human and non human loved ones who largely share my attitudes to a whole bunch of important stuff. (Except maybe the cat. The cat might be an anti-feminist infiltrator. You can never tell with cats.)

That’s either because we talked one another into these views or they’ve been socialized into them (hi teens!) or they’re part of the price of admission to the cave. But the downside of living in a happy cave is that it can be a bit of an echo chamber with the same shared ideas rattling around.

That’s my long way of explaining how it was I came to know about camel toe so late in the game. And in this case, I’ve got to say I’m not sure either the world or me is any better for the knowledge. It just makes me grumpy.

First, what is it with these turns of phrase to describe women’s ‘flawed’ body bits? Camel toes, back fat, dinner plate arms, muffin tops, ‘turn off the headlights’? What? Just stop it please. Loathe your own body if you want but end it with the labels.

Until a story complaining about Lulelemon’s ‘no more camel toe’ ad crossed my Facebook newsfeed, I had no idea this was an issue. At first I didn’t get the ad since I didn’t see the problem they were talking about as a problem. And the name made no sense to me.

I was forced to Google the phrase. (My advice: don’t. Celebrity camel toe tumblrs? It’s a sad world.)

Wikipedia tells me this: “Camel toe is a slang term that refers to the outline of a human female’s labia majora, as seen through tightly fitting clothes. Due to a combination of anatomical factors and the snugness of the fabric covering it, the crotch andpudendal cleft may take on a resemblance to theforefoot of a camel.”

There you have it.

My question: Why do we care?

It matters to women who lead physically active lives since it’s fitted sports clothing which causes women who care the most grief. I started to wonder if the dreaded camel toe was part of the story about what made running skirts so popular. (Read about running skirts and sexism here.) Bike shorts are safe (phew! ) since the chamois crotch padding covers up that part of women’s bodies.

But why does it matter in the first place? Why is it even an issue?

Here’s some musings:

Partly I think it’s connected to nervousness about weight and disgust about fat. (Chubby there is bad because chubby everywhere is bad, now your labia can be too fat along with everything else.)

Partly it’s about moving to one homogenous body type. Soon we’ll all look like Barbie, with a hairless, featureless, flat public region.

Partly it’s because there should be no reminders that women’s bodies are at all sexual. No visible labia goes along with no visible nipples. (Read about nipple phobia here.)

And of course it’s about selling us things. Create a problem, some new body insecurity and then market a solution.

This makes the most sense to me since I didn’t know what camel toe was until Lululemon came along with the solution. Ignorance is bliss, I guess. Like the visible panty lines of my youth (pre thong, I bought special underwear designed to minimize VPL about which I only became aware after an ad campaign for said underwear mentioned the problem) and visible nipples now (saw special bandaid like stickers in a store just today, to wear on your nipples, under clothing and to avoid visible nipples), it’s one more thing women have to check on the way out the door. Body policing and the internalized panopticon continues.

It’s hard not see it as part of an ever increasing trend of high maintenance self care. Not just shaving, now waxing, labial cosmetic surgery and beauty standards for body bits that in the past we could happily ignore.

I look at photos from my high school days. All tight jeans and camel toes everywhere. Who knew?

clothing · training · weight lifting

What’s So Bad about Pink Anyway?

Tracy I37 Comments

Last week’s strength training tips for women drew lots of feminist commentary, as you can see from this and this and this and this, as well as the comments on the original post (to which, for the sake of principle, I have vowed never to link again).

One of the observations made in the original post is that women tend to like wearing pink to the gym. I’m not sure why this comes across as a criticism, but it did.  That might have to do with the rhythm of the piece, in which criticism and misogyny are delivered in disguise, as “tips” and “observations.” By the time I got to the pink comment, I was just waiting for the next blow to women.

Commenters on the post and commentators from other blogs have had varied responses to the point about pink, ranging from “sometimes it’s hard to find something functional, that fits, and that isn’t pink” to “what’s so bad about pink anyway?”

The post’s author admitted that he hadn’t given any thought to the difference in availability of pink clothing for women and for men.  He was completely bewildered one day when five of his female clients showed up with some pink on their outfits, remarking that none of his male clients would ever do that.  Seriously?

I want to say that I like pink, especially hot or neon pink, and I own a pink winter running hoodie that I love, another pink winter running top, and a pair of casual sneakers with pink trim.  I love them all.  For each of them, when I purchased them, I had no alternative with respect to colour.

What’s so bad about pink has nothing to do with the color itself. It’s lovely.  The issue is more about a lack of choices coupled with the social meaning of pink.

In the Western world, girls are socialized into pink before they are even born.  Prospective parents who know they are going to have a girl have a green light to start decorating the nursery in pink, buying pink clothes for the baby, stocking up on pink accessories.  When the baby is born, assuming the sex is clear (it is not always clear at birth) and assuming it is a girl, she will be put in a pink blanket. And so the socialization into pink begins.

I have gone shopping for children and requested clothing in gender neutral colours. If you want the salesperson to look at you as if you have three heads, ask for gender neutral products for children. One of the most prevalent tropes for distinguishing the girl stuff from the boy stuff is pink. It’s not the only marker of the feminine, but it’s powerful, consistent, and virtually inescapable. Enter the girls’ clothing department or even the girls’ part of a toy shop and you will find yourself in a sea of pink.

It’s not much different for women seeking workout clothes. Yes, there are some choices sometimes. But last weekend in Toronto, I passed the storefront of an upmarket yoga clothing retailer and of the five mannequins in the window, not one of them had a top or a bottom on that was devoid of pink. Either the item was pink or it had some pink trim.  The “observation” about pink gnawed at me some more and I started to feel, well, pissed off.

I’d purchased a running top from said retailer the week before, hadn’t yet worn it. It was black with pink trim. On Sunday, I returned it for a refund. I will not be coerced into wearing pink, even if I like the colour.

So what’s the social meaning of pink? It’s all about feminine—girlish, dependent, a little bit silly, a little bit soft, a little bit fickle, cute, and just generally weak.  I don’t mean that girls and women are actually this way. I mean that femininity as a cultural ideal likes to represent us this way.  Add a bit of zip to the pink, going for neon instead of pastel, and you’ve got sexy too.

If women have pink (i.e. femininity) foisted upon them, men have few pink options.  Pink’s association with femininity means that men who choose to wear pink are either openly gay or leaving themselves open to speculation about their sexuality. If a boy likes and wears pink to school, he risks ridicule and becomes subject to bullying.

The only exception is when a thoroughly macho, straight man in a position of power wears pink. In those cases it has the paradoxically opposite affect of making people even more enthralled by his masculinity. He’s SO masculine he can wear pink without having his sexuality called into question (because powerful, masculine men are never gay, right?).

These days it’s not just pink workout wear that’s available to us, but also pink dumbbells and pink stability balls. Recently there was a big promotion of pink Bosus for breast cancer awareness.

I lift weights to get strong. I am sorry, but I just don’t find the associations with pink to be all that empowering.  Not to mention that the high end for pink dumbbells is usually about 5 pounds, with 2 and 3 pounds being more common. No one is going to get all that strong lifting only pink weights.

I agree with what Samantha said in her Play Hard, Look Cute post (she took this pic while out shopping): if you want to wear pink, if you want to look cute in the gym, then you have a right to do that.  But I also think that pink doesn’t do us any favors in the gym at the moment. And given the plethora of pink items available to women and not to men, I wonder how much choice there really is.

Now, one way of responding to this point is to say that we need to change the culture. Maybe bringing pink into a traditionally masculine domain like the weight room might be just what is needed.  I use similar logic when I knit at a philosophy conference—it feminizes a traditionally male-dominated environment.  And it also means that (unless I ask a really good question of the speaker in the Q & A) I risk being taken less seriously by other philosophers.

I don’t agree, of course, that the feminine should be considered less valuable and taken less seriously, either in philosophy or in the weight room.

In much of my feminist work and life, I worry about the way our choices and preferences are shaped by social forces.  It’s not some biologically innate feature of girls and women that we like pink stuff. Pink is just a colour and for that reason may seem innocuous. But its social meaning can be undermining in certain contexts.  And at the moment, the gym is one of those contexts.

Changing entrenched social meanings doesn’t happen overnight. And it doesn’t happen without an awareness of the pernicious messages associated with those meanings.  As a woman, when I choose to wear pink, I need to be aware that I am choosing more than a colour, and that my desires, preferences, and options have been heavily influenced by my upbringing and environment.

Sometimes that awareness alone will make me question my choice long enough to ask, “Is this available in another colour?” And when I do ask that, I would really appreciate it if the answer, at least some of the time, could be “Yes.”

body image · clothing · fashion · gender policing · Guest Post

Looking Good and Working Out: A Double-Edged Sword? (guest posting at Spry)

Sam B

Sam is guest posting at Spry ‘s Fitness 4.0 blog about the double edged sword that is looking good and working out.  Read it here.

 

 

body image · clothing · fashion · gender policing

Padded sports bras and nipple phobia

Sam B41 Comments

I know this is a controversial issue among women who run because the minute I whine about the problem of padded sports bras, friends leap to their defense. So I see that other people love them. I, however, do not.

I get that tastes can vary. I don’t like padded anything really. (Bike shorts might be the one exception.) And it’s getting more difficult to find non padded bras of any sort in A and B cup sizes. And then the problem continues because all dresses are now made to fit at least a C cup and when they don’t fit, the answer is the padded bra.

So I get that people like them, and like them they must, since it seems most sports bras now come with padding.

The complaints against the non padded kind are of two sorts, roughly related to breast presentation and size, on the one hand, and nipple visibility on the other.

One woman writes into the forum on bras at Runners World and describes the two flaws with non padded bras saying that they, “1. Squash my breasts so that my breasts are even smaller or so that my breasts merge into one small horizontal lump 2. Exhibit my nipple shape for all to see. I might as well paint on two black circles and arrow signs on my chest with the words “and HERE are my NIPPLES!” when it’s cold outside.”

Here’s one happy padded running bra customer: “While I’d like to say that I went searching for a padded sports bra to get extra coverage, the truth of the matter is when I work out, I’d like to look more like a woman and less like a 12-year- old boy.” (Read more Padded Sports Bra Reviews – Best Padded Sports Bras – Good Housekeeping)

I think I’d be happy to look like a 12 year old boy when I’m running and mostly I don’t think too much about my workout appearance. I like to be sleek and have as little extra material material as possible.

For advice on choosing a good padded sports bra you could do worse than read this advice from the folks at Livestrong.

So let me be very specific here, what I loathe isn’t the existence of padded sports bras, it’s their ubiquity. It’s their domination of the sports bra market. Try finding a non padded sports bra in my size. Oh, and it shouldn’t have an underwire either. Good luck with that and call me when you’ve succeeded.

A friend who works in television suggested a reality tv show, Bra Hunter. They could help me and help the women looking for brown bras, since ‘flesh’ colored bras are decidedly beige. You can read about the Brown Bra Scavenger Hunt here, Not MY Nude — Why I Started the Brown Bra Scavenger Hunt.

Looking around for some guidance and discussion about the whys of the rise in popularity of the padded bra, it turns out the real issue isn’t keeping up with breast-implanted Joneses. Instead, it’s paranoia about nipple visibility.

Nipples are now what VPL, or visible panty lines, used to be to my generation, before thong underwear came into vogue. In The Tyranny of the T-Shirt Bra: Do You Live in Fear of Your Own Nipples? Bonnie Downing writes for the Hairpin:

“Foamy, modern, molded bras have taken over more than their share of the bra market. They seem to insist that if we decline silicone breasts, we should at least have the courtesy to hide our actual breasts under smooth, springy, vaguely breast-like shells….

They continue to encroach, creeping in under new names all the time: Contour Bras for a “sculpted silhouette”; Foam-Lined Bras, defined on the Bare Necessities as the go-to choice for “protection against nipple show through”; Seamless Bras “virtually invisible!” (Like your nipples.) T-shirt Bras for an “ultra-smooth look” (you know by now what that means). Microfiber Bras! They’re all the same bras, really. OneHanesPlace adds Laminated Bras, which they admit are “a lot like Molded-Cup Bras,” which “mimic your body’s contours because the fabric is molded on a cone-shaped form. So, they fit like a second skin… and work with your shape, not against it.””

So I gather what I’m seeing are t-shirt bras, the running version.

Yes, women athletes have nipples–we’re not like Barbie–and when we’re cold or pumped with adrenaline from physical activity, they’re sometimes visible.  Deal with it please.

And when I find a nice non-padded running bra in my size, I think I’ll buy a half dozen and be done with it!