It’s not all white
Why uniforms don’t offer a level playing field for women
White might be a nice choice for a wedding dress, but it’s anything but for women and girls playing sport.
In fact, uniform design and colour is a major barrier to them even setting foot on a sports field.
‘‘Please stop making us wear white’’. That was the call from girls who engaged in recent research from Victoria University in Melbourne that addressed major barriers for female participation in sport.
That research found 64 per cent of girls want dark-coloured bottoms, 88 per cent want to wear shorts, and 65 per cent don’t want to wear skirts.
Most wanted uniforms designed to fit the female form, that also hid sweat and were stretchy.
Lead researcher Professor Clare Hanlon said the research continues to show girls have lower levels of confidence as teenagers, they dropout of sport particularly between the ages of 12 and 14, and do not want to participate in physical activity based on their body image.
Many girls shared feeling selfconscious about their period and the colour white exacerbating this feeling, particularly when they were concerned about leaking, Hanlon said.
‘‘Sport needs girls and women to play their sport,’’ she said.
‘‘Great infrastructure and programmes targeted to females may be available, however if the sport uniforms do not make girls or women feel comfortable and confident in what they are wearing, you . . . [won’t] get them onto the field, court or in the pool.’’
Athletes are often reliant on their clubs and sporting bodies to decide on uniform design. Sports’ organisations and schools need to seriously think about the design of uniforms, Hanlon said.
Dunedin-based gymnast Lina
Fraser, aged 15, would like it to go one step further, pushing for sports’ bodies to establish guidelines that white is not to be the predominate colour below the waist for uniforms worn by women and girls.
‘‘It should be a rule. Clubs need to be considerate of the people wearing [uniforms] ... putting white down there is a nono,’’ she said.
‘‘It’s one of those colours that if anything happens, it shows. That [rule] would make people feel more confident when doing their sports.’’
She would actively avoid sport if she had to wear white, she said.
‘‘I would never ever purchase [a leotard] with white down on the bottom area just in case things happen. If a sport I was doing decided they would have a white uniform, and I wasn’t able to wear black shorts under them, I wouldn’t do the sport,’’ she said.
Lina knows the power of speaking up about uniforms. She asked for female gymnasts to be able to wear shorts as part of Stuff’s investigation into the sport.
Gymnastics New Zealand said yes and now she, and several others, have started wearing them to compete.
The change of uniform design had given her ‘‘more confidence’’ and she’s getting better results.
‘‘Hopefully as [shorts] comes in, girls get more confident and know that they don’t stand out for it,’’ she said. ‘‘And maybe kids will stay in the sport longer knowing that’s an option.’’
Football Ferns striker Katie Rood knows what it’s like to wear white. It’s one of two colours New Zealand wears. The other is black.
‘‘That’s your team colours. You deal with it, but there’s been times when you’re a little uncomfortable or concerned, and I’ve had team-mates that have bled through. It’s awkward and uncomfortable,’’ she said.
‘‘As a team, you check up on each other at times. You give those around you a warning ‘hey, this could happen, could you keep an eye out for me’.
‘‘You shouldn’t have to do that. You just want to play the game and do it the best you can without having to worry about that.’’
For several seasons she’s been playing with English club Lewes FC. The men recently decided they wanted to wear white shorts as part of their ‘‘away’’ uniform. The women went with red.
‘‘It was not having that worry about potentially being on our periods and having to wear white
‘‘If the sport uniforms do not make girls or women feel comfortable and confident in what they are wearing, you [won’t] get them onto the field, court or in the pool.’’ Professor Clare Hanlon, right
shorts. It just takes out that concern. It lets us focus on playing the game,’’ she said.
Her club was also ‘‘one of the only few’’ who were given women-fit uniforms. Several other teams in the league received men’s ‘‘hand-medowns’’.
‘‘It comes down to respect. You don’t want to be playing in baggy uniforms that don’t fit. We’ve come a long way since 10, 15 years ago when every woman’s kit was five sizes too big,’’ she said.
‘‘But there’s still progress to be made.’’
For now, she’ll wear whatever New Zealand uniform she is offered, as she eyes up a spot at the Olympics.
‘‘Any kit you have the national emblem on, you’re always pretty proud to put it on,’’ she said.
‘‘[But] black feels more like our home kit. We feel more like ‘New Zealand’ in the black kit.’’
Black was also the predominant colour of the uniforms worn by the German women’s gymnasts at a recent European meet. They also moved away from the traditional leotard – which the international guidelines state must not ‘‘delineate 2cm below the buttocks’’ – and instead wore full ankle-to-wrist unitards.
At the time of Stuff’s investigation, global gymnastics body Federation Internationale De Gymnastique (FIG) said it might revise uniform guidelines, but in an email to Stuff in May a spokesperson said ‘‘there is nothing new regarding competition attires’’. Gymnastics New Zealand chief executive Tony Compier said gymnastics clubs need to offer alternative uniform options. ‘‘Some will feel comfortable [in white], some won’t,’’ he said. ‘‘It ought to be down to the choice of the [the gymnast]. They should have the option available to them. Choice is one thing but being able to action the choice is another.
‘‘We encourage that there are options available to allow for the appropriate comfort of our young female participants.’’
78 per cent of gymnastics’ participants are female. And 88 per cent of all gymnasts in New Zealand are under 12.
Compier said adults within gymnastics should not be turning down requests by athletes regarding their uniform choices. Athletes can choose to wear a leotard, unitard or shorts.
‘‘[Saying] ‘no’ is not one of the options [for uniforms].’’
But he would not go as far as to write into policy the exclusion of white in uniforms.
‘‘You can have it written in a policy, procedure or guideline but if it’s not read, if it’s not understood, if it’s not easily available, then people will go with what the learned behaviour is,’’ he said.
‘‘The more learned examples of athletes wearing uniforms they are comfortable in the better off they’ll be.’’ A non-white uniform policy for girls and women has worked well in cricket, New Zealand Cricket’s community cricket manager Kent Stead said.
‘‘A lot of work [we’ve done] digging into what attracts girls to cricket, and an environment where they feel comfortable and have fun, really does tie closely to the use of colour.
‘‘Staying away from white is a key part of that.’’
Cricket has seen an 11 per cent increase in girls’ participation, and 54 per cent increase in women’s participation in the last 12 months.
Stead said that’s down to offering modified formats and programmes – including Yeah Girls! – where white is ‘‘absolutely not’’ worn.
‘‘We are encouraging associations to keep [uniform colour] front of mind in creating an environment that’s attractive to girls,’’ he said. ‘‘A key thing for us is breaking down perceptions that cricket is still a sport where people wear white, [and] it’s white middle-class boys . . .