By
Heidi Stevens
Chicago Tribune |
Sep 11, 2019 | 8:51 AM
A few things happen when a high school swimmer wins her 100-meter freestyle heat and then has her
victory immediately yanked away by a referee who claims her school-issued swimsuit isn’t modest enough.
That girl’s life changes, forever, in a split-second.
That girl, and all the children watching, learn that some grown-ups aren’t the least bit interested in young people’s growth or physical health or emotional well-being or hard work or talents. They’re interested in flaunting their authority.
That girl, and all the children watching, learn that girls’ bodies, no matter what pursuit they happen to be engaged in, are sexual.
Let’s talk about that last one for a minute.
First, in case you missed the earlier headlines: Last Friday, a swimmer from Dimond High School in Anchorage, Alaska, won her heat, only to have a referee disqualify her for a “uniform violation.”
Annette Rohde, an official working the meet,
told the Anchorage Daily News that the referee said the bottom of the girl’s standard, school-issued, same-as-her-teammates swimsuit “was so far up I could see butt cheek touching butt cheek.”
Lauren Langford, a swim coach at a neighboring high school, brought widespread attention to the issue with a
Medium post the following day.
“I’ve watched this scandal divide my swimming community,” Langford wrote. “It has caused my own athletes to be needlessly self-conscious about the appearance of their bodies, which preoccupies them just as much, if not more, than the quality of their performances. What’s clear is that these girls’ bodies are being policed — not their uniforms.”
The referee’s call also smacked of discrimination, Langford wrote.
“These young swimmers aren’t being punished for wearing their suits in scandalous or provocative ways, but rather, because their ample hips, full chests, and dark complexions look different than their willowy, thin, and mostly pallid teammates,” she wrote.
On Tuesday, the Anchorage School District called the disqualification “heavy-handed and unnecessary.”
“The Anchorage School District has concluded that our swimmer was targeted based solely on how a standard, school-issued uniform happened to fit the shape of her body,” the district
announced. “We cannot tolerate discrimination of any kind, and certainly not based on body shape.”
The district appealed the ruling to the Alaska School Activities Association and asked the organization to reverse the disqualification, return all points to the team, decertify the referee who made the call and suspend the rule dictating suit coverage, “as it is ambiguous and allows the potential for bias to influence officials’ decisions.”
By Wednesday morning, an NBC affiliate in Anchorage reported that the girl’s
disqualification was reversed.
Good. But the story doesn’t end there.
The story doesn’t end until incidents like this stop popping up every few weeks, in elementary schools and middle schools and high schools and college campuses around the nation. Incidents in which girls are going about their lives —
sitting in class,
sitting in church, competing in their chosen sport — and a creepy, overzealous adult decides there’s something a little too tempting, a little too showy, a little too sexy happening.
When is a girl simply learning chemistry? Or hanging out with her friends? Or running/swimming/tumbling/volleyballing her heart out? When is a girl just walking through the world, not the least bit interested in attracting the male gaze?
Never, in the minds of some grown-ups, like this swim ref, who view female bodies, first and foremost, as sexual.
Reversing that disqualification was the right thing to do. But it doesn’t begin to undo the damage inflicted and the unfortunate lessons learned for that swimmer and her teammates and all the girls watching this story unfold.
We don’t do this to boys. We don’t worry that their skin-tight football pants are immodest and lust-inducing. We don’t fret that their shoulders show in their basketball jerseys. We don’t see their bare chests near a pool (or at a beach or a Cubs game or an outdoor concert, for that matter) and scurry into a panic.
Is the double-standard rooted in some desire to protect girls from the
Larry Nassars and the Jeffrey Epsteins of the world? Is it a tacit acknowledgment that we’ve not done enough, will continue to not do enough, to believe girls and protect girls from monsters? Are we telling girls they better cover up because creeps are all around us, watching, ready to pounce, even in their school hallways and team doctors’ offices and who knows where else?
I’d rather we police the creeps than the girls’ bodies. I’d rather we reinforce, over and over, quietly and loudly, at home and at school and at swim meets and everywhere else girls are trying to live their lives, that their bodies are not the problem.
That their bodies, are, in fact, the solution. Because they’re filled with power and strength and the ability to take up space and scream out loud — in victory, in fear, in celebration, in support of their peers. And eventually, maybe, hopefully, we will focus on what their bodies are accomplishing and what their voices are saying and we’ll shut up already about their clothing.
I long for that day. Maybe the ref’s call getting overturned is a sign that we’re heading there.
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