Unfair Play: How Female Athletes are Condoned to Compete in a Beauty Contest Alongside Their Sport
By: Eliza McCord, Women’s Fund Intern
The 2024 Paris Olympics have taken the internet, and our hearts, by storm. Women’s athletics have been growing at a historic rate while women continuously break records. The Olympics have notoriously had a history of allowing more men than women to compete. Originally, women were not permitted to compete in the games until 1900 when Paris opened the door for women. Women started with 2.2% out of all the athletes. Now, the Paris 2024 Olympics have broken its first world record as being the first games to feature an equal number of male and female athletes. Professional sports have come a long way in terms of inclusion and equality, but equality in numbers however, doesn’t always mean equality in presentation.
The Olympics have unveiled an entity in which people have begun to tear women apart if they’re dominating a sport and do not fit the viewer’s image of a woman physically. If the woman isn’t under a certain weight, it’s deemed unfair to her opponent despite regulations within every sport, if the women have larger shoulders or a sharper jawline she is seen as too masculine. From then, comments are made about her appearance which take all of her success, and turn it into a beauty contest; a beauty contest with no feasible opportunity to win due to evolving standards of personal bias. This practice of taking a woman’s success and dismissing her achievements due to her image is far too common in the Olympics, as well as in life in general.
Not only does this invalidate athletes but pushes a wave of transphobia. Transphobia in sports can go as far as to judge a person based on their mix of masculine and feminine features in a negative connotation. Transphobia has been weaponized in this previously male-dominated space as a way to hate all women who don’t conform to traditional ideologies of femininity. Algerian boxer, Imane Khelif, won a match against Angela Carini of Italy and it sparked up conversations regarding Khelif’s gender immediately following her win. Conversations claiming Khelif is a transgender woman, or going as far as to call her a man, spark conversations. These conversations include the evolution of beauty standards in a world where a woman can only win if she is a standardized version of beauty according to Western society. In addition, it also symbolizes how gender is weaponized against women to hurt women.
Katie Ledecky is a powerhouse swimmer known for being the most decorated female swimmer in Olympic history. As she secured her 14th medal this year, her comment section was flooded with comments asking if she is a trans-woman or if the picture of her was a man or even a misprint. This takes her talents, and dismisses them, only to be covered up with shallow arguments of physical attributes.
Ledecky is a legendary athlete, she has physical attributes that have helped her to win. The only person with more medals in Olympic swimming is Michael Phelps. Both people have characteristics that assist them to dominate in their sports. Ledecky was scrutinized for her characteristics for not depicting a viewer’s criteria of an ideal woman. Phelps, however, was applauded for using the advantages he was given—there were far fewer arguments about his physical being not fitting a viewer’s criteria of a man. The biggest difference between men and women in this scenario is that a woman’s biological attributes are weaponized against her while a man’s biological attributes are celebrated. These arguments against Ledecky invalidate her and disregard the obvious. Katie Ledecky isn’t built like a man; she is built like a powerhouse female swimmer who shatters records year after year.
Serena Williams has dominated women’s tennis since she was a teenager. In her career, she has won 23 grand slam singles titles. However, Williams has fought commentary where she’s been questioned if she was a man because of her strength and physical appearance. This includes when the Williams sisters were referred to as animals, and men, and called brothers. Completely side-tracking her four Olympic gold medals or the Australian Open she won at eight weeks pregnant in 2017, to question if she’s beautiful enough to be considered a female athlete. This continues the framework that women are only meant to be slender and petite, and completely disregards the athleticism of Williams and her success.
Ledecky, Williams, and Khelif are not the only female athletes who have had their image weaponized in a way to diminish their achievements, and they likely won’t be the last. This process harms everyone regardless of gender, turning a sports game into an over-standardized beauty contest. Athletes already have to train to win within a pool, track, or balance beam—there isn’t a reason they should have to train their body to fit into the mold of an unachievable, constantly changing beauty standard of a woman too. A woman is not made to fit into a singular mold, idea, or concept.