The short answer is no. [icopyright one button toolbar]
I just returned from a trip where I coached and mentored elite female athletes competing in or preparing for the triathlon World Championships; Ironman Hawaii. Ironman is a combined 2.4 mile swim, a 112 mile bike and a 26.2 mile run. For the elite athletes it’s a race, not a bucket list event. For some it may be hard to wrap your head around that type of commitment.
Female elite endurance athletes are stronger and more fit than 99.9% of men wandering the earth. They present in a number of sizes; from women over six feet tall to gals under or near five foot. But they have something in common. They are mostly lean and well-muscled because athletics has been a lifelong focus.
Elite runners are notoriously light, elite swimmers possess larger shoulders and elite cyclist strong legs. The elite triathlete is a blend of all three. Very lean, strong and proportionate.
But they have the same body issues so many of us carry with us day to day. In fact it can be more intense. It is counterintuitive. As much as 80% of female endurance athletes have had or do suffer eating disorders. Males are not immune.
The sport attracts brilliant people. The women I mentor are exceptional: a Cornell grad who is an executive with a bio-tech start up; an executive and Googler who is a mother of an 8 month old; a West Point grad, ret. Captain and Iraq vet who is an engineer and mother of 7 year old twins; a partner at a large law firm and mother of a 10 month old.
As a husband and father of two adult women, in addition to mentoring women in sport, I am humbled by living and working with women who are so resilient. My full time job is supporting their mental and physical health. Twenty six years ago my wife gave birth to our first daughter. Fifteen years later, women began crushing me in the sporting world of triathlon. It took my first daughter’s birth and a couple a couple months in triathlon to adjust my world view of a woman’s wear withal to suffer and carry on.
I am pleased to testify on behalf of women in and out of sport and share an article courtesy Lauren Fleshman, a long time professional athlete/runner:
I used to be afraid to call myself a feminist. It sounded like the kind of woman a man wouldn’t like.
I used to look at runway photos in fashion magazines as a pre-pubescent teenager and pray that puberty would be good to me, giving me height with the right kind of curves.
I used to look at photos of some of the fastest pro women runners in the world and think “she looks like a man,” wondering how years of training would change my body and if I’d give up performance at some point to maintain more “femininity.”
Feminist. Fashion. Feminity. Those three areas of my identity have swirled around me in separate storms all my life, until the past two years in which their winds have aligned into one tornado. A tornado that touched down on the fashion runway, wearing a crop top racing singlet and leggings.Cue the lights.
Cue the music.The distinct voice of Nigerian Feminist Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, sampled over a techno beat, reverberates through the audience. Nobody walks out. As the first model in Oiselle’s lineup, I am focused, awaiting my cue at the threshold of the runway. I am not to emerge from behind the wall until her final word is spoken and the slow, powerful beat takes over.
“We should all be feminists”
We teach girls to shrink themselves
To make themselves smaller.
We say to girls,
“You can have ambition
But not too much.
You should aim to be successful
But not too successful,
Otherwise you will threaten the man.”
Because I am female
I am expected to aspire to marriage.
I am expected to make my life choices
Always keeping in mind that
Marriage is the most important.
Now marriage can be a source of
Joy and love and mutual support
But why do we teach to aspire to marriage
And we don’t teach boys the same?
We raise girls to each other as competitors
Not for jobs or for accomplishments
Which I think can be a good thing
But for the attention of men.
We teach girls that they cannot be sexual beings
In the way that boys are.
Feminist: the person who believes in the social
Political, and economic equality of the sexes.Goosebumps fan across my quads, and rise up the back of my neck until every follicle of my carefully styled coif stands at attention. The beat drops. Sally Bergesen, Oiselle’s CEO and lead designer, moves out of my way and nods, and I step with callused bare feet into the floodlights. Unlike last year I don’t feel like an imposter. I feel confident and proud, with nine more athletes behind me ready to take their turn.
Forty-two years ago, Title IX legally ensured women the right to equal play. More women than men run now. Yet, 42 years later, a sports brand putting muscled runners and a hammer thrower on the runway at NY Fashion Week is newsworthy in the New York Times. Why are these two worlds still separate? And how is it stunting our definition of femininity?
Late at night, after the fashion show excitement and post-party was over, I lay in bed scrolling through media articles about our show, and something stopped me cold. Runner’s World posted our runway photos on Facebook and among ALL the positive comments was one man commenting directly on me. He said, “She looks like a man.”I clicked on the comment box at the bottom and watched the cursor blink. There was so much I wanted to say. But first, did I look like a man? When did that happen? I looked at my picture through his eyes. Kara Goucher destroyed me on a 10 miler a few hours before the show, so I was a bit dehydrated. Somewhat androgynous maybe with a lean frame, muscle definition, and a sharpish jaw. But the fact is, I am a woman, and a super competitive professional athlete of 12 years, and this is what I look like. Five minutes ago I felt beautiful. I typed and erased several times before deciding to turn off my phone.
His remark stuck with me for several days, like a bruise, and eventually I realized it wasn’t about me. I began to think bigger, and think about change. At what point does physical strength become a trait reserved for men? When exactly do you cross the line? Is it the same point where courage becomes having balls? The same point where getting it done becomes manning up? Why is there no female corollary for these terms? And why do I, as a feminist, continue to use the dude ones?
Our definition of femininity still has some expanding to do to catch up with the fact that women are athletes now, in lots of shapes and sizes. Women do sports. In droves. Fashion plays a huge role in defining femininity, so to the runway we must go.
It’s time to Woman Up.The fashion barrier is begging to be broken.
Dr. Kevin Purcell, DC. Dedicated to serving others …