Negative body image and sexualisation of female gymnasts within the sport by Bunny Ladd
Negative body image and sexualisation of female gymnasts within the sport
By Bunny Ladd
I found out about the Feminist Library about two years ago when I submitted a poetry collection to the Library, after that I went to a few meetings and was looking forward to embarking on a soulful relationship with the women I met there but unfortunately the pandemic very much put a halt to proceedings.
I am delighted however to contribute my first article around a subject I hold very dearly to my heart – gymnastics. Currently I am awaiting a knee operation, which is standing between me and my physical interaction with the sport. However, I am involved by coaching children and adults, a job that brings me outstanding joy!
So here are the roots of mine and gymnastics complicated relationship – at the excitable age of six I was down at the furthest reaches of the Cornish coast in Sennen, having just enjoyed a beach BBQ, cartwheeling, and attempting handstands with my friend, Lily when her parents suggested that mum should take me to a trial gymnastics session at the local club.
Gymnastics and I got along instantly, with the natural ease of old school friends who’d not met for many years. Within weeks, we’d fallen into sync with each other’s way of being. I often found myself completely without thought at the gymnastics club, calmly complying with each apparatus.
Of course, as the years toppled on and competition pressure grew alongside terrifying leaps of progression within skills, my comfortability with the sport was tested. External influences begun to twist the style of my passion, turning it from a fluid syncopation of my body’s capabilities to a demanding and testing trial of perseverance and tolerance. But despite these difficulties my authentic love for the sport never dwindled. In the last couple years however, memories of my training days are starting to come into a sharpened focus.
From the impressionable eyes of a child, it was simply a matter of doing as I was told. But the emergence of recent scandals regarding abusive coaching, body image and sexualization of female gymnasts shocked me to the core and have changed my perspective immeasurably.
Training daily for many years my ability to perform gymnastics evolved from a naïve adoration for nonsensical movement into an innate connection with my physical strength, flexibility, and coordination. With that connection came a confidence in my body’s capabilities, a knowing that I could rely on it. If I cherished and looked after it, I would be able to activate my body at its full capacity, somersaulting, leaping and circling apparatus unaware of anyone or anything. Solely focused on the raw capacity of my own capability. The athleticism I had achieved was something I was unwaveringly proud of; I took pride in my angular form, the muscles I had earnt, and which had earnt me so much. But as I moved into secondary school, I noticed the girls in my classes had begun to develop and I hadn’t.
Whilst it is common for competitive athletes, especially gymnasts, to develop much later I still felt insecure. And as my classmates began to embrace their womanhood I felt left behind, often teased and mocked for my ‘masculine shoulders’ or ‘muscular carves’.
I felt like I must’ve looked so peculiar to everyone around me, and I started seeing my own body with a warped exaggeration that peers had projected into my mind.
It made me feel a lack of worth, because my body wasn’t idealised or talked about how the other girl’s bodies were. But equally I found the way they would talk about the other girls was insensitive, as though their bodies were merely objects to be discussed. It left me very confused.
The first time my view rotated into a more grounded slot was after listening to Emma Watson’s 2014 ‘HeForShe’ speech at a UN conference. For a couple years before I began wondering if there were ways to get rid of muscle mass, I would regularly research whether you could exercise without gaining muscle.
Eventually, I began skipping meals. Coaches often remarked on my sudden weight loss, and I was looked at with less scorn in school. Meanwhile family members would comment along the lines of ‘be careful you don’t want to waste away.’
I was left confused again, all the beauty magazines and films depicted the skinniest women as the most important and valued yet with the increased discussion around body image and feminism I was being told it did not matter what you looked like: it was the strong, talented, intelligent, and determined women that were the most important.
The truth is that all women are equally important, regardless of their career success or physical appearance. But at the impressionable age of 15 at a big secondary school in Cornwall this was impossible to grasp and skipping meals felt like the only way to get noticed.
Emma Watson said in her UN speech “I was being told I was bossy at the age of eight for wanting to direct plays and the boys were not. At fourteen I started to be sexualized by certain elements of the media. At fifteen my friends started dropping out of their beloved sports teams because they didn’t want to become muscly.”
The chord was suddenly struck. I was foregoing the one thing in my life at that time that my mind and body understood with ease and authentic joy. Even today I find it difficult to describe the feeling of somersaulting through air and allowing your body to take you away: no one can be with you during a somersault, and you can’t be interrupted during a turn on the bars – and that is exactly where the magic lies. Your body is a truly wonderful piece of art and engineering. Gymnastics is an absolute exploration of its athletic capabilities and once the techniques are mastered, it wonders into an automatic artistic expression of the human form. It is a sport that needs to get through the troubles.
As my gymnastics career slowed due to injury, I began to develop and finally started gaining feminine features. I was pleased to finally fit in with my classmates but just as one world eased another heightened. I was standing alone on the floor waiting for my routine music to start. Previously, a place of joyous exposure, I would revel in showing off my ability to fly and my starting pose would ensure the right amount of adrenaline and excitement to prepare me for the routine ahead. But one day, as I stood there, the judges’ pens poised and teammates looking on, I felt exposed. I felt strange, as if I had surpassed my time and my body was embarrassingly exposed in the tight sparkly leotard I had worn as a child.
Because I knew no different, I never questioned the need for such skimpy leotards, but a recent piece of action taken by German gymnast, Sarah Voss made me think again.
After the 2018 Larry Nassar case where 156 women confronted the former USA Olympic team doctor there was a realization that if this was going unnoticed at the highest of levels then how often was it occurring across the entirety of the community?
Voss took to the European championships this spring with a new attitude. Sexualization of gymnasts, who are young, vulnerable, and sometimes scared of their coaches, has been a big contributor to the sexual abuse. Wearing a leotard that makes you feel exposed and uncomfortable does little to empower a girl facing abusive interest.
Up until now, gymnasts would only wear full body suits for religious reasons. Voss said, “We hope gymnasts uncomfortable in the usual outfits will feel emboldened to follow our example.”
Later in the week gymnasts, Kim Bui and Elizabeth Seitz showed solidarity with their teammate by also performing in full-length leotards.
Aly Raisman was a key speaker at the Larry Nassar case. She is also a lifelong hero of mine due to her grounded attitude: humility and optimism combined with an appreciation for teamwork and dedication.
In the 2012 Olympic games, Aly competed as part of the ‘fierce five’. She was the last gymnast to compete in the team final, completing her routine with precision, elegance, and confidence. As she rebounded into her split jump after nailing her double back piked salto, tears already lined the bottom of her eyes.
In 2018 when the Larry Nassar case was broadcast, Aly Raisman’s speech picked away to the very core of the abuse, concisely locating the point of the pain inflicted into so many women. by this toxic man.
“You already know you are going away to a place where you won’t be able to hurt anybody ever again, but I am here to tell you that I will not rest until every last trace of your influence on this sport has been destroyed like the cancer it is.”
Hearing this speech reminded how many other women in and out of the gymnastics world would also have suffered and been able to relate and understand this pain.
Sexual abuse is a global problem with complicated routes and solutions. But within gymnastics there are clear catalysts and enablers. For example, to have physical therapy or stretching from the coach, there should be a parental consent form or a parent / guardian present for the process. It is an enormous red flag that simple steps like this were not in place from the beginning.
Signs of Change
In reaction to the scandals and abuse, my brand, Ladd Lemmel (in partnership with Chapter and Rival Kit), has focused on sportswear that empowers women across artistic and acrobatic sports: sportswear that communicates artistic aesthetics and a love for expressive movement. During my research for the collection, I learnt so much and would like to share with you what I consider to be the most important and poignant findings.
A strong woman pushing for change is ex-elite and college gymnast, Katelyn Ohashi. In 2019 she told the BBC about her elite training experience, “When I was an elite gymnast, you couldn’t say anything until you physically could not walk.”
She also suffered eating disorders, brought on by body shaming within the community.
“I was trying to work through the pain and crying literally every turn I took; a coach was upset I had put on weight – he said it was why it was hurting.”
A lot of this abuse stems from the ‘win at all costs’ mentality bred into training at elite level. For me, the magnetism of sport lies within the joy expelled when your body, in coordination with your mind, takes you out of your normal range of movement and into a place of instinctual freedom. But as demand and pressure grew on me at the club, the joy sapped, and tears would be a regular part of my journeys to and from. I tried my hardest to hide it from the coaches to avoid being shouted at. Eventually I moved to a much more positive-focused club and my joy for the sport was restored. But for many gymnasts at a competitive level, they become so embedded in this micro-world that a move seems impossible.
The severity of artistic gymnastics also affects men. The ‘Push through the pain,’ ‘all or nothing’ mentality that gymnastics inhabits took its toll on British Olympic Bronze medalist Nile Wilson. In a 2020 BBC interview he described a ‘culture of abuse’ within gymnastics, having to ‘work through physical pain’ and suggesting gymnasts were treated as ‘pieces of meat’.
Wilson has now opened his own gymnastics clubs in Rotheram and Leeds ‘whose ethos is of a gymnast-centered, positive coaching club that prides itself on inclusivity.
The charity ‘Gymnasts For Change’ is another great organisation trying to promote a fairer type of gymnastics built on trust and respect. “a network of current and former gymnasts, as well as parents, coaches, fans and more who have come together to campaign for change, following the public revelations of widespread abuse and unsafe practices within gymnastics.”
The charity has six clear campaign goals centered around clearer safeguarding and reporting systems and compensation for wronged gymnasts. Find out more and how you can help here:
https://www.gymnastsforchange.com/
Gymnastics is an innately human and magical sport; it takes you to the outer reaches of physical capabilities across all the categories of physical exertion. And it is easy to forget when you see the gymnasts somersaulting backwards on 4 inches of wood or hurtling between 2 bars headfirst and backwards how completely and utterly terrifying it is. The first time I cast up to handstand on a wood bar alone was easily the scariest physical experience of my life thus far. But for those young athletes who did this in fear of an aggressive coach and worse, the threat of sexual violence it is simply a case of being utterly unacceptable.
Gymnastics needs to eradicate the abusive coaching methods ingrained into the fabric of the sport. We are making good steps and my thanks goes to all those grassroots people working hard to do this.
References
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/gymnastics/56906863
https://www.gymnastsforchange.com/