At Reclusive Leftist, Dr. Violet Socks has an amusing post about Olympic figure skating here, below is an excerpt:
“This is the first Winter Olympics since the skating poobahs dropped the rule that women had to wear skirts. That’s right, it used to be in the rulebook that female figure skaters had to compete in skirts : no trousers, no unitards. …
“Now the dress code has been relaxed, and women can wear skirts, trousers, or unitards. … Alas, a similar choice of attire is not available for the guys, who are required to wear trousers. Unitards and skirts are not acceptable for skaters of the masculine persuasion. Personally I don’t see the problem with an occasional dudely bulge, but I’m obviously not in tune with the Glorified Patriarchy that is figure skating.
“Of all the sports (ahem) in the Olympics, none is more slavishly devoted to the cult of traditional gender roles than figure skating. In what other sport are the women athletes officially referred to as”ladies”? As a matter of fact,”ladies”figure skating was created because the first woman ice skater to compete beat all the men except one, thus winning a silver medal. Oops! Can’t have that! So a special”ladies”figure skating division was created.” …
