Room 3
THE ‘IDEAL’ FEMALE ATHLETE
A narrow range of idealised feminine qualities valued in sport limits how women’s injuries are understood, recognised, and dealt with.
“Arrogant Wee Toe Rag”
If you're not the type of female they think you should be,
you don't get very far at all.
The men could be as competitive,
as aggressive,
all of those things,
as much as they wanted.
But as a woman, you had to
be soft,
kind, and
caring.
You need to learn to sugarcoat things,
to be nicer,
to be less blunt.
to be nicer,
And if you weren't,
you were horrible.
‘You’re getting a reputation for being an arrogant wee toe rag,’ he said.
Especially if you had male coaches that required you to be all those things
women stereotypically are.
Whereas men could be
as strong as they want.
They had that space to be all the things that you needed to adopt in sport.
But you're actually trying to be super strong and
aggressive and
competitive.
People do judge based on what you look like,
whether you look ‘in shape.’
I didn't look like the stereotypical lean woman.
Tall.
Skinny.
Pretty.
Bashful.
Watch the white bread.
I'm really hungry.
I'm getting weaker in the gym and
I'm really struggling to get through the training.
Their experience of my situation was very limited.
It was literally blank, puzzled faces.
Somebody says, ‘does that feel OK?’ Well, I don't know what it's supposed to feel.
As a new elite athlete, everything's ‘oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's fine.’
I'm not gonna raise any concerns.
You can't be seen to be a difficult athlete.
You need to keep your head down unless you’ve won multiple Olympic medals and then
you've got a bit of voice.
