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NEW FEMININITIES IN
DIGITAL, PHYSICAL AND SPORTING CULTURES

Sportswomen’s
Apparel in the
United States
Uniformly
Discussed

Edited by
Linda K. Fuller
New Femininities in Digital, Physical and
Sporting Cultures

Series Editors
Kim Toffoletti
School of Humanities and Social Sciences
Deakin University
Melbourne, VIC, Australia

Jessica Francombe-Webb
Department for Health
University of Bath
Bath, UK

Holly Thorpe
School of Health
University of Waikato
Hamilton, New Zealand
Palgrave’s New Femininities in Digital, Physical and Sporting Cultures
series is dedicated to exploring emerging forms and expressions of femi-
ninity, feminist activism and politics in an increasingly global, consumer
and digital world. Books in this series focus on the latest conceptual,
methodological and theoretical developments in feminist thinking about
bodies, movement, physicality, leisure and technology to understand and
problematize new framings of feminine embodiment. Globally inclusive,
and featuring established and emerging scholars from multi-disciplinary
fields, the series is characterized by an interest in advancing research and
scholarship concerning women’s experiences of physical culture in a vari-
ety of cultural contexts.

More information about this series at

http://www.palgrave.com/gp/series/15874
 Linda K. Fuller
Editor

Sportswomen’s
Apparel in the
United States
Uniformly Discussed
Editor
Linda K. Fuller
Communications Department
Worcester State University
Worcester, MA, USA

ISSN 2522-0330     ISSN 2522-0349 (electronic)

New Femininities in Digital, Physical and Sporting Cultures
ISBN 978-3-030-45476-0    ISBN 978-3-030-45477-7 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-45477-7

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature
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This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG.
The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland
 This volume is dedicated to the following female American sportswear
owners: runner Sally Bergesen (Oiselle), surfer Alana Blanchard (My
Bikinis), yoga practitioners Jodi Gruber Brufsky and Michelle Wahler
(Beyond Yoga), swimmer Sarah Buxton (TUTUblue), runner Leigh
Cockram (RaesWear), triathlete/Ironman Nicole de Boom (SkirtSports),
sustainability activist Ellie Dinh (Girlfriend Collective), swimmer Alecia
Elasser (RipSkirtHawaii), basketball player Rachelle Fitz (FitzUDesign),
surfer and shark attack survivor Bethany Hamilton-Dirks (Crush
Sunglasses), recreationalist Taylor Haney (OutdoorVoices), Julie Foudy
leadership assistant Briana Holland (bre33), Muslim activist Fatimah
Hussein (Asiya), roller derby player Micki Krimmel (Superfit Hero), fitness
buff Denise Lee (Alala), cyclist Lea Leopold (Zuma Blu), marathon runner
Lara Mead (Varley), gymnast Shannon Miller (SMLifestyle), fencer Ibtihaj
Muhammad (Louella), Olympic cyclist Beth Hernandez Newell (Keirin
Cut Jeans), racer Danica Patrick (Warrior), captain of the National
Women’s Soccer league Megan Rapinoe (Re, Inc.), basketball player
Tywanna Smith (The Athlete’s NeXuss), rock climber Pam Theodosakis
(prAna), gymnast Katie Valleau (Valleau Apparel), and tennis players
Serena Williams (Signature Statement) and Venus Williams (EleVen).
 Preface

Uniformly
Uniform (noun): a special set of clothes worn by people belonging to an
organization to show others that they are members of it. Cambridge
Dictionary

Uniform (adjective): consistent in conduct or opinion. Merriam-Webster

Dictionary

Uniformly, it would seem, both sporting and nonsporting publics have

opinions about what girls and women should wear while engaging in
athletic forays, both private and professional. Titillating or tortuous,
appealing or atrocious, skimpy or serious, those uniforms that sports-
women wear have long been under scrutiny in terms of their interpreta-
tion, mediation, and simple comfort. Sometimes they are not even
uniforms per se, as proscribed by a particular sporting organization, but
instead might be individual choices by individual athletes. Sometimes
they are dictated by societal notions such as Victorian modesty, some-
times they need to conform to particular religious protocol or patriarchal
control, and sometimes “uniforms” might be determined by peer pres-
sure. Or not.
The fitness industry in the United States continues to grow, many
women using at-home treadmills costing more than $4000 (as well as

vii
viii Preface

monthly fees of $39 for streaming classes) or training apps (e.g., Jefit,
Booya Fitness, Beachbody, SWEAT) or going to expensive health clubs,
like SoulCycle, and using personal trainers. The fitness company Peloton
recently reported reaching the four-billion-dollar mark and has added
new categories of classes that include live music. The Mirror fitness
device, which retails for $1495, along with a $39/month subscription
fee, has become the darling of celebrities ranging from Alicia Keys to
Ellen DeGeneres. Rent the Runway, a New York City-based “rotating
closet” that allows customers continually new outfits, is based on the
notion that “The average American buys sixty-eight items of clothing,
eighty percent of which are seldom worn” (Schwartz 2018, p. 44).
Anecdotally, my friends report that family get-togethers like
Thanksgiving or Easter see guests dressed in casual outfits by companies,
like Juicy Couture sweat suits or various velour combinations. Lululemon
predominates. The ZOZOSUIT, a stretchy bodysuit, enables a 3D body
scan, and Reebok’s PureMove sports bra uses motion-sensing technology
to adapt to users’ movements in real time. Bralettes, with or without
blouses, are dominating another niche.
American novelist/academic Alison Lurie (1981, p. 3) knew about
this; drawing on French structuralist Roland Barthes (2006), she wrote
about the semiotics of dress, arguing that “Clothing is a language, if part
of a nonverbal system of communication, with its own vocabulary and its
own grammar.” Seeing what we wear as a “sign system,” she labeled the
uniform “The extreme form of conventional dress, the costume totally
determined by others” (p. 17), something “determined by external
authorities” (p. 18). At its extreme, “Constant wearing of official costume
can so transform someone that it becomes difficult or impossible for him
or her to react normally” (ibid.) We question that here.
Introducing the topic of sportswomen’s apparel here will include a
brief history, the economics of the industry, and some sociocultural
implications. Although I have written elsewhere that “The standard man-
tra about female athletes claims that they have been trivialized, marginal-
ized, hypersexualized, hierarchically devalued, made invisible, inferior,
and infantilized” (Fuller 2016, p. 2), in fact, that notion has been chal-
lenged by recent studies and realities. Nevertheless, we know of far too
many cases of gender inequity in the sporting world generally (see Hanson
 Preface ix

2012; Cooky and Messner 2018) as well as in specific worlds such as

baseball/softball (Shattuck 2107), cycling (Nordland 2016), equestrian
(Thompson 2016), golf (Pemberton 2002), ice hockey (Avery and Stevens
1997), soccer (Grainey 2012), and tennis (King 2008), among others.
When women make up 40% of athletes but only appear in 4% of cover-
age, it behooves us to bring them to the fore.
Since some contributors here (e.g., Deirdre Clemente and Nancy
G. Rosoff) deal with a historical perspective on sportswomen’s clothing,
suffice it to say that we have come a long way from hoop skirts and pet-
ticoats, crinolines and corsets, since the concept of sportswear was devel-
oped in the 1930s. Just thinking back to Winslow Homer’s 1877 painting
In the Mountains: Women with Walking Sticks, Annie Londonderry’s
“Women on Wheels” bicycle images, and/or the long skirts and restric-
tive clothing our foremother tennis players and golfers wore, it is evident
we have come a long way since Title IX both in civil/social reform and
comfort in clothing. “It was sports that brought women out-of-doors
into new activities that took them away from their housebound roles,”
Patricia Campbell Warner’s (2006, p. 5) has written, adding, “It was
sports that encouraged their latent competitive instincts. It was sports
and exercise that changed their way of thinking about themselves.” Some
of those narratives are available at the Smith College Historical Clothing
Collection in Northampton, MA—“an anthropological road map traces
the story from Gibson girls to the Western Front to the Dust Bowl to
bringing home the bacon and onward.”
Sportswear began as a middle-class/leisure American institution
according to Richard Martin (1985), curator of the Costume Institute of
the Metropolitan Museum of Art (see also Arnold 2008; Lockwood
2012). “From baseball skirts to hydrodynamic swimsuits,” Adena
Andrews of espnW (2015) has written—providing pictorial contrasts in
softball, basketball, skiing, track, tennis, swimming (e.g., Sarah Spain’s
2019 sexist reportage about a 17-year-old Alaskan state champion dis-
qualified for how her swimsuit fit), skating, racing, gymnastics, golf, and
soccer, uniforms continue to change. How appropriate is it that the US
women’s soccer team has recently announced that they will soon start
competing under their own brand or that for the Miss America pageant
candidates will no longer need to be judged in bikinis? Are we at last
x Preface

making inroads from objectification and the male gaze to nonjudgmental

assessments of performers’ performances alone?
Today, when “loungewear” is a category unto itself, the trend known
as “Athleisure-wear,” an outgrowth of our propensity to wear comfortable
exercise clothing as fashion, made possible due to numerous technologi-
cal improvements, has become a major market—estimated at $83 billion
in 2016. Think fleece jackets or cashmere track pants, $40+ exercise
classes, $320 workout tights, $1000 yoga mats. Starting at the bottom,
take the sports sneaker (or trainer), which has gone from being simply a
rubber-soled shoe to becoming part of a designer culture whereby special
models can cost upward of $1000 (Milnes 2016). While denim flares,
shirts, and jackets still are popular, lingerie leader Victoria’s Secret, which
features the skimpy and the sexy in an anachronistic holdout that objecti-
fies women, has seen its sales continue to crater such that its annual tele-
vision spectacle has recently been removed from network television after
a two-decade run. And then there is the newly offered “Woman’s World”
by Cher line—“matching lacy thong and bra sets,” for trans women.
Consider what has happened to J. Crew, whose “Not too trendy, not
too girly” Madewell line soon outshone its parent company. While fash-
ion has forever been political, concerns about sustainability continue to
grow such that the Californian firms North Face and Patagonia are on
board—the former’s “Clothes the Loop” initiative repurposing and recy-
cling unwanted clothing and the latter aiming to be carbon neutral by
2025 and developing a “Worn Wear” program. Pierre-Louis (2019)
reports that the latest data from the Environmental Protection Agency
(EPA) show that the United States “generated 11.9 million tons—or
about 75 pounds per person—of textile waste, most of which ended up
in landfills.” All part of the “fast fashion” movement, which encourages
frequent purchase of inexpensive, easily disposable clothing, this is why
we scholars see sporting apparel as worthy of investigation.
As e-commerce platforms for fashion sportswear continues to escalate,
Morgan Stanley has predicted it to have global sales of $350 billion by
2020. Underwear blogger Guy Trebay (2019) has noted the following:

Fashion has had a long love affair with sports of all kinds, and it is easy
enough to trace an arc from the genteel sports of the leisured classes of the
 Preface xi

19th century to the more crazily individualistic ones of today. Since the
1990s, at least, extreme and adventure sports have excited designers, who
imported to their runways superficial elements of gear created for street
lugers, off-piste snowboarders, artic surfers and, lately, those who push the
outer limits of athletic pursuit.

Fabletics, a $330-million online subscription line selling women’s

sportswear and “lifestyle sneakers,” cofounded by American movie star
Kate Hudson, also has more than 22 brick-and-mortar stores and plans
to quadruple that number. Fellow actress Jessica Biel has become the
ambassador to yoga/active balance company Gaiam, both with Colorado
roots. Then again, they have worry about Trump’s tariffs.
You may not be familiar with sports-related websites such as The Chic
Fashionista, Stiletto Sports, or Sweaty Betty, but we are encouraged by
dancers taking up “Beyoncercise” (named for the singer/performer
Beyoncé), young female activists such as those with buzz cuts leading the
#Never Again movement, LGBTQ spokespersons, those speaking out
against body-shaming and advocating for “body positivity,” and other
“sheroes” in our midst (see Toffoletti et al. 2018). Decrying the lack of
(positive) media representation of sportswomen, Toni Bruce (2015,
p. 382) figured out that “The imbalance persists despite exponential
increases in women’s sport participation and achievements in the past 60
years and exists independently of commercial considerations.”

Discussed
No matter the sport, when it’s a team event we’re talking about, uniforms
and equipment are a key part of the conversation. For starters, we want to
look good … So we all have to think about what it takes to protect our
bodies from whatever hazards are unique to our sports–all while looking
good … When you dress well, you play well. Uncategorized,
WomenTalkSports.com (May 4, 2018)

“Words matter” is a common refrain in the United States these days

relative to vitriolic language emanating from the White House. Rhetoric,
xii Preface

Michael L. Butterworth (2017, p. 11) reminds us, is “arguably the oldest

of academic disciplines (whose) origins date back to the sixth cen-
tury BCE.”
Whether print, electronically, or one-to-one, the subject of sport is
ubiquitous. It might take place literally at the watercooler—or its more
recent manifestation of social media. Sportstalk takes place on more than
24/7 radio and television stations, so as a daily reminder of gendered rela-
tions, it begs examination. Poststructuralist analysis argues that, despite
heightened sensitivities to the dangers of sexist language, the language of
sport still contains rhetorical variations that are neither random nor
indiscriminate but are, in fact, structured and discriminatory—direct
consequences of the structured social variations found in gender relations
in general and, as such, contributory factors to the perpetuation of gen-
der inequality itself. What follows here is a review of the literature on the
language of sport relative to the single aspect of sportswomen’s apparel,
followed by a discussion on theoretical frameworks by which to better
understand that phenomenon.

Literature Review

Numerous autobiographies and biographies have dealt with the issue of

what women athletes wear, and many disparate articles have been written
about those outfits. Along with Joan Ryan’s Little Girls in Pretty Boxes
(2000), about elite gymnasts and figure skaters, there are numerous other
examples of sport-specific requirements:

• Female bodybuilders, Debra Merskin (2010) has noted, are often

reduced to having decorative or sexualized value.
• Susan Burris (2006, p. 92) has pointed out how basketball players in
the WNBA struggle with media preferences to portray them as “one of
two general characters: a wife/mother or a sexual object.”
• Frances E. Willard’s 1895 classic How I Learned to Ride the Bicycle has
her in a long dress on the cover.
• “The manly art” of boxing, despite having women participants dating
to the eighteenth century, was long associated with the scantily clad
 Preface xiii

“ring-card girl” who carried placards announcing numbers of upcom-

ing rounds (Gat 2010).
• As a rugby player, Jessica Hudson (2010) has reported peoples’ reac-
tions to her as “deviant,” “un-girly.”
• Runners, Amby Burfoot (2016, p. xiii) reminds us, might be “leggy
teens with ribbons in their ponytails (or) women in their 20s and 30s
who like they just stepped out of a CrossFit class or a triathlon training
session,” pregnant women, or “leaner, gray-haired women.”
• Christine Brennan (2013) of USA Today has written about the flashy
outfits of figure skating.
• Competitive or recreational, Leanne Shapton’s Swimming Studies
(2016) introduces “technical suits, track blocks, false-start rules.”
• In accordance with Fédération Internationale de Volleyball (FIVB)
rules of compulsory adherence to uniform specifications (basically
bikinis), Michael Cantelon (2010, p. 15) has said that the volleyball
uniform issue “is a graphic example of the patriarchal nature of much
of international sport, also demonstrating the relentless drive to ‘sell’
particular images of female sport to the media.”

Still, to date, only the above-cited 2006 Warner book When the Girls
Came Out to Play offers a historical perspective—discussing such topics
as public/private spheres, how women’s clothing was for “courting” pur-
poses, and the amazing adoption of trousers as a turning point for female
athletes. This volume aims to fill that gap.

Gendered Critical Discourse Analysis (GCDA)

Key is the theory of Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA), which examines

linguistic qualities of texts and their discursive social context, linking lan-
guage and power across disciplines. Its central tenets, which are concerned
with social power, dominance, and inequality, include notions of discourse
shaped and constrained by social structures and culture. Linda K. Fuller,
Female Olympian and Paralympian Events (2018)
xiv Preface

This section and its companion 16-chapter volume, Sportswomen’s

Apparel Around the World: Uniformly Discussed (Palgrave Macmillan,
2020), aims to outline my developing theory of Gendered Critical
Discourse Analysis (GCDA). Feminist sport studies (Markula 2005)
encourage the researcher’s personal experience and voice to be involved,
and while there are any number of theoretical ways of analyzing the social
power of gender/sport, mine is through language. Specifically, it involves
extending basic notions of critical discourse analysis, an interdisciplinary
means of studying language as a social practice. “Motivated by goals of
social emancipation and transformation, the critique of grossly unequal
social orders characterizes much feminist scholarship and, in regard to
discursive dimensions of social (in)justice, research in critical discourse
analysis (CDA),” Michelle M. Lazar (2007, p. 141) has written, bringing
feminist studies into the discussion. My notion is to add the term “gen-
der” to the language of sportstalk, drawing on Eckert and McConnell-­
Ginet (2013, p. 6), where the dynamic performance of gender is a “social
construction—as the means by which society jointly accomplishes the
differentiation that constitutes the gender order.”
Beyond biology, the psychosocial determination of gendered thoughts
and actions is often witnessed in our everyday speech, as well as in our
conscious and subconscious writings. Relative to sport, GCDA might
analyze the amount of airtime for male vs. female athletes by sports
announcers; gender markings such as “”defensemen,” “workmanlike ori-
entation,” Ladies Final, and other delineators of sexist sports language
(Segrave et al. 2006; Fuller 2009). It also has application in reportage on
appearance through both live-action descriptions and on various social
media. Facilitated by fourth-wave feminism, which focuses on (in)justices,
the hope is that reportage and representations of sportswomen by groups
such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube will move beyond
being self-identifying merely as platforms to realizing that they also have
socio-legal responsibilities.
Darija Omrčen (2017, p. 143) has introduced the notion that “Gender-­
sensitive language, gender-neutral language, gender-inclusive language,
gender-free language and gender-fair language are terms used in English
to refer to the usage of a tactful and respectful selection of vocabulary
devoid of unfounded, unfair and discriminatory reference to women in
contrast with men.” ExcelleSports.com (Linehan 2016) cites tennis player
 Preface xv

Serena Williams: “We are constantly reminded we are not men, as if it is

a flaw … People call me one of the ‘world’s greatest female athletes.’ Do
they say LeBron is one of the world’s best male athletes? Is Tiger? Federer?
What not?” More recently, returning to the game after having a baby to
her first French Open match since 2016, Williams wore a form-fitting
black bodysuit that, she said, “represents all the women that have been
through a lot mentally, physically with their body to come back.” Fashion
writer Vanessa Friedman (2019) has this insight:

For most of the history of women’s tennis, the “dress”—once upon a time
a long skirt, now more of a wisp of an idea—has symbolized the feminine
side of the game in its most retrograde sense, and it has been used as a
means of gender stereotype, self-expression, and eyeball-attracting market-
ing. It has flirted with the tropes of fashion-as-decoration, and fashion as
an extension of a personal brand, but only within well-behaved bounds.
Finally, however, in the hands of Serena Williams, it has become a politi-
cal tool: an unabashed statement of female empowerment and indepen-
dence not just for herself, but for all.

Imagine being a four-time Olympic Gold medalist and then, at age 37,
being a star at New York’s “Fashion Week” (Goodman-Hughey 2019).
Although Serena lost the US Open final, that same week her “S” line (for
“shine,” “strong,” “saucy,” and “spectacular”) debuted, Williams declaring
that, “It’s important to be yourself in fashion. In designing or on the
court, I want to be expressive. You have to be true to yourself.” The media
had to comment on 2-year-old daughter Olympia, if adding that “this
collection is her baby.”
Whether by directly quoting athletes or analyzing media commentary,
it is encouraging that discourse analysis is being used in sports research.
The work of the late philosopher/social theorist Michael Foucault, which
focuses on societal power relationships expressed through language, has
stimulated case studies on many different topics relevant here: feminist
sexuality (McNay 1992; Thorpe 2008), women’s body images (Duncan
1994), sociology of sport (Harvey and Rail 1995), the fitness publishing
industry (Maguire 2002), hegemonic masculinity (Pringle 2005; Pringle
and Markula 2005), exercise (Markula and Pringle 2006), snowboarding
(Thorpe 2008).
xvi Preface

Introduction to American
Sportswomen’s Apparel
Analyzing gender norms and gender binaries in terms of uniforms, it turns
out, provides a valuable means for understanding societal attitudes toward
sporting females. Linda K. Fuller, Female Olympians (2016, p. 71)

As we continue to challenge traditional sexist barriers about female

athletes’ appearances, these chapters loosely fall into categories of histori-
cal, sociopolitical, sociocultural, and sport-specific perspectives.
Specifically, you will be enlightened here by chapters in these
subdivisions:

Historical Perspectives

Nancy G. Rosoff traces athletic clothing for American women from 1880
to 1920, while Deirdre Clemente and Evan M. Casey introduce us to the
tennis dresses, golf sweaters, and bicycling shorts that college women
wore from 1890 to 1960 (clue: they are a far cry from Kim Kardashian
West’s thigh-length Lycra numbers).

Sociopolitical Perspectives

Meredith M. Bagley and Judy Liao discuss WNBA uniform politics in

protests such as the Black Lives Movement, and Molly Yanity examines
the absence of military promotion in women’s team sports.

Sociocultural Perspectives

Dunja Antunovic and Kellee Clay scrutinize female sportscasters’ profes-

sional clothing, Kate Harman offers a gendered critique of magazine cov-
ers depicting female athletes, Caitlyn Hauff and Christy Greenleaf explore
how plus-size apparel is a social justice issue, Leelannee K. Malin analyzes
FloJo fashion as cultural appropriation, and Claire M. Williams uses the
SkirtSports to check intersections of running, flirting, and fashion.
 Preface xvii

Sport-Specific Perspectives

Colleen English and Heidi Mau undertake a “clothes’ textual analysis of

female roller derby participants; Elizabeth Fairchild and Elizabeth
A. Gregg report on collegiate women gymnasts’ reflections on their uni-
forms; Elizabeth A. Gregg, Elizabeth A. Taylor, and Robin Hardin report
how the Ladies Professional Golf Association (LPGA) dress code polices
players; Caitlyn Hauff, Christina Gipson, Nancy L. Malcom, and Hannah
Bennett bring us badass CrossFit women; and Leandra Hinojosa
Hernandez analyzes women climbers’ clothing vis-à-vis the social con-
struction of thinness through cyberbullying media discourses.

Reflections
Uniformly, any of my friends can confirm that I am clearly not a fashioni-
sta, even if I have always been intrigued by fabric and textures. My grand-
mother’s Singer Sewing Machine has helped me produce everything from
my bridal gown to bedspreads and curtains and, more recently, quilts and
simple repairs. Mainly, though, I adore costumes, constructed lately for
Armenia, Cuban, Tanzanian, and other dinner parties we have hosted. It
probably wasn’t until meeting Mary Peacock, coeditor of the 1970s’
counterculture magazine Rags that I became sensitized to the notion that
clothing could make such bold statements.
A word about the Dedication. My first thought was to honor the
Williams sisters for their contributions to my tennis wardrobe, but the
more I determined how many female athletes have their own sportswear
lines, it seemed appropriate to cite them. All that, of course, doesn’t even
take into consideration celebrity lines such as Beyonce’s Ivy Park or Jessica
Biel’s Gaiam, or Kate Hudson’s Fabletics, and names of other such entre-
preneurs are welcome. With the encouragement of Lough and Geurin’s
(2019) proclamation that women’s sport is breaking ground both eco-
nomically and socially, never mind Mattel’s gender-neutral Barbie doll,
the time should be right for this study.
xviii Preface

Thanks to a recent panel on “The problem of appearance for women

journalists and athletes” at a Women, Sports and Media conference at the
University of Maryland, this project began to take its own form. As we
are positioned in an age of the #MeToo movement, overarching concerns
about gender parity, discrimination, and sexual exploitation demand our
attention. Nowhere are these issues more relevant, it turns out, than in
women’s sportswear—whether that be bloomers, sports bras, thongs, ten-
nis “whites,” wet suits, studio socks, unitards, hijabs, plus-size pants,
cashmere loungewear, and/or athleisurewear.
Just before submitting this book it was my pleasure to have chaired a
panel on “Women’s sportswear relative to social justice” with several of its
contributors at the annual meeting of the North American Society for the
Sociology of Sport (NASSS). Clearly, while rhetorical activism can help
fulfill many goals, our main one here is to sensitize the sportswear buying
public to its many sociopolitical implications.

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 Praise for Sportswomen’s Apparel in the United
States

“This is an important collection that brings much needed critical attention to an

understudied subject. At its core, the contributions demonstrate that what
female athletes have worn reveals much more than the changing tastes and
mores of American society. Indeed, women’s sporting apparel highlights the gen-
der inequities, sexual double standards, and body politics woven into the very
fabric of sport.”
—C. Richard King, Professor and Chair of Humanities, History and Social
Sciences, Columbia College Chicago, USA

“The ways that sportswomen have chosen, or been required, to outfit themselves
for competition have been scrutinized, normalized, and often criticized for at
least a century. Linda K. Fuller’s impressive new collection of articles fruitfully
examines this subject from historical, socio-political, and socio-cultural angles,
analyzing the expectations imposed upon sportswomen as well as opportunities
for subversion and change.”
—Pam R. Sailors, Professor of Philosophy, Missouri State University, USA

“As a pre-Title IX athlete, I knew the quintessential girl’s sport uniform to be a

one piece gym suit. Why were we forced to wear such an ugly, impractical gar-
ment when boys got to wear ‘real’ uniforms? Uniformly Discussed is an important
resource that investigates the reality and changes in women’s sporting clothes,
and the meanings of covering and displaying myriad women’s bodies in the
realm of sport/physical activity.”
—Dayna B. Daniels, Professor Emerita of Women and Gender Studies,
University of Lethbridge, Canada

“A clever and timely volume, Sportswomen’s Apparel in the United States is a wel-
come contribution to the study of women, sport, gender, and sexuality.”
—Jaime Schultz, Associate Professor in the Department
of Kinesiology, Penn State University, USA
“This fascinating volume on uniforms and clothing for sports and exercise
answers questions that have been on our minds for a long time. These historical
and contemporary nuggets show the age-old tension between appearance and
performance as well as women’s potential for circumventing fashion dictates and
following a tennis champion’s 1916 advice: ‘Do not put your clothes above
your game.’”
—Linda Steiner, Professor at the Philip Merrill College of Journalism,
University of Maryland, USA
 Contents

An Introduction to American Sportswomen’s Apparel  1

Linda K. Fuller

Part I Historical Perspectives  17

 hapter 1: “Exercise Requires the Greatest Freedom”; Athletic

C
Clothing for American Women, 1880–1920 19
Nancy G. Rosoff


Chapter 2: Of Tennis Dresses, Golf Sweaters and Bicycling
Shorts; College Women and the Making of the American
Sportswear Industry, 1890–1960 35
Deirdre Clemente and Evan M. Casey

Part II Socio-Political Perspectives  55


Chapter 3: Blocked Out; Athletic Voices and WNBA
Uniform Politics 57
Meredith M. Bagley and Judy Liao

xxv
xxvi Contents


Chapter 4: Apathy and/or Ambivalence?; Women’s Sport and
Military Promotion 75
Molly Yanity

Part III Socio-Cultural Perspectives  89


Chapter 5: “It’s Always Something”; The Scrutiny of Female
Sportscasters’ Professional Clothing 91
Dunja Antunovic and Kellee Clay


Chapter 6: Jumping Through Hoops; A Post-structural
Gendered Critique of Magazine Covers Depicting Female
Athletes111
Kate Harman


Chapter 7: Exploring Plus-Size Exercise Apparel as a Social
Justice Issue; Understanding How All Pants ARE NOT Created
Equal129
Caitlyn Hauff and Christy Greenleaf


Chapter 8: In Flo Jo Fashion; The Cultural Appropriation
of Sportswomen’s Apparel153
Leelanee K. Malin


Chapter 9: Buying What’s for Sale?: Running, Flirting, and
Fashion at the Skirt Chaser 5k Race Series167
Claire M. Williams

Part IV Sport-Specific Perspectives 185


Chapter 10: Skating with Style; Rolling with Reflection and
Resistance in Roller Derby Uniforms and Fashion187
Colleen English and Heidi Mau
 Contents xxvii


Chapter 11: “We Wear So Little”; Collegiate Women
Gymnasts’ Reflections on Their Uniforms205
Emily Fairchild and Elizabeth A. Gregg


Chapter 12: “I’m Too Sexy for My Shirt”; The LPGA
Dress Code217
Elizabeth A. Gregg, Elizabeth A. Taylor, and Robin Hardin


Chapter 13: Badass CrossFit Women; Redefining Traditional
Femininity, One Handstand Push-Up at a Time231
Caitlyn Hauff, Christina Gipson, Hannah Bennett, and
Nancy L. Malcom


Chapter 14: A Feminist Media Analysis of the
Digiulian-Kinder Incident; Rock Climber
Cyber-Bullying on Instagram249
Leandra Hinojosa Hernández

Index271
 Notes on Contributors

Dunja Antunovic is an assistant professor, School of Kinesiology,

University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN, USA. Her research focuses
on the representation of sportswomen in media, the status of women in
sports journalism, and feminist discourses in online spaces. Her articles
on these issues have appeared in journals such as Feminist Media Studies,
the International Review for the Sociology of Sport, and Communication
& Sport.

Meredith M. Bagley (PhD, Communication, University Texas-Austin)

is Professor of Rhetoric, Department of Communication at the University
of Alabama. Her research program centers on social protest rhetoric in
sport, and her teaching and activism engage public memory on universi-
ties as well as LGBTQ advocacy. A lifelong athlete who had played and
coached rugby, she lives in Birmingham, Alabama, with her husband
and kids.

Hannah Bennett has a PhD in human performance from Middle

Tennessee State University. Her line of research focuses on sociocultural
aspects within the areas of sport, fitness, physical education, and
performance.

xxix
xxx Notes on Contributors

Evan M. Casey (MA, American history, University of Nevada, Las

Vegas) has curated Ready to Roar: Women’s Evening Fashions in the
Prohibition Era at the Mob Museum and coauthored “Clothing and
Contadini: Migration and Material Culture, 1890–1924.” Working at
the Burlesque Hall of Fame, archiving and caring for the museum’s col-
lection, she utilizes material and visual culture in her research to examine
the intersections between fashion, gender, labor, and social signifiers.

Kellee Clay recently obtained her bachelor’s degree from Bradley

University with a major in Sports Communication and a minor in
Organizational Communication. She was a student athlete and a team
captain on the women’s basketball team. Clay was also a founding mem-
ber of the Sports Media Empowerment Group, which brings awareness
to issues in sports media.

Deirdre Clemente is a scholar of the American sportswear industry who

studies dress as social and cultural change. Director of Public History at
University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV), she is the author of Dress
Casual: How College Kids Redefined American Style (2014), which consid-
ers collegians as the driving force behind the popularization of sports-
wear. Her project, East Coast/West Coast: A History of the American Fashion
Industry, plots the development of New York and Los Angeles as global
fashion capitals. Clemente’s work has been profiled in The New York
Times, USA Today, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, GQ, The
Atlantic, and Harper’s Bazaar.

Colleen English (PhD, Penn State University) is Assistant Professor of

Kinesiology at Penn State Berks in Reading, PA. Her teaching and
research centers on the philosophy and history of sport. Her research
focuses on gender, feminism, values, and competition in sport, with his-
torical concentration on women in roller derby and Olympic track
and field.

Emily Fairchild is Professor of Sociology and Director of Gender

Studies at New College of Florida. She works at the intersection of social
psychology and sociology of culture to examine patterns of inequality.
 Notes on Contributors xxxi

Specifically, she has studied how ideas about gender are manifest in wed-
dings, athletics, and popular culture.

Linda K. Fuller (PhD, University of Massachusetts) is Professor of

Communications at Worcester State University and the author/(co-)
editor of more than 30 books—including Sport, rhetoric, and gender
(2006), Sportscasters/sportscasting (2008), the two-volume Sexual sports
rhetoric (2009), The power of global community media (2012), Female
Olympians: A mediated socio-cultural/political-economic timeline (2016),
and Female Olympian and Paralympian events (2018). She was awarded
Fulbrights to teach in Singapore and to do HIV/AIDS research in Senegal.
Check out her website at www.LKFullerSport.com.

Christina Gipson is Associate Professor of Sport Management at

Georgia Southern University. She has a PhD in sport sciences from
Brunel University, with an interdisciplinary specialization in sport sociol-
ogy and sport management of gender issues within sport organizations.
Her line of research focuses on sociological aspects related to Cross Fit—
specifically, examining body image and its relation to social media, com-
munity, and self, as well as perspectives of Cross Fit from girls’ and
women’s perspectives.

Christy Greenleaf holds a PhD in exercise and sport science with a spe-
cialization in sport and exercise psychology from University of North
Carolina at Greensboro and an ACSM/NPAS Physical Activity in Public
Health Specialist certification. Greenleaf ’s work focuses on psychosocial
aspects of the body, including weight-related stigma and body image.

Elizabeth A. Gregg is an associate professor and chair of the Department

of Leadership, School Counseling, and Sport Management at the
University of North Florida. She teaches classes in issues in sport, intro to
sport management, foundations of sport management, and leadership.
Her research interests include issues in intercollegiate athletics, sport his-
tory, women in sport, and branding.
xxxii Notes on Contributors

Robin Hardin is a professor in the Department of Kinesiology,

Recreation, and Sport Studies at the University of Tennessee. His research
interests lie within the areas of collegiate athletics, sport management
education, and governance. He is particularly interested in the holistic
care of collegiate student athletes, issues impacting sport management
education, and women’s career mobility.

Kate Harman (MS, Women and Gender Studies: Women, Leadership

and Public Policy, Towson University) is Professor of Communication
Studies at Rowan University in Glassboro, NJ, teaching courses that
focus on sport, gender, media, and politics. An award-winning sports
journalist formerly with The Philadelphia Inquirer, her research interests
include Title IX compliance, depictions of athletes in media, as well as
portrayals of gender in popular culture texts. She was a member of a five-
person steering committee to bring a Sports Communication and Media
program to Rowan.

Caitlyn Hauff is Assistant Professor of Health Promotion at the

University of South Alabama. She has a PhD in kinesiology with a spe-
cialization in psychosocial aspects of weight and physical activity from
the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. Hauff’s line of research focuses
on sociological and psychological aspects related to the body, including
the utilization of social media from a health and exercise standpoint,
weight stigma and weight bias, eating disorder and disordered eating pre-
vention, and enhancement of exercise experiences.

Leandra Hinojosa Hernández (PhD, Texas A&M University) is

Assistant Professor of Communication Studies at Utah Valley University,
where she utilizes Chicana feminist approaches to study Latino/a health,
Latina/o journalism/media representations, and Latina/o cultural identi-
ties. She is the coauthor of Challenging Reproductive Control and Gendered
Violence in the Americas, which was presented the 2018 NCA Feminist
and Women’s Studies Division Bonnie Ritter Book Award. As the editor
of Lexington Studies in Health Communication, she enjoys collaborating
with scholars on new and innovative health communication research
projects.
 Notes on Contributors xxxiii

Judy Liao (PhD, Sport Sociology, University of Alberta) is Assistant

Professor of Sport Studies at the University of Alberta’s Augustana
Campus. Her research agenda is located in the poststructuralist/new
materialist exploration of gendered sporting bodies. Formerly a competi-
tive basketball player, she is particularly interested in the politics operated
in and expressed through the Women’s National Basketball Association.
Occasionally, Liao can be seen riding on her motorcycle or walking her
dog, Polaris, around town.

Nancy L. Malcom holds a PhD in Sociology from Vanderbilt University.

Her focus, for both teaching and research, is on the social aspects of gen-
der, sport, and childhood. In addition to research involving women who
Cross Fit, Malcom has conducted a content analysis examination of the
portrayal of gender-nonconforming boys in children’s picture books,
done interview research with competition cheerleaders, and performed
participant observation research with youth softball players.

Leelanee K. Malin (PhD, Howard University) is a communications

professor and practitioner with over 15 years of experience in the indus-
try. As the owner of Malin PR, she provides services to organizations in
sports and entertainment, nonprofit, and government arenas. She also
serves as a lecturer in the Department of Strategic, Legal and Management
Communications, at the Howard University Cathy Hughes School of
Communications. Malin’s research, writing, and speaking agenda include
gender stereotypes, film studies, social media, sports, and the popular
culture.

Heidi Mau (MFA, PhD Temple University) is Assistant Professor of

Communications at Albright College in Reading, PA, where she teaches
courses in digital and media communications. Her research in media
intersects the areas of memory studies, technology and culture, visual
communication, popular culture, and gender and sexuality studies.

Nancy G. Rosoff a proud alumna of Mount Holyoke College, is the

dean of Graduate and Undergraduate Studies at Arcadia University. Her
research interests include history of women; women’s athletic activity;
xxxiv Notes on Contributors

sports, gender, and popular culture; history of education; and American

and British cultural history. A former athlete and coach whose creaky
knees prevent her from participating in sports, she is an avid fan espe-
cially of soccer and field hockey.

Elizabeth A. Taylor is Assistant Professor of Sport and Recreation

Management at Temple University. Her work broadly focuses on improv-
ing diversity and inclusion within the sports industry, specifically as it
relates to gender discrimination and homophobia, sexual harassment and
sexual assault education, and harassment of female faculty members.

Claire M. Williams (PhD, Sport Humanities, the Ohio State University)

is Associate Professor of Kinesiology at Saint Mary’s College of California.
She teaches courses of sport law, sport marketing, and women in sport.
Her research interests include discrimination and harassment targeted at
LGBT athletes, the marketing of female athletes, and women’s sportswear.

Molly Yanity (PhD, Mass Communication, Ohio University) is

Associate Professor of Journalism at Quinnipiac University in Hamden,
CT. Her articles have appeared in International Journal of Sports
Communication, Journal of Sports Media, and Chronicle of Higher
Education, as well as in the popular press. Her research primarily focuses
on experiences of sports journalists, particularly where those experiences
intersect with gender issues, technology, and/or the political.
 List of Figures


Chapter 13: Badass CrossFit Women; Redefining Traditional
Femininity, One Handstand Push-Up at a Time
Fig. 1 Hannah Bennett jump roping 244
Fig. 2 Hannah Bennett rowing 245
Fig. 3 Christina Gipson competing a handstand push-up 245
Fig. 4 Christina Gipson rope climbing 246
Fig. 5 Christina Gipson completing a snatch 246

xxxv
 An Introduction to American
Sportswomen’s Apparel
Linda K. Fuller

Uniformly
Uniform (noun): A special set of clothes worn by people belonging to an
organization to show others that they are members of it. Cambridge
Dictionary
Uniform (adjective): Consistent in conduct or opinion. Merriam-Webster
Dictionary

Uniformly, it would seem, both sporting and non-sporting American

publics have opinions about what girls and women should wear while
engaging in athletic forays both private and professional. Titillating or
tortuous, appealing or atrocious, skimpy or serious, those uniforms that
sportswomen wear have long been under scrutiny in terms of their

L. K. Fuller (*)
Communications Department, Worcester State University,
Worcester, MA, USA
e-mail: LFuller@worcester.edu; http://www.LKFullerSport.com

© The Author(s) 2021 1

L. K. Fuller (ed.), Sportswomen’s Apparel in the United States, New Femininities in
Digital, Physical and Sporting Cultures,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-45477-7_1
2 L. K. Fuller

interpretation, mediation, and simple comfort. Sometimes they are not

even uniforms, per se, as prescribed by a particular sporting organization,
but instead might be individual choices by individual athletes. Sometimes
they are dictated by societal notions such as Victorian modesty, some-
times they need to conform to particular religious protocol or patriarchal
control, and sometimes “uniforms” might be determined by peer pres-
sure. Or not.
The fitness industry in the United States continues to grow, many
women using at-home treadmills costing more than $4000 (as well as
monthly fees of $39 for streaming classes), training apps (e.g., Jefit, Booya
Fitness, Beachbody, SWEAT), or going to expensive health clubs, like
SoulCycle, and using personal trainers. The fitness company Peloton
recently reported reaching the four-billion-dollar mark and has added
new categories of classes that include live music. The Mirror fitness
device, which retails for $1495, along with a $39/month subscription
fee, has become the darling of celebrities ranging from Alicia Keys to
Ellen DeGeneres. Rent the Runway, a New York City-based “rotating
closet” that allows customers continually new outfits, is based on the
notion that, “The average American buys sixty-eight items of clothing,
eighty percent of which are seldom worn” (Schwartz 2018, p. 44).
Anecdotally, my friends report that family get-togethers like
Thanksgiving or Easter see guests dressed in casual outfits by companies
like Juicy Couture sweat suits or various velour combinations. Lululemon
predominates. The ZOZOSUIT, a stretchy bodysuit, enables a 3-D body
scan, and Reebok’s PureMove sports bra uses motion-sensing technology
to adapt to users’ movements in real time. Bralettes, with or without
blouses, are dominating another niche.
American novelist/academic Alison Lurie (1981, p. 3) knew about
this; drawing on French structuralist Roland Barthes (2006), she wrote
about the semiotics of dress, arguing that, “Clothing is a language, if part
of a nonverbal system of communication, with its own vocabulary and its
own grammar.” Seeing what we wear as a “sign system,” she labeled the
uniform “The extreme form of conventional dress, the costume totally
determined by others” (p. 17), something “determined by external
authorities” (p.18). At its extreme, “Constant wearing of official costume
 An Introduction to American Sportswomen’s Apparel 3

can so transform someone that it becomes difficult or impossible for him

or her to react normally” (ibid.). We question that here.
Introducing the topic of sportswomen’s apparel here will include a
brief history, the economics of the industry, and some socio-cultural
implications. Although I have written elsewhere that, “The standard
mantra about female athletes claims that they have been trivialized, mar-
ginalized, hypersexualized, hierarchically devalued, made invisible, infe-
rior, and infantilized” (Fuller 2016, p. 2), in fact, that notion has been
challenged by recent studies and realities. Nevertheless, we know of far
too many cases of gender inequity in the sporting world generally (see
Hanson 2012; Cooky and Messner 2018) as well as in specific worlds
such as baseball/softball (Shattuck 2017), cycling (Nordland 2016),
equestrian (Thompson 2016), golf (Pemberton 2002), ice hockey (Avery
and Stevens 1997), soccer (Grainey 2012), and tennis (King 2008),
amongst others. When women make up 40% of athletes but only appear
in 4% of coverage, it behooves us to bring them to the fore.
Since some contributors here (e.g., Deirdre Clemente and Nancy
G. Rosoff) deal with an historical perspective on sportswomen’s clothing,
suffice it to say that we have come a long way from hoop skirts and pet-
ticoats, crinolines and corsets, since the concept of sportswear was devel-
oped in the 1930s. Just think back to Winslow Homer’s 1877 painting In
the Mountains: Women with Walking Sticks, Annie Londonderry’s “Women
on Wheels” bicycle images, and/or the long skirts and restrictive clothing
our foremother tennis players and golfers wore, and it is evident we have
come a long way since Title IX both in civil/social reform and comfort in
clothing. “It was sports that brought women out-of-doors into new activ-
ities that took them away from their housebound roles,” Patricia Campbell
Warner (2006, p. 5) has written, adding, “It was sports that encouraged
their latent competitive instincts. It was sports and exercise that changed
their way of thinking about themselves.” Some of those narratives are
available at the Smith College Historical Clothing Collection in
Northampton, MA—“an anthropological road map traces the story from
Gibson girls to the Western Front to the Dust Bowl to bringing home the
bacon and onward.”
Sportswear began as a middle-class/leisure American institution
according to Richard Martin (1985), curator of the Costume Institute of
4 L. K. Fuller

the Metropolitan Museum of Art (see also Arnold 2008; Lockwood

2012). “From baseball skirts to hydrodynamic swimsuits,” Adena
Andrews of espnW (2015) has written—providing pictorial contrasts in
softball, basketball, skiing, track, tennis, swimming (e.g., Sarah Spain’s
2019 sexist reportage about a 17-year-old Alaskan state champion dis-
qualified for how her swimsuit fit), skating, racing, gymnastics, golf, and
soccer, uniforms continue to change. How appropriate is it that the US
women’s soccer team has recently announced that they will soon start
competing under their own brand, or that for the Miss America pageant
candidates will no longer need to be judged in bikinis? Are we at last
making inroads from objectification and the male gaze to nonjudgmental
assessments of performers’ performances alone?
Today, when “loungewear” is a category unto itself, the trend known
as “Athleisure-wear,” an outgrowth of our propensity to wear comfortable
exercise clothing as fashion, made possible due to numerous technologi-
cal improvements, has become a major market—estimated at $83 billion
in 2016. Think fleece jackets or cashmere track pants, $40+ exercise
classes, $320 workout tights, $1000 yoga mats. Starting at the bottom,
take the sports sneaker (or trainer), which has gone from being simply a
rubber-soled shoe to becoming part of a designer culture whereby special
models can cost upward of $1000 (Milnes 2016). While denim flares,
shirts, and jackets still are popular, lingerie leader Victoria’s Secret, which
features the skimpy and the sexy in an anachronistic holdout that objecti-
fies women, has seen its sales continue to crater such that its annual tele-
vision spectacle has recently been removed from network television after
a two-decade run. And then there is the newly offered “Woman’s World”
by Cher line—“matching lacy thong and bra sets,” for trans women.
Consider what has happened to J. Crew, whose “Not too trendy, not
too girly” Madewell line that soon outshone its parent company. While
fashion has forever been political, concerns about sustainability continue
to grow such that the Californian firms North Face and Patagonia are on
board—the former’s “Clothes the Loop” initiative repurposing and recy-
cling unwanted clothing and the latter aiming to be carbon neutral by
2025 and developing a “Worn Wear” program. Pierre-Louis (2019)
reports that the latest data from the Environmental Protection Agency
(EPA) shows that the United States “generated 11.9 million tons—or
 An Introduction to American Sportswomen’s Apparel 5

about 75 pounds per person—of textile waste, most of which ended up

in landfills.” All part of the “fast fashion” movement, which encourages
frequent purchase of inexpensive, easily disposable clothing, this is why
we scholars see sporting apparel as worthy of investigation.
As e-commerce platforms for fashion sportswear continue to escalate,
Morgan Stanley has predicted it to have global sales of $350 billion by
2020. Underwear blogger Guy Trebay (2019) has noted the following:

Fashion has had a long love affair with sports of all kinds, and it is easy
enough to trace an arc from the genteel sports of the leisured classes of the
19th century to the more crazily individualistic ones of today. Since the
1990s, at least, extreme and adventure sports have excited designers, who
imported to their runways superficial elements of gear created for street
lugers, off-piste snowboarders, arctic surfers and, lately, those who push the
outer limits of athletic pursuit.

Fabletics, a $330 million online subscription line selling women’s

sportswear and “lifestyle sneakers,” co-founded by American movie star
Kate Hudson, also has more 22 brick-and-mortar stores and plans to
quadruple that number. Fellow actress Jessica Biel has become the ambas-
sador to yoga/active balance company Gaiam, both with Colorado roots.
Then again, they have worry about Trump’s tariffs.
You may not be familiar with sports-related websites such as The Chic
Fashionista, Stiletto Sports, or Sweaty Betty, but we are encouraged by
dancers taking up “Beyoncercise” (named for the singer/performer
Beyoncé), young female activists such as those with buzz cuts leading the
#Never Again movement, LGBTQ spokespersons, those speaking out
against body-shaming, advocating for “body positivity,” and other “she-
roes” in our midst (see Toffoletti et al. 2018). Decrying the lack of (posi-
tive) media representation of sportswomen, Toni Bruce (2015, p. 382)
figured out that, “The imbalance persists despite exponential increases in
women’s sport participation and achievements in the past 60 years and
exists independently of commercial considerations.”
6 L. K. Fuller

Discussed
No matter the sport, when it’s a team event we’re talking about, uniforms
and equipment are a key part of the conversation. For starters, we want to
look good… So we all have to think about what it takes to protect our bod-
ies from whatever hazards are unique to our sports–all while looking
good…When you dress well, you play well. Uncategorized,
WomenTalkSports.com (May 4, 2018)

“Words matter” is a common refrain in the United States these days

relative to vitriolic language emanating from the White House. Rhetoric,
Michael L. Butterworth (2017, p. 11) reminds us, is “arguably the oldest
of academic disciplines (whose) origins date back to the sixth cen-
tury BCE.”
Whether via print, electronically, or one-to-one, the subject of sport is
ubiquitous. It might take place literally at the water cooler—or its more
recent manifestation of social media. Sportstalk takes place on more than
24/7 radio and television stations; so, as a daily reminder of gendered
relations, it begs examination. Poststructuralist analysis argues that,
despite heightened sensitivities to the dangers of sexist language, the lan-
guage of sport still contains rhetorical variations that are neither random
nor indiscriminate but are, in fact, structured and discriminatory—direct
consequences of the structured social variations found in gender relations
in general and, as such, contributory factors to the perpetuation of gen-
der inequality itself. What follows here is a review of the literature on the
language of sport relative to the single aspect of sportswomen’s apparel,
followed by a discussion on theoretical frameworks by which to better
understand that phenomenon.

Literature Review

Numerous autobiographies and biographies have dealt with the issue of

what women athletes wear, and many disparate articles have been written
about those outfits. Along with Joan Ryan’s Little Girls in Pretty Boxes
 An Introduction to American Sportswomen’s Apparel 7

(2000), about elite gymnasts and figure skaters, there are numerous other
examples of sport-specific requirements:

• Female bodybuilders, Debra Merskin (2010) has noted, are often

reduced to having decorative or sexualized value.
• Susan Burris (2006, p. 92) has pointed out how basketball players in
the WNBA struggle with media preferences to portray them as “one of
two general characters: a wife/mother or a sexual object.”
• Frances E. Willard’s 1895 classic How I learned to ride the bicycle has
her in a long dress on the cover.
• “The manly art” of boxing, despite having women participants dating
to the eighteenth century, was long associated with the scantily clad
“ring-card girl” who carried placards announcing numbers of upcom-
ing rounds (Gat 2010).
• As a rugby player, Jessica Hudson (2010) has reported peoples’ reac-
tions to her as “deviant,” “un-girly.”
• Runners, Amby Burfoot (2016, p. xiii) reminds us, might be “leggy
teens with ribbons in their ponytails (or) women in their 20s and 30s
who like they just stepped out of a CrossFit class or a triathlon training
session,” pregnant women, or “leaner, gray-haired women.”
• Christine Brennan (2013) of USA Today has written about the flashy
outfits of figure skating.
• Competitive or recreational, Leanne Shapton’s Swimming Studies
(2016) introduces “technical suits, track blocks, false-start rules.”
• In accordance with FIVB (International Volleyball Federation) rules of
compulsory adherence to uniform specifications (basically, bikinis),
Michael Cantelon (2010, p. 15) has said that, the volleyball uniform
issue “is a graphic example of the patriarchal nature of much of inter-
national sport, also demonstrating the relentless drive to ‘sell’ particu-
lar images of female sport to the media.”

Still, to date, only the above-cited 2006 Warner book When the Girls
Came Out to Play offers an historical perspective—discussing such topics
as public/private spheres, how women’s clothing was for “courting” pur-
poses, and the amazing adoption of trousers as a turning point for female
athletes. This volume aims to fill that gap.
8 L. K. Fuller

Gendered Critical Discourse Analysis (GCDA)

Key is the theory of Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA), which examines

linguistic qualities of texts and their discursive social context, linking lan-
guage and power across disciplines. Its central tenets, which are concerned
with social power, dominance, and inequality, include notions of discourse
shaped and constrained by social structures and culture. Fuller (2018)

While numerous diverse theories are presented throughout, this sec-

tion and its companion 16-chapter volume, Sportswomen’s apparel around
the world: Uniformly discussed (Palgrave Macmillan, 2020), aims to out-
line my developing theory of Gendered Critical Discourse Analysis
(GCDA). Feminist sport studies (Markula and Princle 2006) encourage
the researcher’s personal experience and voice to be involved, and while
there are any number of theoretical ways of analyzing the social power of
gender/sport, mine is through language. Specifically, it involves extend-
ing basic notions of critical discourse analysis, an interdisciplinary means
of studying language as a social practice. “Motivated by goals of social
emancipation and transformation, the critique of grossly unequal social
orders characterizes much feminist scholarship and, in regard to discur-
sive dimensions of social (in)justice, research in critical discourse analysis
(CDA),” Michelle M. Lazar (2007, p. 141) has written, bringing feminist
studies into the discussion. My notion is to add the term “gender” to the
language of sportstalk, drawing on Eckert and McConnell-Ginet (2013,
p. 6), where the dynamic performance of gender is a “social construc-
tion—as the means by which society jointly accomplishes the differentia-
tion that constitutes the gender order.”
Beyond biology, the psycho-social determination of gendered thoughts
and actions are often witnessed in our everyday speech, as well as in our
conscious and sub-conscious writings. Relative to sport, GCDA might
analyze the amount of airtime for male versus female athletes by sports
announcers; gender markings such as “defensemen,” “workmanlike ori-
entation,” Ladies Final, and other delineators of sexist sports language
(Segrave et al. 2006; Fuller 2009). It also has application in reportage on
appearance through both live-action descriptions and on various social
media. Facilitated by fourth-wave feminism, which focuses on (in)justices,
 An Introduction to American Sportswomen’s Apparel 9

the hope is that reportage and representations of sportswomen by groups

such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube will move beyond
being self-identifying merely as platforms to realizing that they also have
socio-legal responsibilities.
Darija Omrčen (2017, p. 143) has introduced the notion that,
“Gender-sensitive language, gender-neutral language, gender-inclusive
language, gender-free language and gender-fair language are terms used
in English to refer to the usage of a tactful and respectful selection of
vocabulary devoid of unfounded, unfair and discriminatory reference to
women in contrast with men.” ExcelleSports.com (Linehan 2016) cites
tennis player Serena Williams: “We are constantly reminded we are not
men, as if it is a flaw…People call me one of the ‘world’s greatest female
athletes.’ Do they say LeBron is one of the world’s best male athletes? Is
Tiger? Federer? What not?” Jaime Schultz, who has written on Serena’s
catsuit (2005), has later (2018, pp. 70–71) made this observation:

Women should not have to outperform men to be respected as phenome-

nal athletes. Tennis great John McEnroe once commented that Serena
Williams is the ‘best female player ever’ but that ‘if she played on the men’s
circuit, she’d be, like 700 in the world.’ Should it matter if Williams can
beat the top 699 men in tennis? Can she be a great athlete if she only com-
petes against women? Why do we have to qualify women’s accomplish-
ments by comparing them to men?

Again we see an intersection between gender, race, and power as, more
recently, returning to her first French Open match since 2016, after hav-
ing a baby, Williams wore a form-fitting black bodysuit that caused quite
a commotion. She declared that it “represents all the women that have
been through a lot mentally, physically with their body to come back.”
New York Times fashion writer Vanessa Friedman (2019) has this insight:

For most of the history of women’s tennis, the “dress”—once upon a time
a long skirt, now more of a wisp of an idea—has symbolized the feminine
side of the game in its most retrograde sense, and it has been used as a
means of gender stereotype, self-expression, and eyeball-attracting
10 L. K. Fuller

­ arketing. It has flirted with the tropes of fashion-as-decoration, and fash-

m
ion as an extension of a personal brand, but only within well-behaved bounds.
Finally, however, in the hands of Serena Williams, it has become a politi-
cal tool: an unabashed statement of female empowerment and indepen-
dence not just for herself, but for all.

Imagine being a four-time Olympic Gold medalist and then, at age 37,
being a star at New York’s “Fashion Week” (Goodman-Hughey 2019).
Although Serena lost the US Open final, that same week her “S” line (for
“shine,” “strong,” “saucy,” and “spectacular”) debuted, Williams declaring
that, “It’s important to be yourself in fashion. In designing or on the
court, I want to be expressive. You have to be true to yourself.” The media
had to comment on her two-year-old daughter Olympia, by adding that
“this collection is her baby.”
Whether by directly quoting athletes or analyzing media commentary,
it is encouraging that discourse analysis is being used in sports research.
The work of the late philosopher/social theorist Michael Foucault, which
focuses on societal power relationships expressed through language, has
stimulated case studies on many different topics relevant here: feminist
sexuality (McNay 1992; Thorpe 2008); women’s body images (Duncan
1994); sociology of sport (Harvey and Rail 1995); the fitness publishing
industry (Maguire 2002); hegemonic masculinity (Pringle 2005, Pringle
and Markula 2005); exercise (Markula and Pringle 2006); snowboarding
(Thorpe 2008).

Sportswomen’s Apparel
Analyzing gender norms and gender binaries in terms of uniforms, it turns
out, provides a valuable means for understanding societal attitudes toward
sporting females. Linda K. Fuller, Female Olympians (2016, p. 71)

As we continue to challenge traditional sexist barriers about female

athletes’ appearances, these chapters loosely fall into categories of histori-
cal, socio-political, and socio-cultural, and sport-specific perspectives.
 An Introduction to American Sportswomen’s Apparel 11

Specifically, you will be enlightened here by chapters in these

sub-divisions:

Historical Perspectives

Nancy G. Rosoff traces athletic clothing for American women from 1880
to 1920 while Deirdre Clemente and Evan M. Casey introduce us to the
tennis dresses, golf sweaters and bicycling shorts that college women wore
from 1890 to 1960 (clue: they are a far cry from Kim Kardashian West’s
thigh-length Lycra numbers).

Socio-political Perspectives

Meredith M. Bagley and Judy Liao discuss WNBA uniform politics in

protests such as the Black Lives Movement, and Molly Yanity examines
the absence of military promotion in women’s team sports.

Socio-cultural Perspectives

Dunja Antunovic and Kellee Clay scrutinize female sportscasters’ profes-

sional clothing, Kate Harman offers a gendered critique of magazine cov-
ers depicting female athletes, Caitlyn Hauff and Christy Greenleaf explore
how plus-size apparel are a social justice issue, Leelannee K. Malin ana-
lyzes FloJo fashion as cultural appropriation, and Claire M. Williams uses
the SkirtSports to check intersections of running, flirting, and fashion.

Sport-Specific Perspectives

Colleen English and Heidi Mau undertake a clothes’ textual analysis of

female roller derby participants, Elizabeth Fairchild and Elizabeth
A. Gregg report on collegiate women gymnasts’ reflections on their uni-
forms, Elizabeth A. Gregg, Elizabeth A. Taylor, and Robin Hardin report
how the LPGA dress code polices players, Caitlyn Hauff, Christina
12 L. K. Fuller

Gipson, Nancy L. Malcom, and Hannah Bennett bring us badass CrossFit

women, and Leandra Hinojosa Hernandez analyzes women climbers’
clothing vis-à-vis the social construction of thinness through cyber-­
bullying media discourses.

Reflections
Uniformly, any of my friends can confirm that I am clearly not a fashioni-
sta, even if I have always been intrigued by fabric and textures. My grand-
mother’s Singer Sewing Machine has helped me produce everything from
my bridal gown to bedspreads and curtains and, more recently, quilts and
simple repairs. Mainly, though, I adore costumes, constructed lately for
Armenia, Cuban, Tanzanian, and other dinner parties we have hosted. It
probably wasn’t until meeting Mary Peacock, co-editor of the 1970s
counter-culture magazine Rags that I became sensitized to the notion that
clothing could make such bold statements.
A word about the Dedication. My first thought was to honor the
Williams sisters for their contributions to my tennis wardrobe, but the
more I determined how many female athletes have their own sportswear
lines, it seemed appropriate to cite them. All that, of course, doesn’t even
take into consideration celebrity lines such as Beyonce’s Ivy Park or Jessica
Biel’s Gaiam or Kate Hudson’s Fabletics, and names of other such entre-
preneurs are welcome. With the encouragement of Lough and Geurin’s
(2019) proclamation that women’s sport is breaking ground both eco-
nomically and socially, never mind Mattel’s gender-neutral Barbie doll,
the time should be right for this study.
Thanks to a recent panel on “The problem of appearance for women
journalists and athletes” at a Women, Sports and Media conference at the
University of Maryland, this project began to take its own form. When I
issued a Call, wondering if other sports scholars could be interested in the
top of women’s sportswear, the response was so overwhelming that the
obvious solution appeared to be having two volumes—one on the United
States and the other on international cases. As we are positioned in an age
of the #MeToo movement, overarching concerns about gender parity,
discrimination, and sexual exploitation demand our attention. Nowhere
Another random document with
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 Belgium shall have stated its intentions as to the acceptation
of these dispositions, the sovereignty shall be exercised
collectively by the Council of three administrators of the
Free State and by the Governor-General."

----------CONGO FREE STATE: End--------

CONGRESS: Of the United States.

Reapportionment of Representatives.

See (in this volume)

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1901 (JANUARY).

CONSTANTINOPLE: A. D. 1896.
Attack of Armenian revolutionists on the Ottoman Bank,
and subsequent Turkish massacre of Armenians.

See (in this volume)

TURKEY: A. D. 1896 (AUGUST).

----------CONSTITUTION OF AUSTRALIA.: Start--------

The following is the "Act to constitute the Commonwealth of

Australia," as passed by the Imperial Parliament, July 9, 1900
(63 & 64 Vict. ch. 12)—see (in this volume) AUSTRALIA: A. D.
1900. The text is from the official publication of the Act:

Whereas the people of New South Wales, Victoria, South

Australia, Queensland, and Tasmania, humbly relying on the
blessing of Almighty God, have agreed to unite in one
indissoluble Federal Commonwealth under the Crown of the
United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, and under the
Constitution hereby established: And whereas it is expedient
to provide for the admission into the Commonwealth of other
Australasian Colonies and possessions of the Queen: Be it
therefore enacted by the Queen's most Excellent Majesty, by
and with the advice and consent of the Lords Spiritual and
 Temporal, and Commons, in this present Parliament assembled,
and by the authority of the same, as follows:-

1. This Act may be cited as the Commonwealth of Australia

Constitution Act.

2. The provisions of this Act referring to the Queen shall

extend to Her Majesty's heirs and successors in the
sovereignty of the United Kingdom.

3. It shall be lawful for the Queen, with the advice of the

Privy Council, to declare by proclamation that, on and after a
day therein appointed, not being later than one year after the
passing of this Act, the people of New South Wales, Victoria,
South Australia, Queensland, and Tasmania, and also, if Her
Majesty is satisfied that the people of Western Australia have
agreed thereto, of Western Australia, shall be united in a
Federal Commonwealth under the name of the Commonwealth of
Australia. But the Queen may, at any time after the
proclamation, appoint a Governor-General for the Commonwealth.

4. The Commonwealth shall be established, and the Constitution

of the Commonwealth shall take effect, on and after the day so
appointed. But the Parliaments of the several colonies may at
any time after the passing of this Act make any such laws, to
come into operation on the day so appointed, as they might
have made if the Constitution had taken effect at the passing
of this Act.

{155}

5. This Act, and all laws made by the Parliament of the

Commonwealth under the Constitution, shall be binding on the
courts, judges, and people of every State and of every part of
the Commonwealth, notwithstanding anything in the laws of any
State; and the laws of the Commonwealth shall be in force on
all British ships, the Queen's ships of war excepted, whose
first port of clearance and whose port of destination are in
the Commonwealth.

6. "The Commonwealth" shall mean the Commonwealth of Australia

as established under this Act. "The States" shall mean such of
the colonies of New South Wales, New Zealand, Queensland,
Tasmania, Victoria, Western Australia, and South Australia,
including the northern territory of South Australia, as for
the time being are parts of the Commonwealth, and such
colonies or territories as may be admitted into or established
by the Commonwealth as States; and each of such parts of the
Commonwealth shall be called "a State." "Original States"
shall mean such States as are parts of the Commonwealth at its
establishment.

7. The Federal Council of Australasia Act, 1885, is hereby

repealed, but so as not to affect any laws passed by the
Federal Council of Australasia and in force at the
establishment of the Commonwealth. Any such law may be
repealed as to any State by the Parliament of the
Commonwealth, or as to any colony not being a State by the
Parliament thereof.

8. After the passing of this Act the Colonial Boundaries Act,

1895, shall not apply to any colony which becomes a State of
the Commonwealth; but the Commonwealth shall be taken to be a
self-governing colony for the purposes of that Act.

9. The Constitution of the Commonwealth shall be as follows:

THE CONSTITUTION.
This Constitution is divided as follows:-

Chapter I.—The Parliament:

Part I.—General:
Part II.—The Senate:
Part III.—The House of Representatives:
 Part IV.—Both Houses of the Parliament:
Part V.—Powers of the Parliament:

Chapter II.—The Executive Government:

Chapter III.—The Judicature:
Chapter IV.—Finance and Trade:
Chapter V.—The States:
Chapter VI.—New States:
Chapter VII.—Miscellaneous:
Chapter VIII.—Alteration of the Constitution.

The Schedule.

CHAPTER I. THE PARLIAMENT:

PART I.—GENERAL.

1. The legislative power of the Commonwealth shall be vested

in a Federal Parliament, which shall consist of the Queen, a
Senate, and a House of Representatives, and which is
herein-after called "The Parliament," or "The Parliament of
the Commonwealth."

2. A Governor-General appointed by the Queen shall be Her

Majesty's representative in the Commonwealth, and shall have
and may exercise in the Commonwealth during the Queen's
pleasure, but subject to this Constitution, such powers and
functions of the Queen as Her Majesty may be pleased to assign
to him.

3. There shall be payable to the Queen out of the Consolidated

Revenue fund of the Commonwealth, for the salary of the
Governor-General, an annual sum which, until the Parliament
otherwise provides, shall be ten thousand pounds. The salary
of a Governor-General shall not be altered during his
continuance in office.

4. The provisions of this Constitution relating to the

Governor-General extend and apply to the Governor-General for
the time being, or such person as the Queen may appoint to
administer the Government of the Commonwealth; but no such
person shall be entitled to receive any salary from the
Commonwealth in respect of any other office during his
administration of the Government of the Commonwealth.

5. The Governor-General may appoint such times for holding the

sessions of the Parliament as he thinks fit, and may also from
time to time, by Proclamation or otherwise, prorogue the
Parliament, and may in like manner dissolve the House of
Representatives. After any general election the Parliament
shall be summoned to meet not later than thirty days after the
day appointed for the return of the writs. The Parliament
shall be summoned to meet not later than six months after the
establishment of the Commonwealth.

6. There shall be a session of the Parliament once at least in

every year, so that twelve months shall not intervene between
the last sitting of the Parliament in one session and its
first sitting in the next session.

PART II.—THE SENATE.

7. The Senate shall be composed of senators for each State,

directly chosen by the people of the State, voting, until the
Parliament otherwise provides, as one electorate. But until
the Parliament of the Commonwealth otherwise provides, the
Parliament of the State of Queensland, if that State be an
Original State, may make laws dividing the State into
divisions and determining the number of senators to be chosen
for each division, and in the absence of such provision the
State shall be one electorate. Until the Parliament otherwise
provides there shall be six senators for each Original State.
The Parliament may make laws increasing or diminishing the
number of senators for each State, but so that equal
representation of the several Original States shall be
 maintained and that no Original State shall have less than six
senators. The senators shall be chosen for a term of six
years, and the names of the senators chosen for each State
shall be certified by the Governor to the Governor-General.

8. The qualification of electors of senators shall be in each

State that which is prescribed by this Constitution, or by the
Parliament, as the qualification for electors of members of
the House of Representatives; but in the choosing of senators
each elector shall vote only once.

9. The Parliament of the Commonwealth may make laws

prescribing the method of choosing senators, but so that the
method shall be uniform for all the States. Subject to any
such law, the Parliament of each State may make laws
prescribing the method of choosing the senators for that
State. The Parliament of a State may make laws for determining
the times and places of elections of senators for the State.

{156}

10. Until the Parliament otherwise provides, but subject to

this Constitution, the laws in force in each State, for the
time being, relating to elections for the more numerous House
of the Parliament of the State shall, as nearly as
practicable, apply to elections of senators for the State.

11. The Senate may proceed to the despatch of business,

notwithstanding the failure of any State to provide for its
representation in the Senate.

12. The Governor of any State may cause writs to be issued for
elections of senators for the State. In case of the
dissolution of the Senate the writs shall be issued within ten
days from the proclamation of such dissolution.

13. As soon as may be after the Senate first meets, and after
each first meeting of the Senate following a dissolution
thereof, the Senate shall divide the senators chosen for each
State into two classes, as nearly equal in number as
practicable; and the places of the senators of the first class
shall become vacant at the expiration of the third year, and the
places of those of the second class at the expiration of the
sixth year, from the beginning of their term of service; and
afterwards the places of senators shall become vacant at the
expiration of six years from the beginning of their term of
service. The election to fill vacant places shall be made in
the year at the expiration of which the places are to become
vacant. For the purposes of this section the term of service
of a senator shall be taken to begin on the first day of
January following the day of his election, except in the cases
of the first election and of the election next after any
dissolution of the Senate, when it shall be taken to begin on
the first day of January preceding the day of his election.

14. Whenever the number of senators for a State is increased

or diminished, the Parliament of the Commonwealth may make
such provision for the vacating of the places of senators for
the State as it deems necessary to maintain regularity in the
rotation.

15. If the place of a senator becomes vacant before the

expiration of his term of service, the Houses of Parliament of
the State for which he was chosen shall, sitting and voting
together, choose a person to hold the place until the
expiration of the term, or until the election of a successor
as hereinafter provided, whichever first happens. But if the
Houses of Parliament of the State are not in session at the
time when the vacancy is notified, the Governor of the State,
with the advice of the Executive Council thereof, may appoint
a person to hold the place until the expiration of fourteen
days after the beginning of the next session of the Parliament
of the State, or until the election of a successor, whichever
first happens. At the next general election of members of the
House of Representatives, or at the next election of senators
for the State, whichever first happens, a successor shall, if
the term has not then expired, be chosen to hold the place
from the date of his election until the expiration of the
term. The name of any senator so chosen or appointed shall be
certified by the Governor of the State to the
Governor-General.

16. The qualifications of a senator shall be the same as those

of a member of the House of Representatives.

17. The Senate shall, before proceeding to the despatch of any

other business, choose a senator to be the President of the
Senate; and as often as the office of President becomes vacant
the Senate shall again choose a senator to be the President.
The President shall cease to hold his office if he ceases to
be a senator. He may be removed from office by a vote of the
Senate, or he may resign his office or his seat by writing
addressed to the Governor-General.

18. Before or during any absence of the President, the Senate

may choose a senator to perform his duties in his absence.

19. A Senator may, by writing addressed to the President, or

to the Governor-General if there is no President or if the
President is absent from the Commonwealth, resign his place,
which thereupon shall become vacant.

20. The place of a senator shall become vacant if for two

consecutive months of any session of the Parliament he,
without the permission of the Senate, fails to attend the
Senate.

21. Whenever a vacancy happens in the Senate, the President,

or if there is no President or if the President is absent from
the Commonwealth the Governor-General, shall notify the same
to the Governor of the State in the representation of which
the vacancy has happened.

22. Until the Parliament otherwise provides, the presence of

at least one-third of the whole number of the senators shall
be necessary to constitute a meeting of the Senate for the
exercise of its powers.

23. Questions arising in the Senate shall be determined by a

majority of votes, and each senator shall have one vote. The
President shall in all cases be entitled to a vote; and when
the votes are equal the question shall pass in the negative.

PART III.—THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES.

24. The House of Representatives shall be composed of members

directly chosen by the people of the Commonwealth, and the
number of such members shall be, as nearly as practicable,
twice the number of the senators. The number of members chosen
in the several States shall be in proportion to the respective
numbers of their people, and shall, until the Parliament
otherwise provides, be determined, whenever necessary, in the
following manner:—

(i.) A quota shall be ascertained by dividing the number of

the people of the Commonwealth, as shown by the latest
statistics of the Commonwealth, by twice the number of the
senators.

(ii.) The number of members to be chosen in each State

shall be determined by dividing the number of the people of
the State, as shown by the latest statistics of the
Commonwealth, by the quota; and if on such division there
is a remainder greater than one-half of the quota, one more
member shall be chosen in the State. But notwithstanding
anything in this section, five members at least shall be
chosen in each Original State.
 25. For the purposes of the last section, if by the law of any
State all persons of any race are disqualified from voting at
elections for the more numerous House of the Parliament of the
State, then, in reckoning the number of the people of the
State or of the Commonwealth, persons of that race resident in
that State shall not be counted.

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26. Notwithstanding anything in section twenty-four, the

number of members to be chosen in each State at the first
election shall be as follows:—

New South Wales, twenty-three;

Victoria, twenty;
Queensland, eight;
South Australia, six;
Tasmania, five;

provided that if Western Australia is an Original State, the

numbers shall be as follows:—

New South Wales, twenty-six;

Victoria, twenty-three;
Queensland, nine;
South Australia, seven;
Western Australia, five;
Tasmania, five.

27. Subject to this Constitution, the Parliament may make laws

for increasing or diminishing the number of the members of the
House of Representatives.

28. Every House of Representatives shall continue for three

years from the first meeting of the House, and no longer, but
may be sooner dissolved by the Governor-General.
29. Until the Parliament of the Commonwealth otherwise
provides, the Parliament of any State may make laws for
determining the divisions in each State for which members of
the House of Representatives may be chosen, and the number of
members to be chosen for each division. A division shall not
be formed out of parts of different States. In the absence of
other provision, each State shall be one electorate.

30. Until the Parliament otherwise provides, the qualification

of electors of members of the House of Representatives shall
be in each State that which is prescribed by the law of the
State as the qualification of electors of the more numerous
House of Parliament of the State; but in the choosing of
members each elector shall vote only once.

31. Until the Parliament otherwise provides, but subject to

this Constitution, the laws in force in each State for the
time being relating to elections for the more numerous House
of the Parliament of the State shall, as nearly as
practicable, apply to elections in the State of members of the
House of Representatives.

32. The Governor-General in Council may cause writs to be

issued for general elections of members of the House of
Representatives. After the first general election, the writs
shall be issued within ten days from the expiry of a House of
Representatives or from the proclamation of a dissolution
thereof.

33. Whenever a vacancy happens in the House of

Representatives, the Speaker shall issue his writ for the
election of a new member, or if there is no Speaker or if he
is absent from the Commonwealth the Governor-General in
Council may issue the writ.

34. Until the Parliament otherwise provides, the

qualifications of a member of the House of Representatives
shall be as follows:—

(i.) He must be of the full age of twenty-one years, and

must be an elector entitled to vote at the election of
members of the House of Representatives, or a person
qualified to become such elector, and must have been for
three years at the least a resident within the limits of
the Commonwealth as existing at the time when he is chosen:

(ii.) He must be a subject of the Queen, either

natural-born or for at least five years naturalized under a
law of the United Kingdom, or of a Colony which has become
or becomes a State, or of the Commonwealth, or of a State.

35. The House of Representatives shall, before proceeding to

the despatch of any other business, choose a member to be the
Speaker of the House, and as often as the office of Speaker
becomes vacant the House shall again choose a member to be the
Speaker. The Speaker shall cease to hold his office if he
ceases to be a member. He may be removed from office by a vote
of the House, or he may resign his office or his seat by
writing addressed to the Governor-General.

36. Before or during any absence of the Speaker, the House of

Representatives may choose a member to perform his duties in
his absence.

37. A member may by writing addressed to the Speaker, or to

the Governor-General if there is no Speaker or if the Speaker
is absent from the Commonwealth, resign his place, which
thereupon shall become vacant.

38. The place of a member shall become vacant if for two

consecutive months of any session of the Parliament he,
without the permission of the House, fails to attend the
House.
39. Until the Parliament otherwise provides, the presence of
at least one-third of the whole number of the members of the
House of Representatives shall be necessary to constitute a
meeting of the House for the exercise of its powers.

40. Questions arising in the House of Representatives shall be

determined by a majority of votes other than that of the
Speaker. The Speaker shall not vote unless the numbers are
equal, and then he shall have a casting vote.

PART IV.—BOTH HOUSES OF THE PARLIAMENT.

41. No adult person who has or acquires a right to vote at

elections for the more numerous House of the Parliament of a
State shall, while the right continues, be prevented by any
law of the Commonwealth from voting at elections for either
House of the Parliament of the Commonwealth.

42. Every senator and every member of the House of

Representatives shall before taking his seat make and
subscribe before the Governor-General, or some person
authorised by him, an oath or affirmation of allegiance in the
form set forth in the schedule to this Constitution.

43. A member of either House of the Parliament shall be

incapable of being chosen or of sitting as a member of the
other House.

44. Any person who—

(i.) Is under any acknowledgment of allegiance, obedience, or

adherence to a foreign power, or is a subject or a citizen or
entitled to the rights or privileges of a subject or a citizen
of a foreign power: or
 (ii.) Is attainted of treason, or has been convicted and is
under sentence, or subject to be sentenced, for any offence
punishable under the law of the Commonwealth or of a State by
imprisonment for one year or longer: or

(iii.) Is an undischarged bankrupt or insolvent: or

(iv.) Holds any office of profit under the Crown, or any

pension payable during the pleasure of the Crown out of any of
the revenues of the Commonwealth: or

(v.) Has any direct or indirect pecuniary interest in any

agreement with the Public Service of the Commonwealth
otherwise than as a member and in common with the other
members of an incorporated company consisting of more than
twenty-five persons: shall be incapable of being chosen or of
sitting as a senator or a member of the House of
Representatives. But sub-section iv. does not apply to the
office of any of the Queen's Ministers of State for the
Commonwealth, or of any of the Queen's Ministers for a State,
or to the receipt of pay, half pay, or a pension by any person
as an officer or member of the Queen's navy or army, or to the
receipt of pay as an officer or member of the naval or
military forces of the Commonwealth by any person whose
services are not wholly employed by the Commonwealth.

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45. If a senator or member of the House of Representatives—

(i.) Becomes subject to any of the disabilities mentioned in

the last preceding section: or

(ii.) Takes the benefit, whether by assignment, composition,

or otherwise, of any law relating to bankrupt or insolvent
debtors: or
(iii.) Directly or indirectly takes or agrees to take any fee
or honorarium for services rendered to the Commonwealth, or
for services rendered in the Parliament to any person or
State: his place shall thereupon become vacant.

46. Until the Parliament otherwise provides, any person

declared by this Constitution to be incapable of sitting as a
senator or as a member of the House of Representatives shall,
for every day on which he so sits, be liable to pay the sum of
one hundred pounds to any person who sues for it in any court
of competent jurisdiction.

47. Until the Parliament otherwise provides, any question

respecting the qualification of a senator or of a member of
the House of Representatives, or respecting a vacancy in
either House of the Parliament, and any question of a disputed
election to either House, shall be determined by the House in
which the question arises.

48. Until the Parliament otherwise provides, each senator and

each member of the House of Representatives shall receive an
allowance of four hundred pounds a year, to be reckoned from
the day on which he takes his seat.

49. The powers, privileges, and immunities of the Senate and

of the House of Representatives, and of the members and the
committees of each House, shall be such as are declared by the
Parliament, and until declared shall be those of the Commons
House of Parliament of the United Kingdom, and of its members
and committees, at the establishment of the Commonwealth.

50. Each House of the Parliament may make rules and orders
with respect to—

(i.) The mode in which its powers, privileges, and immunities

may be exercised and upheld:
(ii.) The order and conduct of its business and proceedings
either separately or jointly with the other House.

PART V.—POWERS OF THE PARLIAMENT.

51. The Parliament shall, subject to this Constitution, have

power to make laws for the peace, order, and good government
of the Commonwealth with respect to:—

(i.) Trade and commerce with other countries, and among the
States;

(ii.) Taxation; but so as not to discriminate between States

or parts of States:

(iii.) Bounties on the production or export of goods, but so

that such bounties shall be uniform throughout the
Commonwealth:

(iv.) Borrowing money on the public credit of the

Commonwealth:

(v.) Postal, telegraphic, telephonic, and other like services:

(vi.) The naval and military defence of the Commonwealth and

of the several States, and the control of the forces to
execute and maintain the laws of the Commonwealth:

(vii.) Lighthouses, lightships, beacons and buoys:

(viii.) Astronomical and meteorological observations:

(ix.) Quarantine:

(x.) Fisheries in Australian waters beyond territorial limits:

(xi.) Census and statistics:

(xii.) Currency, coinage, and legal tender:

(xiii.) Banking, other than State banking; also State banking

extending beyond the limits of the State concerned, the
incorporation of banks, and the issue of paper money:

(xiv.) Insurance, other than State insurance; also State

insurance extending beyond the limits of the State concerned:

(xv.) Weights and measures:

(xvi. ) Bills of exchange and promissory notes:

(xvii.) Bankruptcy and insolvency:

(xviii.) Copyrights, patents of inventions and designs, and

trade marks:

(xix.) Naturalization and aliens:

(xx.) Foreign corporations, and trading or financial

corporations formed within the limits of the Commonwealth:

(xxi.) Marriage:

(xxii.) Divorce and matrimonial causes; and in relation

thereto, parental rights, and the custody and guardianship of
infants:

(xxiii.) Invalid and old-age pensions:

(xxiv.) The service and execution throughout the Commonwealth

of the civil and criminal process and the judgments of the
courts of the States:
(xxv.) The recognition throughout the Commonwealth of the
laws, the public Acts and records, and the judicial
proceedings of the States:

(xxvi.) The people of any race, other than the aboriginal race
in any State, for whom it is deemed necessary to make special
laws:

(xxvii.) Immigration and emigration:

(xxviii.) The influx of criminals:

(xxix.) External affairs:

(xxx.) The relations of the Commonwealth with the islands of

the Pacific:

(xxxi.) The acquisition of property on just terms from any

State or person for any purpose in respect of which the
Parliament has power to make laws:

(xxxii.) The control of railways with respect to transport for

the naval and military purposes of the Commonwealth:

(xxxiii.) The acquisition, with the consent of a State, of any

railways of the State on terms arranged between the
Commonwealth and the State:

(xxxiv.) Railway construction and extension in any State with

the consent of that State:

(xxxv.) Conciliation and arbitration for the prevention and

settlement of industrial disputes extending beyond the limits
of any one State:

(xxxvi.) Matters in respect of which this Constitution makes

provision until the Parliament otherwise provides:
 (xxxvii.) Matters referred to the Parliament of the
Commonwealth by the Parliament or Parliaments of any State or
States, but so that the law shall extend only to States by
whose Parliaments the matter is referred, or which afterwards
adopt the law:

(xxxviii.) The exercise within the Commonwealth, at the

request or with the concurrence of the Parliaments of all the
States directly concerned, of any power which can at the
establishment of this Constitution be exercised only by the
Parliament of the United Kingdom or by the Federal Council of
Australasia:

(xxxix.) Matters incidental to the execution of any power

vested by this Constitution in the Parliament or in either
House thereof, or in the Government of the Commonwealth, or in
the Federal Judicature, or in any department or officer of the
Commonwealth.

52. The Parliament shall, subject to this Constitution, have

exclusive power to make laws for the peace, order, and good
government of the Commonwealth with respect to—

(i.) The seat of government of the Commonwealth, and all

places acquired by the Commonwealth for public purposes:

(ii.) Matters relating to any department of the public service

the control of which is by this Constitution transferred to the
Executive Government of the Commonwealth:

(iii.) Other matters declared by this Constitution to be

within the exclusive power of the Parliament.

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53. Proposed laws appropriating revenue or moneys, or imposing

taxation, shall not originate in the Senate. But a proposed
law shall not be taken to appropriate revenue or moneys, or to
impose taxation, by reason only of its containing provisions for
the imposition or appropriation of fines or other pecuniary
penalties, or for the demand or payment or appropriation of
fees for licences, or fees for services under the proposed
law. The Senate may not amend proposed laws imposing taxation,
or proposed laws appropriating revenue or moneys for the
ordinary annual services of the Government. The Senate may not
amend any proposed law so as to increase any proposed charge
or burden on the people. The Senate may at any stage return to
the House of Representatives any proposed law which the Senate
may not amend, requesting, by message, the omission or
amendment of any items or provisions therein. And the House of
Representatives may, if it thinks fit, make any of such
omissions or amendments, with or without modifications. Except
as provided in this section, the Senate shall have equal power
with the House of Representatives in respect of all proposed
laws.

54. The proposed law which appropriates revenue or moneys for

the ordinary annual services of the Government shall deal only
with such appropriation.

55. Laws imposing taxation shall deal only with the imposition
of taxation, and any provision therein dealing with any other
matter shall be of no effect. Laws imposing taxation, except
laws imposing duties of customs or of excise, shall deal with
one subject of taxation only; but laws imposing duties of
customs shall deal with duties of customs only, and laws
imposing duties of excise shall deal with duties of excise
only.

56. A vote, resolution, or proposed law for the appropriation

of revenue or moneys shall not be passed unless the purpose of
the appropriation has in the same session been recommended by
message of the Governor-General to the House in which the