Elite male athletes play in shorts and tank tops, women basically in bikinis (opinion)

Editor’s Note: Jill Filipovic is a journalist based in New York and author of the book “OK Boomer, Let’s Talk: How My Generation Got Left Behind.” Follow her on Twitter. Last week, former President Donald Trump, for example, encouraged a crowd to boo the US women’s soccer team competing at the Tokyo Olympics and said, “Americans were happy” when the team lost to Sweden because he considered the American women too outspokenly progressive.. Some authoritarian and conservative nations ban women from even attending sporting events, and many impose modesty codes so strict that it’s difficult or impossible for their female athletes to compete at elite levels. Still, there is steady progress: This year, the International Olympic Committee issued media guidance encouraging broadcasters to avoid sexualizing women and to treat all athletes with integrity, advising them to “not focus unnecessarily on looks, clothing or intimate body parts.” It’s sad that needs to be said, but it does. It would be easy to say “let women wear what they want,” but of course in elite sports, it’s more complicated than that: An even playing field requires some standardization of uniforms, as even a tiny change in a tiny garment can give a competitor enough of an edge to win.