For female athletes and those that have periods, Wimbledon's dress code has raised questions of inclusivity and attitudes towards women in sport.
and should be treated privately, the responsibility should not land on female athletes to challenge this problematic perception. Professional tennis players such as Rennae Stubbs, who has played at Wimbledon three times in her career, and Russian-French player Tatiana Golovin agreed that it’s a very real source of anxiety, shame and distress for players, which has the power to affect their performance.
“I think it might have been the one time that I actually left the court at Wimbledon, when I did have my period,” Stubbs told. “The match went three sets and I had to go off and change.” Golovin adds that wearing darker shorts – as she was scolded for doing in 2007 – is more comfortable. “It’s very tricky to wear white because you have the photographers, you have pictures everywhere, you’re sliding on the court, you’re falling, you’re playing, your skirt’s flying up,” she says.
For decades, womenswear on the court has been carefully policed. After Alize Cornet’s red briefs became visible during a match in 2013, rules were tightened the following year to ‘crack down’ on the so-called scandalous attire. In 2017, Venus Williams was made to change her underwear mid way through a game because her pink bra-straps were visible.
It’s no coincidence that society’s simultaneous, paradoxical objectification of and discomfort with the female body is reflected in its squeamish response to athletes’ underwear in particular, but Wimbledon’s dress code simply ignores the biological, physical and emotional impact a period can have on a person, and calls to change it reflect the success of campaigns that aim to destigmatise periods.
At the French Open earlier this year, Chinese player Qinwen Zheng spoke candidly about how her period held her back in a game against Iga Swiatek, explaining that a leg injury was ‘easy’ compared to the pain of period cramps. “If I don’t have my stomach [pain], I think I could…run better and hit harder, to give more effort on court. It’s a pity that I couldn’t give what I wanted to give," she explained.
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