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FIS Replaces 'Ladies' with 'Women'

marzNC

Angel Diva
Wearing jeans was not ladylike.
I was required to wear skirts or dresses for elementary school in NYC in the 1960s. Hated them. One of the bonuses for going to North Country School for middle school was that everyone wore jeans. I was the only practical approach in the middle of the Adirondacks with a working farm where the kids were outside every day, regardless of the weather. A few years later, I was headed to a prep school near Boston for girls (my mother's idea). Skirts were required for classes when we visited before I applied. But I got lucky. The winter before I started was very cold. There was a "temporary" change in the dress code to allow nice slacks (no jeans). By the time spring arrived, the teachers (mostly women) were supportive of the idea of not going back to the old dress code. So the class of 1974 was the first where boarders only needed to wear a skirt once a week for Sunday dinner.

I was lucky to have a mother who both understood social norms and my personality. I was a tomboy from the start. When I started nursery school (pre-K, age 4), she dressed me in pants knowing that I would be running around and climbing stuff in the playground. Apparently within the first week, the young teacher had "a talk" with her to try to convince her that pants were inappropriate for a girl. What the teacher didn't know was that my mother wasn't the average stay-at-home mom. She had a Ph.D. in Social Work with a specialty in Child Development. I'm sure my mother was very diplomatic, but I got to keep wearing pants.
 

Ski Sine Fine

Angel Diva
As late as the 1950s in the U.S. there were colleges that were restricted to men only
My alma mater’s titular college did not go coed until 1983. The engineering school under the same university, on the other hand, had always admitted women. There was a chapter of the Society of Women Engineers on campus. I joked I didn’t know you could get a degree in women engineering. Thought we were just engineers. I was young and naive. I didn’t understand the headwind women would encounter in engineering and technology.

I grew up with brothers. I was such a tomboy I always disliked the toy presents I got as a young girl — tea sets, dolls — how are they fun? I’d rather get what my brothers got — models, cars, action figures. In the early 90’s, I had a manager who got Christmas presents for his section. The men got Swiss Army knives and the women got potpourri pots. I was not happy. I wanted the Swiss Army knife! The pot never got used and I finally threw it out after 20 years.

I had to wear a uniform skirt for elementary school but slowly developed a dislike for skirts and dresses. We began to wear shorts underneath our skirts because we noticed one of the assistant principals would stand at the bottom of the staircase and look up our skirts. What a creep. As an adult, I have the obligatory dresses and accessories for formal occasions, and pantsuits for work, but mostly I’m in shirts and jeans.
 

ski diva

Administrator
Staff member
They didn't change the dress code at my school until my junior year. Until then, girls had to wear skirts or dresses -- no slacks or jeans! I remember waiting for the bus absolutely freezing; it was nuts.

I also remember all the girls had to take home ec, which was sewing and cooking, and all the boys had to take shop, which was woodworking and metalwork. I hated home ec.

And in high school, all the girls had to wear these awful one piece gym suits. We had to embroider our names on the back, which was absolute torture for me. I can't sew now, and I couldn't sew then.

This isn't me, but this is what it looked like (it's even the right color!):

7b58b666659fa4df8be545f7aac94a65--elementary-schools-high-schools.jpg

This thread has come a long way from the FIS changing the designation from "Ladies" to "Women," but I think it's good to reflect on how things have changed. Not that we don't have a long way to go. We do. But it's better than it was. And yes, words matter. I'm fully in support of the change.
 

liquidfeet

Ski Diva Extraordinaire
Oh, I had to wear one of those gym suits. It was horrid. And I had to have my name embroidered on it too. What was that all about?

The legs on mine had elastic on them, so they clung to one's thighs. These gym suits insured that no one could look up your pants, and the shirt would never come untucked, so no one could ever look up the shirt. We were COVERED. I didn't realize the why back then. It's clear to me now.

Ugly they were, difficult to deal with when going to the bathroom, and I had a low waist but the waist on this thing was high, way above my navel. When I bent forward it gave me a wedgie. Oh how I hated that thing.
 

santacruz skier

Angel Diva
This isn't me, but this is what it looked like (it's even the right color!):

index.php
Hey we wore those in SF only ours were a little shorter with cuffs.
 

Jilly

Moderator
Staff member
OMG...I had to wear those too. They had to be either grey or blue...school colours. So glad I took, phys ed for leisure in grade 12. White t shirt, blue shorts. Don't remember elastic at the legs, but the fit was terrible...
 

marzNC

Angel Diva
I only had to wear the one-piece for 9th grade. I think freshmen had a different color than other classes. Was talking to an older woman this evening at a graduation party for a former classmate of my daughter. She's from a family who have been in North Carolina for a long time. Also had to wear a one-piece gym suit. I thought it was only something required at girls' schools in New England. Had no idea it was so universal in that era!
 

MissySki

Angel Diva
I went to Catholic school from Kindergarten through 8th grade so girls wore jumpers in elementary school and then eventually skirts in middle school. We could wear pants in the winter though I didn’t, I’d wear tights under my skirt on really cold days though which were also allowed in the winter. We had uniforms for gym class, but they were identical for girls and guys with shorts/sweatpants/t-shirts/sweatshirts.

For me it was great overall though because I was a super girly girl and I actually despised pants and refused to wear them at all in my younger years apparently lol. I don’t remember this, but my mom said she’d put them on and I’d take them off, I was definitely never a tomboy. This caused some issues on the playground because I didn’t understand why I couldn’t hang upside down on the monkey bars in a dress.. I do wear pants now obviously, but I tend towards skirts and dresses more still to this day when I have a choice and often to work even in the winter.
 

SallyCat

Ski Diva Extraordinaire
Weirdly, I think sports uniforms for girls (I say "girls" because I'm speaking of middle- and high-school students here) can be awkward in sort of the opposite way from the kooky gym uniform above. Girls' volleyball and cross-country uniform shorts are so minimal and form-fitting that I would have been embarrassed as a teenager to wear them on the court or in a race. I wonder how many girls shy away from certain sports because the uniforms are savagely unforgiving to all but the most rail-thin body types?
 

Abbi

Ski Diva Extraordinaire
They didn't change the dress code at my school until my junior year. Until then, girls had to wear skirts or dresses -- no slacks or jeans! I remember waiting for the bus absolutely freezing; it was nuts.

I also remember all the girls had to take home ec, which was sewing and cooking, and all the boys had to take shop, which was woodworking and metalwork. I hated home ec.

And in high school, all the girls had to wear these awful one piece gym suits. We had to embroider our names on the back, which was absolute torture for me. I can't sew now, and I couldn't sew then.

This isn't me, but this is what it looked like (it's even the right color!):

View attachment 10930

This thread has come a long way from the FIS changing the designation from "Ladies" to "Women," but I think it's good to reflect on how things have changed. Not that we don't have a long way to go. We do. But it's better than it was. And yes, words matter. I'm fully in support of the change.

ACK!!! That was my high school gym uniform too! Name not required, but .... What a scary flashback!
 

BlueSkies

Ski Diva Extraordinaire
Argh... the memories. I had forgotten those hated gym uniforms. Ours were navy, no elastic. And the fit was terrible, We also had ugly (blue) swim suits for swim lessons at the local Y.

Also a tomboy- my mother had me change to jeans as soon as I got home from school so I wouldn't destroy my dresses, but she sent me off to college in northern NY with a trunk full of skirts. (Mini even, it was the sixties.) That lasted maybe a month and I don't think I wore a skirt again until I had job interviews senior year. These days I rarely wear one.

The engineering school under the same university, on the other hand, had always admitted women.

My engineering school had always admitted women too, but until about 2 years before I started the women were housed at nearby women's college complete with curfews. My freshman year freshmen women, while now housed on campus, still had curfews (men did not!) It was a rebellious time, by the following year there were no curfews and the first co-ed dorms were set up.
 

mustski

Angel Diva
Weirdly, I think sports uniforms for girls (I say "girls" because I'm speaking of middle- and high-school students here) can be awkward in sort of the opposite way from the kooky gym uniform above. Girls' volleyball and cross-country uniform shorts are so minimal and form-fitting that I would have been embarrassed as a teenager to wear them on the court or in a race. I wonder how many girls shy away from certain sports because the uniforms are savagely unforgiving to all but the most rail-thin body types?
In CA, girls of all sizes and shapes like ‘em short and tight. My biggest battle as a MS theater teacher was getting them NOT to strip down to bras and underwear in our communal dressing area. I even had PARENTS argue with me that it was better coverage than the beach, therefore appropriate! The girls always roll the waist of their PEshorts so they’re super short. They expose stuff you and I never would!
 

Mary Tee

Angel Diva
Ours were white, no elastic on legs...I do believe white is even more unflattering than blue!
 

ski diva

Administrator
Staff member
:focus: Moving away from the gym suit discussion.....

Another incident of women being judged by a different standard in skiing:

Did you know that women's ski jumping was not allowed in the Olympics until 2014? In fact, until then it was only one of two Olympic sports from which women were barred (the other was Nordic combined). In 2009, influential IOC member and FIS president Gian Franco Kasper even told National Public Radio that ski jumping “seems not to be appropriate for ladies from a medical point of view.” The FIS also maintained that women's ski jumping lacked universality – even though it had more athletes and more countries competing internationally at the elite level than other Winter Olympic sports for women. For example, in 2006, women's ski jumping had 83 athletes from 14 nations competing at the highest levels; skier cross had 30 athletes from 11 nations; bobsleigh 26 athletes from 13 nations, luge had 45 athletes from 17 nations, and skeleton had 39 athletes from 12 nations.

What did it take to be included? A law suit, of course. In 2008, Americans Lindsey Van, Jessica Jerome, and retired jumper Karla Keck, teamed up with 12 women jumpers from five countries to sue the Vancouver Organizing Committee (VANOC) for their right to compete in the 2010 Olympic Winter Games. The British Columbia Supreme Court declared that the IOC exhibited gender discrimination by excluding women’s ski jumping from the Vancouver Games, but stopped short of forcing VANOC and the IOC to hold an event for women.

On April 6, 2011, the IOC finally announced that a women’s ski jumping event would be added to the 2014 Sochi Olympic Winter Games program. The women have one event — normal hill competition. The men have three events (normal hill, large hill, and team competition). WSJ-USA leaders continue to lobby to reach parity in ski jumping in the Winter Games.
 

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