Maltese Olympian Feels ‘Appreciated’ As A Female Weightlifter But Is ‘Disappointed’ At How Other Women In Sports Are Treated
Maltese Olympian Yazmin Zammit Stevens said that although she feels appreciated as a female weightlifter, she’s disappointed at the adverse treatment that other female athletes are forced to endure.
Lovin Malta reached out to Stevens to ask about what she thinks regarding the Norwegian handball team being fined for refusing to wear bikini bottoms during a game in the sport’s Euro 2021 tournament.
“Every single sport has their own rules about competition wear; for example in weightlifting, it must be a one-piece that doesn’t go further down than your knees and is tight-fitting,” Stevens explained.
“However, what bothers me a lot about the Norwegian situation is that men are allowed to compete in shorts, but women aren’t? Of course, this is outrageous, especially since we’re living in 2021. It really bothers me that these things still happen in our day and age,” she continued.
Norwegian Handball team in shorts instead of bikini bottoms
Stevens then detailed her own experience as a woman in weightlifting, and thankfully, it was all positive. She explained that she’s treated very fairly in all aspects of the sport, ranging from uniform to representation.
“I feel very lucky to be a female weightlifter, but I also feel very disappointed that other female athletes from other sports might not be getting the same treatment.”
This year’s Olympics saw a couple of uniform controversies that raised concerns about whether female athletes are sexualised in the realm of sports.
The German gymnast team took on said sexualisation by choosing to wear full-body unitards as opposed to the classic leotards.
Sarah Voss, who forms part of the national German gymnastics team, said that she was proud of her decision and that it stemmed from her own feelings of discomfort in the conventional leotards.
“As a little girl, I didn’t see the tight gym outfits as such a big deal. But when puberty began, when my period came, I began feeling increasingly uncomfortable.”
Sexualisation and abuse in sports is a historic issue that has only recently started to be protested.
For years, athletes have had their value reduced to their physicality and have been treated as objects that were made to win medals while their desperation to make it (due to extreme exclusivity) has been manipulated to facilitate and normalise such abuse.
Larry Nassar has become a symbol of this.
He was a sports doctor who got away with decades of sexual assault and harrassment of young gymnasts despite repeat reports of his extremely inappropriate behaviour.
The “wonderful doctor” persona that he perpetuated, and others blindly or conveniently believed, condemned more than 150 women and girls to trauma that will last a lifetime.
The Ballet industry has also fostered its fair share of exploitation and now, several esteemed dancers have stepped forward to demand change.
American Ballet Theatre principal ballerina Misty Copeland shared a recent interview with Makhar Vaziev, the artistic director of the prestigious Bolshoi Theatre, in which he essentially tried to discredit allegations of sexual abuse in the industry by calling them “unreliable stories” that would originate from “men looking at women the wrong way” or touching “knees and shoulders”.
Copeland deemed this mentality as an antiquated one that allows sexual exploitation to go unpunished.
Peter Martins, a widely respected former director of the New York City Ballet, has recently resigned amidst allegations of sexual harassment and physical abuse.
The stories are endless and they are all rooted in a shared mentality that puts the sport before the athlete. It’s about time that this erroneous mind set is transformed.
What do you think about the sexualisation of athletes?
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