An ad campaign launched this week, with Great Britain 7s players featuring in an advertisement for undies. I say undies but it was really her fancy cousin,✨ lingerie ✨. Feelings in response have been big, including my own. But I am going to attempt to do the thing that both the internet and opinion columns are known for and embrace some nuance.
To do that, let’s start at the place where I’ve seen most folks in alignment. This is not a commentary on the athletes themselves. If you read my writing, I take it as read that we all have at least a Barbie movie understanding of feminism. Their choice to get that bag and sell undies - sorry, ✨ lingerie ✨ - is just that. Theirs.
But before we chalk this campaign as a win for all women, I think we are going to have to move beyond the second wave and look at some of those pesky intersections. Unfortunately, no person is an island and so we are all informed by the inlets of our lived experience.
I do not discount that for many, seeing strong equated with beauty and femininity spotlighted in this traditionally masculine setting, meant something. I too came of age in the early 2000s, when ‘Nothing tastes as good as skinny feels’ was the GIRL POWER of its day. My butt, like my eyebrows, would not become fashionable until well after I left high school. Rude.
I was called a dyke for playing rugby at this time. Called a man by the boys on athletics day, when I was too good to be told I played like a girl. I found these comments struck at something at my core. They rang in my head much longer than the memory of anyone who said them. I understand now, of course, that’s because I am a big ol’ butch lesbian.
Which is to say I also understand the power of reclamation. Standing in the truth of who you are can make you feel bulletproof. Heck, put me on a billboard in all my glory for the world to see. If I did that though, what message would that communicate? Would it be in alignment with my intention? Or would it be interpreted through your lived experience?
Put me in a lingerie advert and I don’t think the marketing team would opt for the “strong is beautiful” tagline. No, it would probably be something about being “brave” or “playing with Pride”. My body and it’s presentation would be political.
The spoiler alert of course, is that all of ours are.
Simply being in possession of a woman's body in public is scandalous. We are supposed to be tucked away in kitchens after all. Society has spent a lot of time carving what they currently believe to be the beautiful woman box. If we aren’t successfully fitting into this box or worse still, failing to feel adequate amounts of shame about our fit, the whole world must be called to attention.
And only one thing can resolve this, team. Capitalism.
I was feeling self conscious and then I saw a little squat bottle and all my body issues disappeared, thanks Dove!
The advertising campaigns do their best to sell us on our problems and then present their solutions to get us womenfolk back in our boxes. When they run out of ideas for one box, they think outside it and create another. The super skinny ideal of my teen years was replaced by Kim Kardashian curves in my twenties. The box is now flexing as the ideal has grown muscles. Is this progress? Or is this marketing? Making sure that none of us can feel comfortable in our skin long enough to stop buying things.
Women wearing underwear to sell underwear to women is what it is. Sales. It’s a long bow to draw to say that the little Emily’s who might see this ad will discover a love for rugby. More likely they will discover, quicker than I, their love for women.
That’s fine, it’s all fine. It’s just not so lofty in its ideals as the campaign's hashtag is trying to communicate. I’m going to blow your mind here and say, honestly, not everything women in sports do has to be inspiring. When Dan Carter pops up in an ad for the Chemist Warehouse, nobody is writing about how this representation is a game changer for brown haired boys' access to discount cologne.
The trouble here is that our visibility for women in rugby is still so limited, that any action is outsized in its impact. We’ve seen this reported time and time again across sports sponsorship analysis. Brands attached to our communities see bumper results. So we understand why the undies company wanted to clip this ticket but it’s also perhaps predictable that it came with an opening act of outrage.
That the response to this advertisement has split people into two camps is so very feminism. We’ve done this dance before during the sex wars of the 70s and 80s. We ended that battle by agreeing to disagree and I think that’s what we have to do here.
Some women see it and now feel they can be it. Others see another beauty ideal outside of their reach. Teenage rugby players sit awkwardly on the sideline, wondering why the brand dropped them off here. The good thing is we don’t all agree. And that is the true mark of progress beneath all the chiffon.
For me, it’s a timely reminder that no person is an island. And even if they were, we still sit in the harbour of capitalism, under the watchful eye of our patriarchal colonisers. Our actions are informed by these lived experiences. And our cheerleaders and detractors are too.
An ad selling undies is not going to change that.
With you,
Alice
Lots to ponder. Recently been enjoying some more fancy undies myself....