Why do men and women have different sports uniforms?

When Gabi Zielinski first started running in college at the University of Wisconsin, she hated her uniform. The top wasn’t cut right, and the stretchy bottoms flared weirdly at the hips. “Unless you were an hourglass shape, you didn’t fill it out,” she says. “It just didn’t make you feel super confident going to the line.”

But the men’s uniforms were totally different. Instead of ill-fitting spandex, they wore lightweight singlets and split shorts, designs that were much better at wicking away sweat than the women’s kit. Zielinski remembers wishing she could switch out her shorts, or opt for a men’s uniform instead — but unfortunately, that would have violated NCAA rules. 

Zielinski’s experience is far from unique. Look at almost any level, and you’ll find that sports have different uniform standards for men and women. These differences were recently thrown into stark relief when Nike unveiled its uniforms for the US Olympic track and field team, which featured a pair of women’s briefs cut so high that wearing them would require athletes to get a Brazilian wax. 

The design immediately sparked controversy. Some people saw them as overly-sexualized, while others argued the bottoms could be empowering. But debates like this beg the question: Why do men and women have different uniforms in the first place? 

The rise of ‘skirt sports’

When the modern Olympics kicked off in 1896, the idea of designing athletic clothes for women would have seemed laughable to most people. Pierre de Coubertin, the Games’ founder, (in)famously remarked that allowing women to compete would be “impractical, uninteresting and improper.” Many considered it outright dangerous.

“For a very long time, people believed that sporting activity was actually bad for women’s health,” says Katharina Jungnickel, a sociologist at Goldsmiths University of London who specializes in gender and wearable tech. Victorian-era doctors feared that sports would harm women’s delicate constitution, make them infertile, or worse — turn them into men. A strict gender binary needed to be maintained, and clothing was a way to reinforce that divide.

Women’s fashion of the era was built around lots of fabric: layers of long skirts, heavy coats, tight corsets, blouses, along with veils, hats, and gloves. “Needless to say, very little of this worked when trying to be physically active,” Jungnickel says. 

But that didn’t mean women didn’t want to be active. By the late 1800s, a handful of rogue designers and seamstresses began crafting convertible garments, such as skirts that could split into bloomers or be pinned into capes. These innovations allowed European and American women to quickly switch from daily pursuits to sportier activities, like riding a bicycle — all without having to change clothes or scandalize their neighbors. 

By the turn of the century, women had successfully lobbied for entry in the Olympics as well. A total of 22 female athletes competed in five sports at the 1900 Paris Games. These events — tennis, sailing, croquet, golf and equestrian — were selected because officials deemed them appropriately feminine. “They actually tried to write into the rules that women could not compete in any Olympic event in which they could not wear a long skirt,” says Jaime Schultz, a  kinesiologist at Penn State University and author of "Regulating Bodies: Elite Sport Policies and Their Unintended Consequences."

These “skirt sports,” officials reasoned, were a good compromise between women’s rights activists and the male-dominated athletic establishment. They allowed women to vie for a medal without the risk of becoming overly fatigued or masculinized, and over the next fifty years, the Olympic Games slowly began to open more events to women. Masculine-coded sports like track and field, however, remained controversial until the 1960s – and even after women gained entry, their athletic gear remained something of an afterthought.

‘Shrink it and pink it’

Throughout the 20th century, athletic clothing brands started trying to capitalize on the growing feminine market. However, many weren’t willing to spend extra money tailoring clothes specifically for women’s bodies. Instead, they repurposed existing men’s wear lines with a new color pallet and size range.

“There’s a term for it: Shrink it and pink it,” says Kami Beckendorf, lead designer for the women’s athletic apparel company Oiselle. But this one-style-fits-all approach didn't work well for many female athletes.

There are some legitimate physiological reasons athletes of different genders might need different clothes. Namely, “women and men need support in different places,” says Schultz. 

Support isn’t the only consideration — even something as innocuous as a uniform’s color can make a big difference. White is a pretty standard-issue color for shorts among men's sports teams. But for people who menstruate, light-colored bottoms can become an unwelcome distraction. A recent study found that women’s soccer teams with white uniform shorts performed markedly worse than those wearing darker colors. No such effect existed for men. When asked about their uniforms, the female players reported experiencing period anxiety while wearing light-colored shorts.

But other gendered differences persist for less practical reasons. Female gymnasts, for example, are still expected to wear high-cut leotards, while male gymnasts wear more modest one-pieces. And women’s beach volleyball players were required to wear bikini bottoms with a maximum side width of 10 centimeters until Norway challenged the international rules 2021. “If there was a physiological advantage, then men and women would be wearing the same thing,” Schultz says.

These rules linger in part because “a lot of sports organizations have constitutions that were written years and years ago,” says Rachel Batty, a professor of sports management at Massey University in New Zealand. Certain gendered conventions — like giving women skirts or skimpy briefs — have become baked into their codes over time.

Research also backs up the idea that governing bodies are more likely to prioritize marketability and visual impact over athlete comfort when regulating women’s uniforms. In a recent survey of New Zealand’s national sports organizations, Batty and her co-authors found that fewer than 50% consulted their female athletes on uniform design.  “In the minds of a lot of that old school leadership, to make women’s sport exciting, you have to sexualize it,” says Katie Lebel, a sports marketing researcher at the University of Guelph. 

For some professional athletes, revealing or form-fitting uniforms can be empowering. They can even help female athletes secure sponsorships, which are difficult to come by in less mainstream sports. For other women, though, these designs can feel awkward or even humiliating. Even an individual uniform can be a mixed bag: At the beginning of her professional running career, Zeilinski recalls falling in love with racing briefs her sponsor gave her – but the kit's tight crop top made her self-conscious in a way that previous singlets had not, which in turn made it harder to perform.

Uniforms can also become a serious barrier to entry for young athletes. According to one survey, up to 43% of teenage girls who start sports in middle or elementary school quit in high school, compared to just 24% of teen boys. Many of them cite uniforms as a reason. One of the athletes I spoke with for this piece eventually dropped out of collegiate running because she felt so uncomfortable wearing the team briefs. “We are losing people who are talented because they don’t like how they feel in their uniforms,” Lebel says. 

Girls just want to have options

So, what does this mean for the future of women’s sports wear? Most experts agree that the solution isn’t getting rid of conventional uniforms — it’s giving women the option to choose what makes them feel most comfortable. Throughout her research, Batty says, one key message has emerged again and again: “Athletes just wanted choice.” 

Not all women athletes want the same features in their competition kit (and many men, one imagines, may feel the same). Despite the pushback Nike received on its ultra high-cut women’s briefs for the US Olympic track team, the company did provide the athletes with a range of options; women track athletes were free to wear the spicy briefs, but they could choose spandex shorts, half tights or split shorts instead. They also had their pick of tops, from loose-fitting singlets to a tight crop. 

The next frontier for women’s uniforms might be making this variety available in other sports and at other levels of competition. “It sounds silly, but I hear it time and time again from other athletes,” says Zielinski, “You look good, you feel good, you race good.”