Sex on the Beach: Swimwear and the Politics of Gender

Illustration by Mike Thompson.

As winter weather slowly starts to thaw and temperatures heat up, the inevitable bombardment of media compelling women to start working on their summer beach bodies begins. Every year, women are instructed to start thinking of themselves in terms of how they will look to others (presumably men), on the beach or at the local pool. 

“Beach bods” and “bikini-ready” are really different words for what is, essentially, the same message: that your body is not good enough as it is, and is certainly not good enough to be admired by someone you do not know, or really shown in public at all. 

If my language seems harsh, it’s warranted. Research has shown that, for some women, simply trying on a swimsuit is enough to trigger harmful behaviors, such as disordered eating. [1] Anecdotally, I know many woman-identified people who avoid any situation that involves swimming during the summer months — not because they hate swimming or can’t swim, but because they simply cannot stomach the torturous self-hatred and evaluation that purchasing and wearing a swimsuit entails. For these folks, beaches and pools are simply not worth it. 

“Gender-neutral clothing has slowly started to push back on mainstream boundaries, but the world of swimwear is still largely unswerving in its commitment to the gender binary. ”

Most women’s swimwear leaves something to be desired for those lumped into its targeted audience. Offerings in this area have only recently started to acknowledge those beyond a size twelve, those who have undergone partial or total mastectomies, and, apart from a few exceptions, haven’t acknowledged those whose bodies don’t conform to the conventional assumptions about gender and biology. Some women want to compress their breasts, not amplify them with fringe or under wire. Other women seek inventive — although no less stylish — ways to conceal their genitals; yet, there are very few options for these people.

These kinds of exclusions are important because they tell us something about what a “woman” is imagined — maybe even “supposed” — to be. Gender-neutral clothing has slowly started to push back on mainstream boundaries, but the world of swimwear is still largely unswerving in its commitment to the gender binary. Men’s and women’s swimwear remains distinct in the underlying assumptions about what a “male” body or a “female” body encompasses, and for those whose bodies do not reflect these assumptions, finding swimwear is often difficult, if not demoralizing; so much so that swimming itself might not be worth it, especially if it means adhering to a gendered presumption about who you are. In this light, the offerings available in mainstream women’s swimwear are not simply frivolous fashion fodder, but a reflection of how the boundaries of “male” and “female” are both imagined and enforced.

“Why is it that swimsuits are hyper-gendered? Is it simply because the bare body is a vulnerable body? A body vulnerable to cultural ideas about gender? ”

More than most other articles of clothing, swimwear reveals the body. Within the world of women’s swimwear, this is especially so. The offerings available are most often constructed to display the body in a way pleasing to the male gaze (rather than, say, to protect the body while swimming in open water). Considering this, it is perhaps not surprising that one of the most famous feminist protests involved women’s swimwear. Protesting the Miss America pageant in Atlantic City, 1968, feminists took issue with the organization’s swimsuit competition. In a now famous image from the protest, a woman holds a sign that says: “If you want meat, go to the butcher,” a comparison many feminists shared. [2] 

While the tradition of evaluating women’s bodies for a cis-male-bestowed crown was finally ended in the summer of 2018, the pageant’s role in shaping the world of women’s swimwear is undeniable. In an interview with Hirsuit founder Rachel Berks, Berks, speaking to the need for gender-neutral swimwear, observed: “You know, there’s just not a lot of options for a lot of folks who don’t want to wear a sexy bikini, or even a one-piece. There’s a lot of one-pieces out there but they’re high-cut or low-cut or spaghetti strap. I don’t necessarily want to wear a swimsuit that you would wear in a swimsuit competition.” [3] The seeming inseparability of conventional women’s swimwear and swimsuit competitions is even more obvious when acknowledging the origins of the Miss America pageant itself: an inter-city beauty competition that consisted solely of young women parading onstage in swimsuits, the winner granted a trophy. [4]

If the origins of the Miss America pageant tell us anything, it’s that women’s swimwear has a long, deep relationship with heteropatriarchal notions of beauty and womanliness; contemporary swimwear is in many ways inseparable from this very legacy. You simply cannot discuss the swimsuit — or swimming — without acknowledging the body politics wrapped up with it.  

Perspective

According to cultural studies scholar Jennifer Craik, as early as the Middle Ages, women in the Western world were discouraged from bathing and swimming, and entirely prohibited from doing so with members of the opposite sex. [5] These gender barriers in swimming persisted well into the recent past. As Jeff Wilste details in his book, Contested Waters: A Social History of Swimming Pools in America, the mass industrialization of urban areas throughout the eastern and midwestern United States meant that there were large groups of poor, unsupervised youth looking for places to cool off in the summer’s warmer months. Because swimwear wasn’t something most people of the lower classes could afford, most of the boys and men simply swam naked. 

Lower class girls and women, however, did not experience the same level of athletic freedom; both the high cost of swimwear and the prevailing notion that swimming was a masculine activity prohibited them from participating. [6] Swimming naked was not an option for girls and women, as their bodies were subject to a level of public morality their male peers’ were not. Prevailing cultural ideas about women’s bodies suggested that a woman’s physical fragility should prohibit any athletic recreation, as doing so compromised her most important duty: reproduction. [7] It was this idea that largely discouraged women who could afford swimsuits from actually doing so, and kept them out of the water completely. 

The longstanding gender barrier in swimming only started to change when it was discovered that women’s inability to swim posed a public health problem. As Marilyn Morgan outlines on her blog, Consuming Cultures, the sinking of The General Slocum steamboat in 1904 resulted in an estimated 978 deaths — mostly women and children. News reports detailed women refusing to jump ship, instead choosing to burn on board rather than risk drowning because they did not know how to swim. Reports of the tragedy observe that women drowned in what were, for men, shallow and easily navigable waters. The tragedy provoked public outcry and anxiety about the safety of women and children, for if women could not swim, then how could their children possibly learn? Public health campaigns were launched soon after, attempting to break down what was then a years-in-the-making gender barrier in swimming. Campaign materials urged women to challenge the gender norms of the time by appealing to their motherly instincts, displaying images of children with the question: “Who will teach me how to swim?” [8]

While social attitudes about women swimming were changing, the policing of women’s bodies was not. Early women’s swimsuits were so cumbersome they actually increased the risk of drowning for women. As Morgan describes them, women’s swimsuits involved multiple layers of “dark wool tights, knee-length bloomers, a sailor-style blouse with balloon sleeves, a belt or sash, and full, billowing skirt,” plus swimming shoes or boots. [9] It is estimated that the entire bathing outfit was roughly 30 pounds when wet. [10]

Learning to swim is already a difficult activity, but doing so in a heavy, absorbent woolen dress is nearly impossible. While this may seem illogical (the idea that women should swim, yet be forced to wear physically restrictive if not endangering garments while doing so), it is consistent with the larger, overarching logic regarding gender and clothing: that the clothing available and promoted at a given time both reflects and enforces the gender norms of the era. While bathing wear existed for women during this time, it was neither a fashionable item (i.e., it was not in fashion magazines or popularized as stylish) nor a functional one, in part because swimming was not a “women’s activity.” Swimwear as we know it did not yet exist because it conflicted so deeply with the gender norms surrounding femininity at the time. In other words, women’s swimwear didn’t exist because it was widely believed that women swimmers didn’t (and shouldn’t) either.  

“The story of Kellerman is significant because it shows us that women’s entrance to the world of swimming occurred by way of the sexual objectification of a woman’s body.”

The popularity of women’s swimming changed when, in 1905, 19 year-old Australian Annette Kellerman attempted to swim the English Channel. Although Kellerman failed to do so, the event garnered her significant attention from the international press, in part because of her homemade swimsuit. Kellerman wore a high-necked unitard that extended to just above her knees and elbows. Kellerman sewed black stockings to the legs, fully encasing her lower body in the black garment. [11] While modest by today’s standards, the figure-skimming outline of her bathing suit garnered her the title of “The Perfect Woman.” [12]

Kellerman went on to a lucrative career in film and vaudeville, diving and swimming her way to fame and influence. No doubt aware that her voluptuous figure was pleasurable to many of the audience members, Kellerman used her celebrity to promote women’s swimming. Touted as a way to maintain one’s “feminine figure,” Kellerman encouraged women to take up swimming as a beautification practice. Kellerman’s work had a significant impact: in 1912 women’s swimming was first included in the Olympics. [13]

The story of Kellerman is significant because it shows us that women’s entrance to the world of swimming occurred by way of the sexual objectification of a woman’s body. Kellerman and her homemade swimsuit are instructive for examining the fraught relationship between women’s bodies and fashion. Were it not for Kellerman’s defiant athletic acts and her DIY figure-hugging swimsuit, she might not have received the press attention she did, and thus might not have had the subsequent media platform to promote swimming as a viable athletic activity for women. 

As the General Slocum tragedy illustrates, women’s inability to swim was deadly at the time that Kellerman was promoting it as a beautification practice; in the end, swimming as a means to conventional beauty, rather than physical safety and well-being, provided the impetus for change. To be clear, Kellerman was most definitely a formidable athlete, whose defiance of societal gender roles changed history, leading scores of women to take up swimming. And yet,  in historical hindsight, it is difficult to see Kellerman’s influence over women’s swimming as unrelated to her physical attractiveness, and the course of women’s swimwear as unrelated to Kellerman’s contraption. The story of Kellerman raises the question: how might scores of women at the turn of the century have begun swimming without seeking approval from the male gaze?

Reality

This is a fraught reality: on the one hand, women refrained from swimming due to social convention and prohibitively expensive (and unduly cumbersome) swimwear; on the other, the promotion of swimming as a means to a better, more “attractive” figure convinced many women to start swimming. In either case, the pursuit of swimming as an activity for a woman’s own pleasure is, on the surface, lost. 

In both instances, the activity of female bodies is restricted by the ways in which they are viewed and approved of by (presumably) men. In this light, the evolution of swimsuit competitions seems inevitable; if swimwear developed as a way to pursue an attractive, feminine figure, then certainly swimsuits were the means through which women might be evaluated as such. At the same time, Kellerman’s impact on women’s swimming meant that as more women started to swim (in homemade swimsuits), the world of swimwear took notice. As women started to challenge gender norms in swimming, companies eventually started to manufacture functional women’s swimwear. 

It wasn’t until the 1920s that fashion magazines started to promote swimwear as a stylish garment, something that the newly liberated, “modern” woman needed in her wardrobe. These swimsuits, while in many ways more gender-neutral by today’s standards, still worked to keep the gender binary firmly intact. Skirts, caps, belts, and robes for women’s swimming attire provided clear and publicly enforceable distinctions on the beach and at the pool. [14] Designed with gender-specific features, swimwear enabled the enforcement of public decency laws, which assured an anxious society that the 1920’s woman was not threatening any gender boundaries. The enforcement of these laws on beaches provided a sort of gender lesson: should anyone else step too far outside the prescribed norms, this could be you. [15] So, while swimwear became functional (i.e., allowing women to swim safely), it remained tethered to the gendered presumptions about the person wearing it. 

Convention

The shifting conventions in women’s swimwear reflect the cultural shifts in gender norms, especially notions about what a woman is, or should be. However, while history shows us how the gender norms of femininity have shifted, they nonetheless remain tethered to a binary system, wherein masculinity and cis-maleness reign supreme. Thus, while women’s swimming has meant the advent of women’s swimwear, the conventions that shape it remain largely exclusive and decidedly binary.

For these very reasons, pools and beaches are often hostile to non-binary, trans, and gender-fluid folks. Athletics, bathrooms, and locker-rooms remain highly gendered spaces, wherein sex segregation most often relies on the notion that one’s gender originates in one’s genitals, an outdated idea that works to alienate if not exclude those whose gender identity does not easily fit within the rigid gender binary. 

For non-binary and trans individuals, sex-segregated spaces can feel uncomfortable if not dangerous, as the enforcement of the boundaries of these spaces often lands on their physical bodies. While some pools have instated trans and gender-fluid pool nights, they remain the exception rather than the rule. Overwhelmingly, inadequate facilities and hostility from other patrons mean that for people whose gender expression does not easily or neatly fit within the binary, swimming is simply not worth it. 

“Conventional” is, however, a shifting terrain in the world of women’s swimwear. The world of swimwear is adapting, and for good reason. As Rachel Berks has stated, “There are people coming out now that are addressing and trying to break down the binary in terms of fashion choices, Hirsuit being one of a handful of brands out there trying to do this. We’re going to see more and more options, not just for swim…I think we’re still in a place where there’s not a lot of people thinking about non-binary choices—choices for people who don’t quite fit along these lines, and I am definitely excited about being able to offer that in a swimsuit.” [16] These options are not only long overdue, but are a sign of the times, and the times are changing.

Notes

[1] Fredickson, B.L., et al. “That Swimsuit Becomes You: Sex Differences in Self-Objectification, Restrained Eating, and Math Performance.” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology Vol. 75 No. 1 (1998): 269-84.

[2] Bland, Karina. “A Miss America Protest Propelled the Women’s Movement into National Spotlight.” USA Today. Oct. 16th, 2018.

[3] Author interview with Rachel Berks, November 23rd, 2018.

[4] “Miss America: Our History” from https://missamerica.org/organization/history/.

[5] Craik, Jennifer. “States of Undress: Lingerie to Swimwear,” from The Face of Fashion: Cultural Studies in Fashion, pp. 115-52

[6] Wiltse, Contested Waters, pp. 2-8.

[7] McCrone, Kathleen. Playing the Game: Sport and the Physical Emancipation of English Women, 1870-1914, pp. 192-215.

[8] Marilyn Morgan, “Drowning in Culture: Gender, Swimming & Stereotypes,” from Consuming Cultures. Available at: www.consumingcultures.net/author/admin.

[9] Morgan, “Bodysuits & Boots: Early Swimsuits for Women,” from Consuming Cultures.

[10] Craik, p. 144.

[11] Craik p. 146; Morgan, “The ‘Million Dollar Mermaid’ Revolutionizes Women’s Swimwear” from Consuming Cultures.

[12] This title was awarded to Kellerman by Dudley Sargent, a Harvard researcher who compared Kellerman’s physique to the Venus Di Milo. See: Morgan, “The ‘Million Dollar Mermaid’ Revolutionizes Women’s Swimwear” from Consuming Cultures.

[13] Craik, p. 144-6.

[14] Craik, p. 144-5.

[15] See Chris Wild, “The Swimsuit Police” at: https://mashable.com/2015/05/27/swimsuit-police/.

[16] Interview, Nov. 23rd, 2018.