‘I never questioned the need for skimpy leotards’: a reflection on the sexualisation of Women’s Gymnastics

With the issue of competition uniform high on the radar for those in the gymnastics world following Sarah Voss’ strong stand at the European Championships, Bunny Ladd reflects on her experiences with sexualisation and body image growing up in the sport.

At the excitable age of six I was down at the furthest reaches of the Cornish coast in Sennen, having just enjoyed a beach BBQ, cartwheeling, and attempting handstands with my friend, Lily, when her parents suggested that mum should take me to a trial gymnastics session at the local club.

Gymnastics and I got along instantly, with the natural ease of old school friends who’d not met for many years. Within weeks, we’d fallen into sync with each other’s way of being. I often found myself completely without thought at the gymnastics club, calmly complying with each apparatus.

Of course, as the years toppled on and competition pressure grew alongside terrifying leaps of progression within skills, my comfort with the sport was tested. External influences begun to twist the style of my passion, turning it from a fluid syncopation of my body’s capabilities to a demanding and testing trial of perseverance and tolerance. But despite these difficulties, my authentic love for the sport never dwindled. In the last couple years however, memories of my training days are starting to come into a sharpened focus.

From the impressionable eyes of a child, it was simply a matter of doing as I was told. But the emergence of recent scandals regarding abusive coaching, body image and sexualization of female gymnasts shocked me to the core and have changed my perspective immeasurably.

In reaction, my brand, Ladd Lemmel (in partnership with Rival Kit), has focused on sportswear that empowers women across artistic and acrobatic sports: sportwear that communicates artistic aesthetics and a love for expressive movement. During my research for the collection, I learnt so much and would like to share with you what I consider to be the most important and poignant findings.

Training daily for many years, my ability to perform gymnastics evolved from a naïve adoration for non-sensical movement into an innate connection with my physical strength, flexibility, and coordination. With that connection came a confidence in my body’s capabilities, a knowledge that I could rely on it. If I cherished and looked after it, I would be able to activate my body at its full capacity, somersaulting, leaping and circling apparatus unaware of anyone or anything. Solely focused on the raw capacity of my own capability. The athleticism I had achieved was something I was unwaveringly proud of – I took pride in my angular form, the muscles I had earned which had earned me so much. But as I moved into secondary school, I noticed the girls in my classes had begun to develop and I hadn’t.

Whilst it is common for competitive athletes, especially gymnasts, to develop much later I still felt insecure. And as my classmates began to embrace their womanhood I felt left behind, often teased and mocked for my ‘masculine shoulders’ or ‘muscular calves’.

I felt like I must’ve looked so peculiar to everyone around me, and I started seeing my own body with a warped exaggeration that peers had projected into my mind.

It made me feel a lack of worth, because my body wasn’t idealised or talked about how the other girl’s bodies were. But equally, I found the way they would talk about the other girls was insensitive, as though their bodies were merely objects. It left me very confused.

The first time my view rotated into a more grounded slot was after listening to Emma Watson’s 2014 ‘HeForShe’ speech at a UN conference. For a couple years before I began wondering if there were ways to get rid of muscle mass, I would regularly research whether you could exercise without gaining muscle.

Eventually, I began skipping meals. Coaches often remarked on my sudden weight loss, and I was looked at with less scorn in school. Meanwhile, family members would comment along the lines of ‘be careful you don’t want to waste away.’

I was left confused again – all the beauty magazines and films depicted the skinniest women as the most important and valued, yet with the increased discussion around body image and feminism I was being told it didn’t matter what you looked like. It was the strong, talented, intelligent, and determined women that were the most important.

The truth is that all women are equally important, regardless of their career success or physical appearance. But at the impressionable age of 15 at a big secondary school in Cornwall, this was impossible to grasp and skipping meals felt like the only way to get noticed.

Emma Watson said in her UN speech “I was being told I was bossy at the age of eight for wanting to direct plays and the boys were not. At fourteen I started to be sexualised by certain elements of the media. At fifteen my friends started dropping out of their beloved sports teams because they didn’t want to become muscly.”

The chord was suddenly struck. I was foregoing the one thing in my life at that time that my mind and body understood with ease and authentic joy. Even today, I find it difficult to describe the feeling of somersaulting through air and allowing your body to take you away: no one can be with you during a somersault, and you can’t be interrupted during a turn on the bars - and that is exactly where the magic lies. Your body is a truly wonderful piece of art and engineering. Gymnastics is an absolute exploration of its athletic capabilities and, once the techniques are mastered, it wanders into an automatic artistic expression of the human form. It is a sport that needs to get through the troubles.

As my gymnastics career slowed due to injury, I began to develop and finally started gaining feminine features. I was pleased to fit in with my classmates, but just as one world eased another grew more difficult. I was standing alone on the floor, waiting for my routine music to start. Previously this was a place of joyous exposure; I would revel in showing off my ability to fly and my starting pose would ensure the right amount of adrenaline and excitement to prepare me for the routine ahead. But one day as I stood there, the judges pens’ poised and teammates looking on, I felt exposed. I felt strange, as if I had surpassed my time and my body was embarrassingly exposed in the tight sparkly leotard I had worn as a child.

Because I knew no different, I never questioned the need for such skimpy leotards.

After the 2018 Larry Nassar case, where 156 women confronted the former USA Olympic team doctor, there was a realisation that if this was going unnoticed at the highest levels, how often was it occurring across the entirety of the community?

In 2018 when the Larry Nassar case was broadcast, Aly Raisman’s speech picked away to the very core of the abuse, concisely locating the point of the pain inflicted into so many women by this toxic man.

“You already know you are going away to a place where you won’t be able to hurt anybody ever again, but I am here to tell you that I will not rest until every last trace of your influence on this sport has been destroyed like the cancer it is.”

Hearing this speech reminded how many other women in and out of the gymnastics world would also have suffered and been able to relate and understand this pain.

Sarah Voss took to the European championships this spring with a new attitude. Sexualization of gymnasts –  who are young, vulnerable, and sometimes scared of their coaches –  has been a big contributor to the sexual abuse. Wearing a leotard that makes you feel exposed and uncomfortable does little to empower a girl facing abusive interest. Up until now, gymnasts would only wear full body suits for religious reasons. Voss said, “we hope gymnasts uncomfortable in the usual outfits will feel emboldened to follow our example”.

Gymnastics is an innately human and magical sport; it takes you to the outer reaches of physical capabilities across all the categories of physical exertion. And it is easy to forget when you see the gymnasts somersaulting backwards on 4 inches of wood or hurtling between 2 bars head-first and backwards how completely and utterly terrifying it is. The first time I cast up to handstand on a wood bar alone was easily the scariest physical experience of my life thus far. But for those young athletes who did this in fear of an aggressive coach, and worse the threat of sexual violence, it is simply a case of being utterly unacceptable.

As the gymnastics world reckons with changing the harmful culture developed over so many years, we cannot lose sight of the impact the aesthetics of the sport have on the young women within it. Our message moving forward has to be clear: all bodies are beautiful and have the power to do incredible things.