Thursday/ Friday. We will be reading and discussing the following text in class.
1. Once we have reviewed the text, please highlight, copy and paste the 11 questions onto a google document.
2.Highlight the correct response. Take your time; this is numerically graded. (Don't hesitate to go back to the original text)
THEN:
3. Look over the vocabulary words and
for Honors classes: Select six of the vocabulary words and write a pithy sentence that clearly encapulates the meaning of the word.
Sample: Getting tickets to the Roland Garros, also known as the Friench Open, is both a difficult and an expensive venture for this prestigious tennis competition.
for Regents classes: Select four of the vocabulary words and write a pithy sentence that clearly encapsulates the meaning of the word.
Share your completed google document:
SERENA WILLIAMS’ CATSUIT CONTROVERSY EVOKES THE BATTLE OVER WOMEN WEARING SHORTS
Vocabulary: please take the time to familiarize yourself with these words prior to reading the text.
1. * controversy-noun disagreement, typically when prolonged, public, and heated
2. * French Open- major tennis tounament held in Paris.
3. *scrutiny (noun) : critical observation or examination
4. * bifurcated (adjective): folded in two (note that the prefix bi means 2) (You also saw this word in the description of the bifurcated bloomers from Tuesday.)
5. * to rankle (verb) : to cause persistent annoyance or resentment
6. * aesthetics (noun): relating to the beautiful
7. *the old guard: the original or long-standing members of a group who are reluctant to accept change
8. *satorial: (adjective) relating to clothing or dress
In this informational text, Deirdre Clemente discusses the controversy* surrounding what Serena Williams, a famous tennis player, decided to wear to the 2018 French Open*. Clemente uses this example to explore the attention that female athletes’ outfits have received historically.
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At the French Open, Serena Williams wore a custom-made black catsuit. On Aug. 24, the president of the French Tennis Federation said the outfit “wouldn’t be back.” It “went too far,” he continued. It didn’t “respect the game and the place.”
Among Williams’ defenders, the pushback was swift — the decision indicative of how female athletes face more scrutiny and are held to outdated dress standards.
[3]As a historian of the American fashion industry, I’m not surprised when an outfit worn by a female athlete generates outrage. I thought of Suzanne Lenglen, the French tennis star of the late 1910s who shocked onlookers with her knee-length tennis dress. Coincidentally, Stade Roland Garros, the stadium where Serena wore her suit during the French Open, has a court named after Lenglen.
This is simply the most recent chapter of a centurylong debate over the place of informality and immodesty in our dress: how short can that skirt be? Should the first lady be able to don a tank top? What about wearing sneakers to prom?
[5]Sportswear, which can be both informal and immodest, has served as a flashpoint in these debates — particularly for women.
In 1936, a sportswriter named Paul Gallico argued that female athletes and their clothing were offensive.
Women who play sports, he wrote, “stick out places when they play, wear funny clothes, get out of breath or perspire.” He didn’t like that because “it’s a lady’s business to look beautiful, and there are hardly any sports in which she seems able to do it.”
Nothing, it seemed, upset people more than women in shorts. Starting in the late 1920s, shorts became the much-contested replacement for bloomers, the puffy-legged, bifurcated garment worn under long skirts. Women who did wear athletic garb were supposed to keep out of the public eye because it was deemed unfeminine and, yes, immodest.
Female tennis players were on the frontlines of the battle for public acceptance of shorts. Even though tennis industry officials and country club muckety mucks wrote dress codes that outlawed shorts, many women refused to adhere to the rules and continued showing up to play wearing them.
[10]Some were thrown off the courts. But it’s hard to enforce dress codes when everybody’s doing it. Not surprisingly, this really rankled* the old guard.*
“If you gals really knew how cute you look in a well-cut dress, you wouldn’t hanker to wear shorts,” one etiquette writer grumbled in the 1936 book, “Co-Ediquette: Poise and Popularity for Every Girl.” “Of course, you’ve got to be comfortable, ah, me! Even if you have to insult the aesthetic* sense of men to do it?”
Most women shrugged — and kept on wearing shorts, on and off the court.
In time, shorts as hiking wear, shorts as gardening garb and shorts as loungewear became increasingly common. It seems the old guard had been worn down — or simply died off.
[15]By the end of the 1930s, younger women were acknowledging a shift in attitudes. “American women live 24 hours a day in sports clothes,” one college student told the Boston Post. “Husbands no longer come home and deliver stern lectures upon finding their wives cooking supper in shorts. It’s just taken for granted.”
While some husbands may have skipped the stern lectures, it took three more decades for shorts to fully reach widespread acceptance.
But in tennis, notions of immodesty and informality die hard. When female tennis players such as Billie Jean King wore very short, gored skirts and sleeveless polo shirts in the 1970s, they were criticized for their “radical” outfits. Time and again, the powers-that-be in tennis push back on immodesty, and the players push forward towards personal choice and — dare we say — personal style.
So, we’ve seen this all before. New stuff — never-seen-before stuff — has long spelled trouble for female athletes and sparked public outcry.
[19]Today, the satorial* standards of what you can and can’t wear in certain settings have changed so radically that institutions can’t keep up. You almost feel sorry for the French official who announced the ban on the catsuit. In the big picture, he won’t do anything to stop the crawl of social change.
[20]And how did Serena Williams respond to being chastised for wearing her black catsuit?
She simply showed up a few days later to win U.S. Open matches wearing a tulle tutu.
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Below you will find a series of 5 guiding questions, followed by six assessment questions.
Copy and paste only the following questions, selecting the best response for each. Share: Make sure to use your full name and class period.
I have modelled the first one for you. Please place your response as follows:
Guiding Questions Q1: A
Q2: ___
How did the public respond too the women's athletic clothing in the past?
A. They found it too reveealing and inappropriate
B. They thought it unflattering to women
C. They didn't think it was needed for women to compete
D. They found the clothing to be too distracting to the audience.
Q3
How did women respond to the criticism of wearing shorts while playing tennis?
A. They constructed shorter shorts to further upset the public.
B. They lengthen their shorts slightly to appease an angry public.
C. They continued to wear shorts and ignore people's commentary.
D. They returned to wearing skirts and dresses so that they could compete in sports.
Q4
How does the author describe the shifting views about shorts?
A. Shorts continued to be a source of conflict for Americans today.
B. Shorts became accepted in athletic settings but no where
else.
C. Shorts became an important part of high fashion over the years.
D. Shorts became more accepted to Americans over the decades.
Q5
The recent outcry over Serena Williams' tennis outfit will...
A. force female athletes to dress more conservatively in the future.
B. do little to slow the progression of fashion in female
athletics
C. encourage other athletes to challenge the dress code with catsuits.
D. discourage athletes from trying new styles in sports
Assessment questions:
Q1:
Q 6
