Book extract: Eimear Ryan examines the societal misogyny behind sports in Ireland

At a time when women’s sport is on the rise but still a long way from equality, Eimear Ryan’s book, The Grass Ceiling, is a sharp, nuanced and heartfelt exploration of questions that affect every girl — and boy — who sets out to participate in sport

Eimear Ryan: "It’s hard to either denigrate or objectify what little can be seen through the bars of a faceguard." Picture: Miki Barlok

I have never felt very good at being a woman, or rather, at performing femininity. As a child, I hated wearing dresses: it meant I couldn’t ride a bike or perform cartwheels. The buckle-up shoes my mother wanted me to wear to Mass hindered me from running and climbing. Later, in my teens, I found that my fine, flat hair resisted the step-by-step hairdos in the pages of J-17, and the homemade face masks of lemon juice and mashed banana did nothing for my acne. Earrings and necklaces were fine, but rings and bracelets impeded my hands.

I resented the 2000s midlands beauty standards that dictated I wear heels and fake tan to go to the nightclub in Nenagh. I couldn’t walk in heels, my feet battered and tender from hurling boots, from constantly running on hard ground. I hated the smell of fake tan, the faffing around with the mitt in the bathroom, my inability to apply it without streaking. In my twenties, I disliked the fact that in order to appear professional, I was expected to wear a full face of makeup and perfectly blow-dried hair. These morning routines cost me time and money, and because I wasn’t especially good at them, I only ever achieved presentability, never beauty. I could not believe this was my inheritance, my job as a young woman.

CUTTING OFF MANICURES

I nursed a suspicion that my sportiness was at the heart of my ambivalence towards femininity; that, if nothing else, female athletes simply did not have the time to worry about their appearance too much, did not have the patience for the rituals of womanhood. But that was a smug projection on my part. If I actually looked around the dressing room, I would see the manicures, the pedicures, the threaded brows, the French plaits, the fake tan. I find it fascinating that some women seem to groom specifically for sport. Makeup sweats off. Tan can be marred by mud, blood, and grass stains. I have a visceral memory of helping a teammate to cut off her manicure in the dressing room with a pair of kitchen scissors: elaborate nails are generally a hindrance when you’re trying to handle the ball.

I want to believe that sport is the one context of contemporary life in which the overwhelming pressure on women to present themselves attractively — to blend, to contour, to pluck, to bleach, to suck in, to touch up, to grin and bear it — is lifted, in favour of the more primal visibility of simply being a body at play. Camogie has the potential to be especially freeing in this way, since your face and hair — the two primary signifiers of the feminine beauty ideal — are obscured by a helmet. 

It’s hard to either denigrate or objectify what little can be seen through the bars of a faceguard. But the idea that the kinetic poetry of a female body excelling in sport would somehow circumvent misogyny doesn’t, unfortunately, hold up to scrutiny. The physical genius of Serena Williams, Caster Semenya, Marion Bartoli and other top female athletes hasn’t prevented their looks from being scrutinized and disparaged.

Eimear Ryan: "Just as the playing pitch and the swimming pool are now the only places I don’t bring my smartphone, they’re also the only contexts where worrying about my appearance is futile." Picture: Miki Barlok

THE MALE GAZE

For it to be worth men’s while to watch women’s sports, the implication seems to be, the players can’t just be talented at their chosen sport — they need to look good doing it. Appearance, not performance, is often the driving force behind the design of women’s athletic gear. Holly Bradshaw, the British pole vaulter and Olympic bronze medallist, wrestled with this unfortunate fact when she arrived in Tokyo in July 2021 for the Olympic Games. Normally for competitions, she wore an all-in-one suit with knee-length shorts, but the standard-issue Team GB gear she was given consisted of briefs and crop tops. 

‘In my head, I was panicking,’ she told The Telegraph. ‘I didn’t want to go to the most important competition of my life and not feel comfortable because I was worried about what I would be wearing.’ The sexist double standard struck her, too. Male pole vaulters wear Lycra shorts and tank tops: sleek enough to get them cleanly over the bar, but with coverage, too. Why weren’t they expected to flash their stomachs and thighs, like their female counterparts? 

Early in her career, Bradshaw had been subject to social media abuse: strangers criticizing her body and calling her out of shape, even as she represented her country at elite level. She felt that the bikini-style Olympics uniform invited this sort of scrutiny and criticism. Bradshaw voiced her concerns, and Team GB compromised, allowing her to compete in a rowing uniform that was more along the lines of what she usually wore. 

But Bradshaw was a twenty-nine-year-old at her third Olympics: she felt confident, established, and secure enough to question the higher-ups. Would a young athlete, just coming into the sport, feel as capable of pushing back? Or would she just put up with it, telling herself that this is just the way things are?

SIGNIFIERS OF FEMALENESS

In camogie — but not, interestingly, in ladies’ football — skorts, rather than shorts, are compulsory for all matches. They are not uncomfortable; nor do they impede performance. But rather than an accommodation to the female body — like dark shorts — the skort is merely a signifier of femaleness, a message to the observer rather than an adaptation to the player. As Dublin camogie player Eve O’Brien told the42.ie in 2018: ‘We wear skorts just because we’re women — it’s feminine and we should be ladies and wear skorts. It’s a small thing but it’s very symbolic of the organisation that is quite traditional.’ 

Like the ‘ladies’ in ladies’ football, the skort feels like nothing more than an attempt to keep us in our box.

Girls who play sport are pressurized to course-correct, to demonstrate that despite the unfortunate competitive streak that leads them to pursue sport, they’re still feminine girly girls behind it all. So lather on the fake tan. Invest in a no-sweat foundation, the best you can afford. Put on tight-fitting yet effortless athleisure wear. Be strong, not skinny (but if skinny is a natural consequence of strong, what harm?).  Be brilliant, but modest to a fault. 

All of this takes up mental space and energy that male athletes simply don’t have to bother with. Just as the playing pitch and the swimming pool are now the only places I don’t bring my smartphone, they’re also the only contexts where worrying about my appearance is futile, even counterproductive. When I play sport, my skin gets red and puffy. My hair gets lank and sweaty. My arms and legs become port-wine-stained with bruises. I have had to train myself not to care.

The Grass Ceiling by Eimear Ryan is published on May 4 by Sandycove, €18

This article was first published on April 29, 2023