Martina Navratilova Criticizes 'Regressive' Lingerie Campaign Featuring Rugby Players

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Martina Navratilova, the legendary tennis champion with 18 major singles titles, has voiced strong opposition to a controversial new campaign by lingerie company Bluebella. The campaign, which features members of Team GB's Olympic rugby sevens squad posing in lingerie, aims to convey that women can be both muscular and feminine. However, it has sparked significant backlash from prominent figures in women's sports, including Navratilova.

 

 

Bluebella’s #StrongIsBeautiful campaign features Ellie Boatman, Jasmine Joyce, and Celia Quansah, though Quansah did not make the final cut for the Paris Olympics. The company’s intention was to challenge stereotypes and show that strong female athletes can also embrace their femininity. Despite these intentions, the campaign has been widely criticized as regressive and sexist.

 

 

Navratilova expressed her dismay, stating, "The campaign feels really regressive and sexist to me." Her sentiments were echoed by Sharron Davies, a former swimmer, and Mara Yamauchi, a former British distance runner. Davies took to social media platform X to express her outrage, calling the campaign "an utterly shameful campaign" and questioning the decision to feature professional female athletes in what she described as "porn underwear." She criticized the campaign for perpetuating stereotypes and not addressing the real issues faced by young girls in sports.

 

 

Yamauchi also criticized the campaign, labeling it "exploitative, demeaning, sexist, regressive rubbish." She argued that the primary audience for such a campaign is men, and portraying women as sex objects does nothing to encourage teenage girls to participate in sports.

 

 

The criticism comes in the context of concerning statistics from Women In Sport, which reveal that 64 percent of secondary schoolgirls drop out of sports due to insecurities about their bodies during puberty. Critics like Davies and Yamauchi argue that campaigns like this do not help to tackle these issues and may even exacerbate them.

 

The #StrongIsBeautiful campaign has been running for the past eight years and has previously included female athletes for the Rio and Tokyo Olympics. Despite its longevity, this latest iteration has clearly struck a nerve.

Ellie Boatman, one of the athletes featured in the campaign, spoke about her experiences in an article for the Evening Standard. She recounted instances where boys were encouraged to target her on the field because she was perceived as the weak link simply because she was a girl. Boatman also highlighted the disparity in treatment and resources between boys’ and girls’ sports, noting that she often had to wear boys' kits that did not fit her properly.

 

While Bluebella’s campaign intended to send a positive message about strength and femininity, the backlash from respected figures in women’s sports indicates a need for a more nuanced approach to addressing body image and participation in sports among young girls. The debate sparked by this campaign underscores the ongoing struggle to balance empowering messages with sensitivity to the issues faced by female athletes.

 

Credit: Daily Telegraph 2024-07-04

 

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[loong]

There is nothing wrong with their bodies, but that type of lingerie is not flattering.

[JonnyF]

The blonde one isn't too bad. The other two look like transwomen and before I read the article I thought that's what Navratilova was complaining about (not using real women for the ad campaign).

 

They do manage to make the underwear look terrible though. At least they didn't use Megan Rapinoe, that would have left mental scars. 

 

 

[Luuk Chaai]

 3 brutes ...   the deserves a complaint

[Gandtee]

2 hours ago, loong said:

There is nothing wrong with their bodies, but that type of lingerie is not flattering.

It looks like corrective muscle damage wear. Ugly!

[Purdey]

It's women's lingerie. Women buy that stuff. They used models they thought would attract the type of women in their target group. Probably won't work. Thank goodness Martina wasn't chosen.