As the Summer Olympics draw near, all sorts of messages about women are surfacing.

Some messages pertain to female participation.  In March, we cited an article that noted this year might be the first time each country sends female athletes to participate in the Summer Olympics.  However, a recent New York Times article explained that Saudi Arabian women may not be allowed to participate after all.

Other messages are about what women will wear or how they will behave rather than if or how they will perform.  For example, officials of the International Amateur Boxing Association suggested that women try wearing skirts in competition.

The man in charge of the association—they are always men—said he had received complaints that spectators could not tell women from men beneath the protective headgear. Instead of referring these spectators to optometrists, he referred the boxers to the Ring Magazine spring collection.

Skirts will be optional, not mandatory, as women’s boxing makes its debut in London, though.

“It’s an interesting time for women,” said Janice Forsyth, director of the International Centre for Olympic Studies at the University of Western Ontario. “The more they become involved in sport, the more it seems people feel the need to market female sexuality. It’s a tough bind for women—they have to look good and be attractive to the public, presumably a heterosexual male public, and be good athletes. That same standard doesn’t necessarily apply to men.”

Women’s athletic gear is being reconsidered on other fronts as well.  The International Volleyball Federation will permit more conservative outfits for beach volleyball, including shorts and sleeved tops, due to cultural and religious sensitivities.  FIFA (soccer’s governing body) is also reconsidering its ban on the hijab.

However, it remains to be seen whether Saudi Arabia will also reconsider the messages it’s sending by continuing to disallow women participants, something some defend by claiming that sports lead to immoral behavior and that virgin girls are too affected by jumping required by sports.

“That women in vigorous activities will upset their wombs, reproductive activity and menstrual cycle—it’s amazing they can put forth these arguments and be accepted with the science we have,” said Forsyth, the Olympic scholar. “My students laughed at that. They were shocked. That’s something we saw a hundred years ago.”