Already
in the inter-war period the American girls sport teams became
world-wide known because their short shorts. No, theirs shorts
pulling sweat away from their bodies to keep the beautiful young
sportswomen cool and dry, were not so short as few decades later, and
in most cases till today. (Screenshot
from YouTube video: Vintage
All-American Girls Baseball Game, Lockport IL 2015)
To
see young women or teenage girls in short volleyball, basketball or
baseball shorts during a tournament was not world-wide accepted at
that time. For example ...
In
Japan, on request of the local International Woman's Friendship
league a new police decree was issued
This
decree prohibited girls' team from United States to wear such
sports clothing as they used at home. The women sport team from
California (girls' softball team from Hollywood) was obliged to wear
three inches longer shorts during its exhibition series among the
sons of the Rising Sun.
There
was perfectly reasonable explanation behind that. According
to organized Japanese women (their society was, besides. very popular
and distinguished for the cause of womens’
emancipation): “Hands across the sea are one thing, but this is
quite an other,” (SHORTS
ARE TOO SHORT — JAPS,
“Evening Independent”, St-Petersburg, Florida, Oct. 6, 1939, p.
9) Or was it a prejudice or a part of Japanese-Anglo-Saxon tensions
of that time? Rather not, because:
The
issue of short shorts in girls or women's sport teams turns out to be
complicated also nowadays
Unfortunately
(I’m writing from a man's point of view), for college basketball
players, long shorts might finally be taking a seat. And fortunately,
not everywhere.
By
the way, you can see how the composition of the population in the US
has changed. At present time, in many high schools the majority of
basketball or handball players are no longer white girls.
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