Braids, beads, catsuits and tutus

A Perfect Storm: Black Feminism and Women’s National Basketball Association Black Athlete Activism

“…Long before the world was introduced to the Williams sisters in tennis (Venus and Serena), the Peters sisters laid the groundwork and secured their positions as shoulders for the Williams sisters to stand on. Thankfully the Williams sisters have received far more attention (see Allen, 2021;Ridley, 2023) and credit for their contributions to the unearthing of conversations of Black womanhood, Black motherhood, and Black sexuality (see Martin, 2018), though they have also been largely missing from conversations of athlete activismeven given their competition in one of the most historically-White, patriarchal sports in history (Whiteside, 2022).…”

Clothes and caps: An exploration of the thing-power of objects and activism at the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games

“…Other scholars have focused more specifically on uniforms and clothing used indirectly as part of an activist agenda, such as in Allen's (2021) analysis of Serena Williams. In her research, Allen (2021) explores Williams' use of fashion to resist and challenge the various levels of oppression and discrimination Williams experiences as a black woman in tennis. In particular, Allen (2021) discusses how Williams uses her hair and clothing (beads and braids in her hair, black catsuit, tulle skirt) to unapologetically promote her Black womanhood in a way that challenges, resists, and defies the historically white, masculine, upper-class cultural norms of tennis.…”

“…This next section builds upon athlete protest at the Olympics to look toward scholarship that has been interested in the use of objects within athlete protest in sporting spaces. Much of the research focusing on the use of objects in sporting protest has focused on the role of uniforms and clothing (Allen, 2021; Bagley and Liao, 2021; Coombs and Cassilo, 2017; Fuller, 2021). Within this body of literature, many scholars have been interested in the explicit and intentional use of clothing for political gain.…”

“…Thus, uniforms have become a “battlefield of symbolic and material power relations”(Bagley and Liao, 2021: 71). Other scholars have focused more specifically on uniforms and clothing used indirectly as part of an activist agenda, such as in Allen's (2021) analysis of Serena Williams. In her research, Allen (2021) explores Williams’ use of fashion to resist and challenge the various levels of oppression and discrimination Williams experiences as a black woman in tennis.…”