Swimwear and its Sex Roles

There are some key reasons why the bikini has been and will continue to be popular—minimizing tan lines, for example, or keeping cool in the blistering sun. But really, the added bonus is that bikinis are like Halloween costumes; both give young women a chance to wear modified forms of lingerie in public.

The origin of the bikini, however, is distant in many ways from its modern-day counterpart. Marilyn Morgan, a manuscript cataloger at the Radcliffe Institute’s Schlesinger Library, explores the complicated past of the bikini and its ties to gender roles and competitive women swimmers in her upcoming book “Beauty at the Beach: Marathon Swimmers, The Media and Gender Roles in American Culture, 1900-1940.”

The book itself goes to the very beginning, when women were becoming involved in aquatic activity. “If you go through the papers of the late 19th century, there were so many deaths by drowning, and the three major learn-to-swim campaigns that came of out of that encouraged mothers to learn to swim to save the lives of their children,” said Morgan.

As the sport became more popular, women began competing against men in the 1920s in swims across the English Channel, which was considered the most challenging event at the time. This changed women’s swimwear from heavy wool skirts to slimmer one-pieces and ultimately to the bikini, as a compact suit helped minimize chafing during the grueling swims, which lasted 17 hours or more.

“It makes some sense that bikinis were made for athletes because it prevents drag, but I didn’t know that they were invented so long ago,” says Shyam S. Vichare ’12. At the time of their invention, women were such adept swimmers that the first woman to swim across the English Channel, Gertrude Ederle, shattered all previous records held by male swimmers. American women looked up to athletes like Ederle and wore bikinis to emulate these strong female role models.

Things have changed, says Jordon E. Osborn ’12, a former swimmer. “The bikini doesn’t really work for athletes anymore—it’ll fall off,” she says.

This two-piece suit continues to be a controversial symbol of female sexuality; it is still worn in competition, but the bikini is more likely to be seen on models in Sports Illustrated than on athletes in the Olympics.

Morgan hopes to illuminate the intricate journey women’s swimwear has taken. “The bikini can mean very different things to different generations,” she says. “I hope a knowledge of its beginnings can help readers better understand its contemporary cultural meanings.”