Ruqaya al-Ghasara

For anyone who liked the part of the book Female Chauvinist Pigs where Ariel Levy complained that it was sad that our culture values women's athletic feats so little that female Olympians feel pressure to get naked (or so close that every contour of their private parts are showing under what little clothing they're wearing) to get public admiration whereas male Olympians don't seem to feel the pressure to show their penises to get public admiration...

...check out video footage of Ruqaya al-Ghasara winning gold in the 200-meter dash in the Asian Games this year.

I love how the uninterrupted fabric makes her look all the faster.

(Actually, I saw the same phenomenon for several years when female lindy hopping swing dancers wore baggy pants because the lines made their dancing look more refined, even if it didn't make them look "prettier." They gave up general-public admiration for a few hours several nights every week and staked their egos on admiration of their coordination. Nevertheless, I'm rambling. This is an Olympic-bound runner, not a semiprofessional or amateur dancer.)

Maybe if other people come to love what I see in that swish of the red legs--maybe if other people are forced to get used to admiring her athletic prowess alone because she's good enough to get on TV yet will never take those clothes off in the public view--within 10 years they'll start admiring Western female athletes in their ordinary sports clothes and write letters to the editors craving for pictures of them posing in muscle-featuring and only muscle-featuring poses in ESPN Magazine as often as--or more than--they currently write letters to the editors craving for "sexy" pictures of female athletes. Or they'll cry for "serious" athlete pictures of post-hard-work shots, desperate to see more like this photo--and by the way, I want to send COOKIES to whatever editors of various news services decided to disseminate this one instead of one of the "prettier" or "more exotic" (praying facing Mecca) photos of her race that's widely available.

By the way, can anyone find better footage of the entire race for me? Thanks!