The small town high school leading a bra-volution
This story of the bra that changed lives made me cry.
Well, what a story. Coming to you direct from Gilgandra, a dusty little town on the great western plains of New South Wales. Population, several thousand. It’s the story of the district’s teenage girls from the local high school who weren’t playing sport in any great numbers. The story of a woman who noticed, and decided to do something. The story of a bra-fitter – such an old-fashioned job description, involving such an old-fashioned (but necessary) skill. And it’s the story of the bra that changed lives.
Because teen girls dropping out of sport is very much a thing. It comes at that delicate time when female bodies change and the world around them notices; mortifyingly so, for many. Those awkward years are a collision of so many things: self-consciousness and embarrassment coupled with a sudden awareness of the male gaze. And all at a time when playing sport can become uncomfortable and painful, if you’re wearing the wrong gear.
Which is so often the case. The history of women’s sporting apparel is a history of hostility to the female body, often involving clothing too restrictive, revealing, made for the male body shape or just plain uncomfortable. It’s a history of clothes designed to hinder the female, or to ogle (I direct you to the female beach volleyball costumes in the Paris Olympics if you’re in doubt; male players wear shorts.)
A few years back Netball NSW recognised the roar of female self-consciousness and introduced T-shirts, long-sleeve tops and shorts as alternatives to that body-skimming netball dress with the skimpy little skirt; options more forgiving and inclusive. Because there might be cultural reasons that cause girls to blanch at the traditional uniform – or, frankly, mortification reasons.
So back to Gilgandra, and the lack of girls playing sport. Step forward Gilgandra High School’s acting deputy principal, Ilana Austen, who got talking to the girls who weren’t participating. She heard tales of feeling uncomfortable, of pain and self-consciousness. “We wanted to do something to support more engagement from female students,” Austen told ABC Radio. Sports Medicine Australia says that 88 per cent of female teens wear a bra during sport that doesn’t properly fit – and that’s a big problem. It affects so much.
So Austen procured the expertise of a bra fitter, Philippa Mitchell, whose business The Fitting Studio helps all manner of women as their bodies change. Common problems, according to Mitchell? We buy bras according to dress size when we should be getting them two sizes up. The bra shouldn’t ride up the back, be too tight or too loose. It’s tricky without help. And so some leftover money was found at Gilgandra High, somehow, and every girl was offered two free sports bras that were expertly fitted, the old-fashioned way. And now I cry.
At the sheer obviousness of the solution. The generosity of the school. The can-do kindness. Each bra wasn’t cheap, between $75 and $100. “Money for many families is really tight at the moment, so an expensive bra isn’t really high on the agenda,” Mitchell explained. “[But] the first girl who was fitted, she had a larger bust and I put her into a really lovely sports bra … I hooked it up and she went, ‘My God, it’s amazing’.”
The girls received their bras just before the school’s athletics carnival. The result: a 20 per cent lift in female participation. “They’re talking about being more comfortable, having less back pain,” Austen concluded. “All those little things they weren’t aware of before, but now they can see that with the right bra, they’re actually all OK.” Other schools are now interested; it’s an embryonic bra-volution and it’s glorious. If I had the money I’d be offering the initiative to every high school in Australia.
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