For many netball players, the dress is considered to be their ‘favorite outfit.’ The female uniforms of the sport have been a problem for certain players while annoying others.
It’s feminine, thigh-grazing, and difficult to forgive and is viewed by a lot of people as resembling an extreme version that is heteronormative of female femininity found in Australia.
However, despite my fiercely feminist beliefs – or perhaps even more paradoxically, because netball has helped to build those values – I’ve loved every netball outfit I’ve ever worn. Throughout my life in a sport created by women for women, there’s been many.
In contrast to feeling insecure, regardless of whether I’ve been tall or smaller, not-so-fit or fit, the dress has been a constant source of feeling confident and worthy, that I was valued and was equally a part of a group in a sport where each player plays a crucial role.
As a straight white middle-Australian, my experience isn’t the norm. However, the netball outfit has served as a piece of armor for me. Sometimes, it’s protected me from brutal self-criticism.
It was a form of armor for the overweight grade-three child who was arriving in town and the 182cm teen she became in a matter of minutes. The same is true in the present, even at 43. I continue to compete, and I have my entire professional life around the sport and the players who participate in it.
The romance started by wearing a pleated skirt and a simple T-shirt at primary school. I was participating in “netty netball” on finger-chilling Saturday mornings in Corryong in northeast Victoria prior to when my mother played tennis during lunchtime. It was among the few occasions I was able to see my mom as a “whole human,” not just a caretaker.
The all-in-one, borrowed Lycra dress I wore during competitions for representative teams at Melbourne’s swaying Royal Park courts sticks in my memory because the girl wearing that dress was taught that her determination with her loud voice, her decision, and her determination merited praise, but not in the negative. This lesson helped me define my values and who I’d become.
It is a fact that netball attire is a no-no for certain females and girls, as well as annoys many. When playing any sport, there is no need to be looking for someone pulling the dress off.
Although I am looking at the prospect of putting an outfit on, I am also aware of how crucial having more diverse uniform choices is for those who aren’t like me. Today, “pick’n’mix” uniforms are gradually being used in professional leagues across the country following the sport’s body that regulates it. Netball Australia officially approved the uniforms in the latter part of 2022.
Instead of a dress, players can now wear singlets, shorts or pants, and a short- or long-sleeved shirt. The use of head coverings is also permitted.
The revised rules saw a number of Super Netball athletes choose alternative attire for preseason competitions prior to the 2023 season, but it didn’t transfer to the actual season.
Another long overdue improvement is the inclusion of First Nations artwork in the uniform of the national team that is known as the Australian Diamonds.
The costumes will be used for the Netball World Cup – which starts in Cape Town on July 28 and will run until August 6. The dresses feature artwork by Yorta Yorta female Alkina Edwards. The title is “Ganurra,” meaning blaze in Yorta Yorta; the painting depicts the Diamonds by describing them as “fierce, like a large ball of fire.”It’s a small way to acknowledge the contribution of First Nations players to the game, but they still have to overcome numerous obstacles.
Bess Schnioffsky, a Ph.D. student at RMIT whose thesis examines Australian netball using an intersectional feminist perspective, told me that “quite a few” of the 25 Victorian netballers she talked to expressed my admiration for the outfit.
“They told me they were staunchly for the dress, that they loved being able to see elite netballers put on a dress and be feminine and sporty … that they could be both of those things,” she declares. They appreciated “that as players, they don’t have to compromise their femininity to be seen as or to be athletic.”
This is in line with my former and current teammates who say that the dress is the “favourite outfit ever” and the “most special part of playing netball.” It makes players feel “powerful and part of something bigger than myself,” regardless of age, weight, or physical fitness.
However, Schnioffsky’s study – which combines her dedication to coaching and playing alongside a love of the cause of social justice revealed numerous players who believe the dress is a reminder that netballers require “lean, toned, athletic bodies,” which is linked to larger issues that are systemic.
“I essentially found that the dominant whiteness and femininity are an exclusionary part of Australian netball and that if netball doesn’t start to think critically about these questions of inclusion, then it’s under threat,” she says.
Although it has seen a stylistic evolution through the years, beginning with the woolen dress, the tight, all-in-one-bodysuit or chic A-line style netball dresses have “never really threatened expectations of femininity.”
“The changes we have seen have all been aligned with expectations of femininity and how they’ve shifted.”
While Schnioffsky is in favor of greater diversity and Indigenous recognition in the highest levels of the sport, The way in which these changes reach the grassroots level can be the most important test.
In our little league, which spans from northern Victoria to Southern New South Wales, where I am proudly the captain of Macorna Football/Netball’s A grade team, we’ve worn Pride as well as First Nations dresses. Maybe in the near future, my teammates will be mixing the way out of dress codes altogether.
Whatever we wear, I’ll be there in the goal shooting arena, slaying goal shooters and feeling strong as well as an integral part of the group.