Wimbledon protest to be held over players having to wear white while on their periods

‘If you are feeling worried about your period, you won’t be the best sportsperson you can be,’ periods rights campaigner says

Wimbledon was initially launched only for men, with women only allowed to compete seven years later

(Reuters)

Protesters are due to hold a protest outside the Wimbledon ladies singles final over the tennis tournament’s long-standing dress code which forces players to wear white on their periods.

Female tennis players have recently been calling for the strict all-white dress code which dates back to 1877 to be overhauled - explaining some players choose to skip their periods due to anxiety around leaking onto their clothes while competing.

Wimbledon was initially launched only for men, with women only allowed to compete seven years later.

Demonstrators will gather for a small protest organised by activists outside the main gates at the All England Club on Saturday, The Telegraph reports.

“These archaic rules were written years ago by men and they have gotten stricter and stricter over the years,” Gabriella Holmes, one of the co-founders of a campaign launched this week urging Wimbledon to ‘Address The Dress Code’, told the paper.

“It’s about time they were rewritten with menstruation in mind. We're not asking for drastic changes. Maybe the Wimbledon board can sit down and make a couple of amendments that consider the fact that women are competing on their period and it's adding to their pressure when they're performing at this level.”

It is only feasible to skip a period if you take the contraceptive pill, which can trigger side effects such as mood swings, depression, suicidal thoughts, thrombosis, headaches, nausea, and breast tenderness.

Laura Coryton, who started the Stop Taxing Periods campaign in 2014, in a bid to abolish the Tampon Tax in the UK as well as make period items spared from VAT, told The Independent “presumably” periods were not thought about when Wimbledon’s dress code was initially thought up.

The 27-year-old, who lives in London, added: “Stigma around periods is part of the reason why wearing all white was never seen as problematic.

“The dress code doesn’t help players’ athletic abilities. If you are feeling worried about your period, you won’t be the best sportsperson you can be.”

But Ms Coryton said the fact there is now public discussion around the incompatibility of periods and the all-white dress code is a positive sign.

“It is about taking female experience into account and that is what we have not done,” she added. “It is an example of how the world has been designed by men - with women’s experiences overlooked.”

It comes after Heather Watson, a British tennis player who was previously British No. 1, spoke out about the detrimental repercussions that her “girl things” had on her performance in the Australian Open back in 2015.

While Watson recently told the BBC: “I’ll probably go on the pill just to skip my period for Wimbledon. That’s the thought process and conversations that girls have about it.”

Monica Puig, a Puerto Rican tennis player who was the first in the nation’s history to win gold at the Olympics, recently tweeted “the mental stress of having to wear all white at Wimbledon and praying not to have your period during those two weeks”.

Daria Saville, an Australian tennis player known by the nickname of “Dasher”, previously said she had to “skip her period around Wimbledon” as a result of the pressure of having to abide by the dress code.